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The Hallow Man by Paul Devine.
As you will have seen if you follow my blog, I did a post on this book when it was released. But now its my chance to let you know what I really thought of the book.
I was intrigued by the blurb for this novel and it didn’t disappoint. From the first page it was good. The characters are well rounded and believable, although I found myself constantly trying to get my tongue around the name so stuck with Tarm. I could manage that 😀.
Mr Devine certainly knew the 80’s too, it really did feel like I was there with them. I love it when an author gets the atmosphere right.
So the book there’s little I can say as I don’t want to spoil it for any of you so I will as usual just add the blurb that the author provided, but that is no cop out. It’s a terrific first novel and an author to watch.
Just buy this book, you’ll be glad you did.
The Blurb –
1954. Two promising Sheffield students disappear without trace. After seven years they are pronounced missing, presumed dead.
Thirty years later, in 1984, Seb, another student vanishes. Two of his friends, Ptarmigan and Gerda, were with him. But they have a strange amnesia about the events leading up to his disappearance.
By 2014, Ptarmigan has collected enough clues about the tragedy to persuade Seb’s still-grieving ex-partner, Rita, back to Sheffield to find out what happened all those years ago.
As they move closer to the answers, Gerda, Ptarmigan and Rita soon discover that their lives have also been contaminated by a far more mundane, far more human antagonist.
Their investigations take them from the writings of Aldous Huxley to a pilgrimage by a group of 12th Century monks. From a pamphlet by an obscure Elizabethan nobleman to Victorian architectural riddles concealed in the old Sheffield General Cemetery. And local legends and years of press reports about a terrifying creature called The Hallow Man.
The Hallow Man is a tale of horror, myth, friendship, love, loss, and perhaps redemption that spans the centuries.
S C Richmond 