Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
The prolific Paul Finch mixes the two genres he’s most renowned for, Horror and Crime Fiction to produce this highly unsettling thriller. If you’ve not read this author before – a warning for the curious. The Lodge is as dark as the atmosphere that pervades this narrative.
After the short prologue, the scene is set.
Six thrill seekers, Darius Brant, Martha Lloyd, Jordan Pugmire, Roy Southerby, Freya Swanson and Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Gray are collected from Manchester Piccadilly station by minibus for ‘The Murder Tour’. This gruesome excursion is the brainchild of former University Students Nick Thornwood and Liz O’ Hara who together with their friend Clara Kershaw escort small groups to visit haunted and accursed places in the North West of England. It’s ‘shock tourism’ by another name, and not for the faint of heart.
The group first view The Night Monster’s Lair – a concrete underground tomb in what Thornwood terms ‘Satan’s Meadow’, where serial killer Travis Monkton tortured and murdered his victims. Though now incarcerated [for life] at the High Security Gull Rock Prison, the shadow of his Torture Garden still chills the six horror tourists.
They are then welcomed to Michael Caruso’s cottage to view the artwork on display by the eponymous [and rehabilitated] madman. Yet another stopping point
The group are then escorted to Black Tarn Lodge, to view old horror movies in the ambience of fine food and wine over the ‘Long Dark Weekend’, but matters do not pan out as planned.
Akin to the Impossible Crimes or Locked Room mysteries of Dame Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr; Black Tarn Lodge starts to drip with blood.
When I got to the end of this feverish read, I was reminded of Philip Fracassi’s last novel The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre. Finch shares the engaging writing style of Fracassi as they cheerfully lead the reader through a tense and isolated locale as they witness the assembled characters getting murdered one-by-one, and as they do the paranoia ratchets up the tension until it becomes unbearable.
Highly recommended for readers of Crime Fiction who enjoy the proceedings striated with thought-provoking Horror.
