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Post by andydecker on Sept 18, 2024 9:08:43 GMT
Shaun Hutson – Last Rites (Orbit, 2009, hc, 341 pages)
 Cover: Romain Bayle It is 2009, and Shaun Hutson – now 51 years old - is still at work to deliver a new novel each year which will later get the paperback treatment. This is again a occult story instead as one his thrillers. The protagonist Peter Mason is a teacher in London. After the death of his little daughter his marriage fell apart because he couldn't cope with it. Now he has been beaten nearly to death by some pupils and seeks a new start in the country at some posh private school. But in the town of Walston there is a flood of unexplainable teenage suicides and animal mutilations. Peter stumbles upon a mystery about the school and its past. This one begins fast and violent, with a lot of vignettes of sex and death, before the protagonist finally reaches his new place after nearly half the novel. Once upon a time in the 70s and 80s Orbit commissioned wonderful cover art for its books. This here is just embarrassing. |
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Post by ripper on Sept 24, 2024 13:30:16 GMT
Shaun Hutson – Last Rites (Orbit, 2009, hc, 341 pages)
Cover: Romain Bayle It is 2009, and Shaun Hutson – now 51 years old - is still at work to deliver a new novel each year which will later get the paperback treatment. This is again a occult story instead as one his thrillers. The protagonist Peter Mason is a teacher in London. After the death of his little daughter his marriage fell apart because he couldn't cope with it. Now he has been beaten nearly to death by some pupils and seeks a new start in the country at some posh private school. But in the town of Walston there is a flood of unexplainable teenage suicides and animal mutilations. Peter stumbles upon a mystery about the school and its past. This one begins fast and violent, with a lot of vignettes of sex and death, before the protagonist finally reaches his new place after nearly half the novel. Once upon a time in the 70s and 80s Orbit commissioned wonderful cover art for its books. This here is just embarrassing. It sounds like the first half of the book follows the pattern of earlier Hutsons, Smiths and so many of the UK horror published in the 80s of introducing a character in a chapter, then having them bumped off in an appropriately nasty way, then repeating in the next, while taking the overall story forward. I used to follow Hutson and still like his earlier novels, but think he went off the boil somewhat. Would you recommend this one, Andy? |
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Post by andydecker on Sept 25, 2024 9:54:06 GMT
I used to follow Hutson and still like his earlier novels, but think he went off the boil somewhat. Would you recommend this one, Andy? No and yes, ripper. I read it again before posting as I just had a hazy recollection of it not working very well and I came to the same conclusion as years before. It is one of these novels where at the end a lot of seasoned readers will say WTF? I don't want to spoil it, but the story, in the form as it is presented, doesn't make sense at the end. It is like a jigsaw puzzle where the last parts don't fit. To be fair, it is suspenseful written, the usual bitter, damaged Hutson protagonists, short chapters with ominous cliffhangers, a few very explicit sex scenes, but not much of Hutson's trademark gore. There even is a whiff of Folk Horror with the mysterious School in the country and some evil entity or something in its cellars. There is a gang of rich and amoral teenagers who seem to blackmail most of the staff with dark secrets, sex and money, when not driving other teenagers from the village into suicide. These parts are nothing new, but very well written. You just want to strangle the little bastards  . There is a mystery with some burned at the stake evil monk in the past and some treasure. But the twist at the end just doesn't make sense, not even in the context of the story. The structure is not very well realized and the supernatural angle is under-developed and just didn't work for me at all. Somewhere in these parts is a competent if unoriginal story which just doesn't materialize. This could have been a so much better novel. Like you wrote, somewhere along the way he lost some spark. Or gave up. I marvel at Hutson's tenacity and luck, considering he survived so many publishing mergers in a short time, but I get the impression that at the time his heart wasn't longer in it. |
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Post by ripper on Sept 25, 2024 10:17:34 GMT
I used to follow Hutson and still like his earlier novels, but think he went off the boil somewhat. Would you recommend this one, Andy? No and yes, ripper. I read it again before posting as I just had a hazy recollection of it not working very well and I came to the same conclusion as years before. It is one of these novels where at the end a lot of seasoned readers will say WTF? I don't want to spoil it, but the story, in the form as it is presented, doesn't make sense at the end. It is like a jigsaw puzzle where the last parts don't fit. To be fair, it is suspenseful written, the usual bitter, damaged Hutson protagonists, short chapters with ominous cliffhangers, a few very explicit sex scenes, but not much of Hutson's trademark gore. There even is a whiff of Folk Horror with the mysterious School in the country and some evil entity or something in its cellars. There is a gang of rich and amoral teenagers who seem to blackmail most of the staff with dark secrets, sex and money, when not driving other teenagers from the village into suicide. These parts are nothing new, but very well written. You just want to strangle the little bastards . There is a mystery with some burned at the stake evil monk in the past and some treasure. But the twist at the end just doesn't make sense, not even in the context of the story. The structure is not very well realized and the supernatural angle is under-developed and just didn't work for me at all. Somewhere in these parts is a competent if unoriginal story which just doesn't materialize. This could have been a so much better novel. Like you wrote, somewhere along the way he lost some spark. Or gave up. I marvel at Hutson's tenacity and luck, considering he survived so many publishing mergers in a short time, but I get the impression that at the time his heart wasn't longer in it. Thanks, Andy. By the sound of it I will put this one on the back burner. The last Hutson I read was Testament, so very recent, mainly because I like the Sean Doyle character. By the end of the book I was glad it was all over. It's a shame to see a writer that you like somewhat lose his way, though as he keeps producing new novels then there must still be a market for them. He reminds me so much of James Herbert in that Herbert's earlier books were similarly gory with some graphic sex scenes, but gradually he mellowed and, for me, his books just didn't spark my interest. The last I read was Ash, and I actually gave up less than halfway through. |
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. There is a mystery with some burned at the stake evil monk in the past and some treasure.