Bloody Books return with their second title, a very different but equally memorable companion to Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat.

Bill Hussey‘s debut novel, Through A Glass Darkly is an unnerving joy to read, dark words that demand a rainy afternoon with no distraction. Hussey’s obviously been brought up on that wonderfully nutritious diet of Hammer films, M.R. James‘ quiet curatorial ghosts and Dennis Wheatley‘s Satanist tracts that have left a dark seed in so many thirty-and-forty-somethings. Hence the story moves subtly through a solidly thorough British horror heritage and drips an enthralling occult atmosphere as it forges its own distinct and horrifically contemporary path.

Detective Inspector Jack Trent cannot touch another human being for more than a few seconds. He sees the future in his dreams, and those that he touches see things too, things that live inside Trent. Things that took up residence, when in his childhood, an unbelievably traumatic experience opened a gateway to somewhere very, very dark, from whence something very, very dark, crawled through.

Trent is called in to investigate the disappearance of Simon Malahyde, the child of Crow Haven’s newest family, because of his success on a seemingly similar case, (a case he was able to solve due to his special talent). As the mutilated bodies of Crow Haven’s children are found, Trent must protect the one woman who he has been able to get close to, and her son, who appears to be the focus of the murderous activity.

Dr. Mendicant has returned and he has but seven days to finish the processes he’s been following across the years. Trent finds himself drawn into a desperate battle to understand and defeat his own literal demons, or possibly use them to his advantage. As the pieces of the puzzle come together and crows gather overhead, watching his every move, Trent uncovers a malignant strategy, a centuries old cycle of greed, desperation, ritual reincarnation and mutilation that must be broken if Crow Haven and its residents are to know peace.

Dr. Mendicant’s character draws from a lineage of sinister scholars in literature and film, mesmerized by the promise of forbidden knowledge and consequent other-worldly reward, knowledge only available in occult parchments and esoteric tomes limited to five copies of which only one remain, (Hussey’s read his Lovecraft too). Trent must learn from Father Brody, Crow Haven’s former priest, (a man who has had much of his faith taken away from him), about the history of Crow Haven and Mendicant’s previous activities. Trent must decipher the arcane text of The Transmigration of Souls, a document found in the Yeager Library, a Library where you can only stay for so long, without giving up something in return for the knowledge learnt, a Library that might not even be there all the time.

Paragraph of Resonance:

“The warning, then,” said the librarian. “Each visitor is given the amount of reading time I deem necessary for his needs. This hourglass represents your allotted time. If you are still in this room when the last grain of sand is spent, then here you will stay. You shall never leave, but endure through the ages, confined within these walls… You shall, of course, have all the books you want.”

A real strength is Hussey’s ability to depict the environment as a character. Man’s influence on the land, through his actions and deeds, the psycho geography of a place, has always fascinated me and to find it so convincingly present here is particularly appealing. The cursed and insular town of Crow Haven; its residents silently terrified, its clergy silently seething, questioning their own faith and that of their parishioners, both human and corvid, allows the murderous events to develop with an elegant ferocity as man, myth and (super)nature collide in an unavoidable and heartbreaking climax.

Through A Glass, Darkly is the print equivalent of that unsurpassed classic of British horror cinema, Night of the Demon, directed by Jacques Tourneur and released in 1957. (Interestingly, the film takes place over seven days, October 22^nd to October 28^th, whereas the events in Hussey’s Crow Haven play out over the seven days from Friday October 25^th until Thursday October 31^st; and Dr. Mendicant is in the same realm of occult nastiness as Dr. Julian Karswell). Based on M.R.James’ Casting the Runes short story, Night of the Demon represents, for this reviewer, an influential experience that discussed occult and supernatural topics objectively, as part of the storyline itself, elements often lost these days in action and gore. Through A Glass, Darkly, whilst not eschewing such modern plot devices as difficult descriptions of mutilation and murder, does not forget its debt to the more gentler atmospheres and is indeed ‘A Pleasing Terror’*, and therefore recommended without reservation

* A quotation from M.R. James – he said that his stories were intended to make one feel pleasantly frightened as one walked past a graveyard at night, or sat by the embers of a dying fire.

Note: An illuminating interview with Bill Hussey, wherein the author discusses his influences, the genesis of the book and its route to publication can be found at Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews.

Paragraph(s) of Resonance – those passages that particularly hit a nerve with me, and might with you, hopefully giving you a taste of what to expect.

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