Book Review

A Comedy Of Horror

I have been a fan of Caimh (pronounced Keeve) McDonnell’s books since I first stumbled across one about three years ago, so this one took me a little bit by surprise.
 
In a good way, I hasten to add.
 
His earlier works were comedy crime capers set in Dublin, with one of the main characters then relocating to New York, to establish a new ensemble of characters.

​‘The Stranger Times’ is a comedy Gothic horror caper, if you can imagine such a thing.
 
If you can’t imagine that, don’t worry, because Caimh McDonnell can.
 
The use of the definite article in the title isn’t a misprint on my part (or Caimh's), because The Stranger Times is a newspaper.

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Well, more of a communications channel for the sad, the bad and the mad really, as most of the stuff they publish is hardly “news” unless you are of the tin foil hat persuasion or you believe you are the reincarnation of Cleopatra.

That is until Hannah arrives on the scene. Not that she is the cause of the horror, far from it. But the horror  story starts when she arrives, coincidentally.

Up until now Caimh has set his books either in Dublin or New York (with an excursion to an unnamed American desert location for one title). For this book, however, he has relocated to Manchester. Perhaps that city had more of an air of Gothic Horror about it than Dublin or New York, or maybe Caimh had just visited the city. Who knows?
 
The story is set around two sets of mythical people, the “Founders” and the “Folk”. I can’t tell you any more than that without giving away too much of the plot. Let me just say that one of those two groups are the good guys and the other are the bad guys, with humanity stuck in the middle and paying the price.

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But, to cause confusion, you could be married to a member of the Founders or the Folk and not even know it.

Hannah is what might be called a ‘trophy wife’ who lived in the lap of luxury until she could put up with her husband’s infidelity no longer, at which point she set fire to his house (accidentally, according to her). Now in need of money to live on, Hannah has to get a job and lacking any discernible skill set, the only place that will take her on is The Stranger Times.

This introduces us to the lunatic Editor, Vincent Banecroft and the collection of misfits he has for staff. The only apparently sane person working for the newspaper (until Hannah’s arrival) is Grace, the office manager and even she has her quirks.

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Two unexplained deaths, one written off as a suicide, gives Banecroft the sniff of a story and his team then set out to track it down. The rest of the book tells us how they go about it and what happens to them when they get on the wrong side of the wrong person (or maybe entity is a better word).
 
As with all of Caimh’s books that I have read, this one is an entertaining, if undemanding, read. It moves along at a nice pace, the language is user friendly, the characters interesting  and the plot is believable, if you are the sort of person who is a fan of the horror genre in the first place.

This all makes the book ideal poolside fare if you are planning a holiday this year (You should be so lucky). In terms of the horror content, it isn’t going to keep you awake at night and in terms the comedy content it is probably best to call it amusing rather than rib tickling, which is why I have given it 4 stars rather than 5.
 
But, for a light summer’s read, I recommend “The Stranger Times” by Caimh McDonnell and if you would like to find out more about it, just click on the cover image at the top of the blog.

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​Spoiler alert, next week's blog is going to be a fiendishly difficult literary quiz.

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