"You were very brave, David. It must have been difficult." - Raina Risi

David Leeton, a novelist who also writes articles and composers lyrics, retreats to rural New South Wales after his breakup with a long-term partner. He meets local Sardinian pig farmer Calro Risi, an expert on European customs and Greco religions, who gradually draws David into his circle of friends and family. David is also drawn to the enigmatic Gemma, but is warned by Raina, Calro's wife, to ask about Zoe.

The problem for David is that he suffers from coulrophobe, a fear of clowns, and with a mounting series of eerie episodes he starts to question his sanity. David soon deduces that he is at the mercy of someone with their own agenda that involves lots of clowns and clown images. But who exactly is preying on his fear, and what exactly do they want? Can David survive his phobia, and exactly what is hidden in the mysterious tower in the woods that overlooks the house he is minding? Let's see what may lie behind the grease paint, sure as hell won't be a big mac with fries to go.

Terry Dowling is like a legend in this part of the world with a huge following for his Tom Rynosseros series of novels. Which is all to the good, however like Tim Winton, turns out that Dowling doesn't quite know what tiger he has by the tail when it comes to the dark genre. Which isn't to say that Dowling isn't an accomplished writer, you don't get the reputation Dowling enjoys without having something in the tank, it's just that as a horror outing Clowns at Midnight makes you wonder if the Author is perhaps unaware of the modern, say post 19th century, state of the nation. Clearly this is going to be a bad review, sorry reputation isn't our mistress over here, and clearly I'm going to have to spell out what went wrong with Dowling's journey into darkness. We got a whole bunch of flak for giving a bad review to Winton's In The Winter Dark I'm expecting exactly the same when this review gets published. Do people simply hang out on the net to be outraged, or are we facing a cultural preciousness that is doing damage to local reputations, looking at you Australia?

Central to Dowling's novel is the concept of "fear of clowns", a phobia that is apparently well documented. For sure the Aussie Author isn't the only one to have assaulted this particular fear and to be honest he is in pretty good company. The Winchester Bros had their own demon to fight in the season two Supernatural episode Everybody Loves A Clown, the Masters of Horror touched bases with We All Scream for Ice Cream, and of course who could forget Tim Curry's Pennywise from the move It based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. You might note a certain common trend there, apart from Stephen King, the major representations of clowns as objects of fear are all visual with even the Stephen King tour de force novel not relying solely on coulrophobia to drive home its narrative horror appetite for destruction. To be honest clowns, or the fear thereof, doesn't quite work on the written page, Dowling might have the odd icy finger going down his spine as he wrote the narrative but it didn't transcribe to the page. Maybe the Author was unable to construct a sequence to give the average dark genre fan nightmares or something? Whatever the reason, Dowling singularly fails to instil even the beginning note of a terror overture in his novel, which of course is a huge black mark against him in dark genre circles.

I guess another major criticism that could be aimed at Dowling here is his attempted at in depth coverage of the overriding coulrophobia character David Leeton suffers from. To be honest all we needed to know is David has a problem with Ronald McDonald, unfortunately Dowling decides to give an in depth lecture on the phobia and besides showing an awesome level of research for the novel loses any sense of pacing as the narrative wallows in explanation to it's detriment. Sorry if I wanted to know about the rise of various historic mask concepts I would have got a non-fiction book or perhaps enrolled in some open learning course. The subject matter may be of interest to Dowling but banging on about it loses the Reader as you are left wondering if you shouldn't go watch Twilight or put your head in a vat of boiling oil, similar outcome there.

Dowling also seems to be of the opinion that we need a Savant to add the exposition that otherwise wouldn't be of interest, in terms of Sardinian folklore, Dionysus, Apollo, and about anything else that seems mildly relevant to the plot. Once again this proves problematic, I think Hammer are the only people to have got the whole Savant thing right, as the novel slams to a halt on paragraph after paragraph of mild numbing background that really doesn't add anything to the narrative flow. At stages I was thinking of just jacking it in to be honest, this approach to the novel is really so last century.

While there is the odd good concept going down, and a chance to swing things to a solid conclusion Dowling seems to have forgotten the last few chapters. While we can see the chief protagonists lumbering over the horizon, did Dowling really think this would be a shock? - there's a large chance to swing one out of the ball park in the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately Dowling swings and misses, with a huge development left hanging in the breeze. If only he had of gone Glenn Close boiling bunnies or something this could have been a much better read.

My apologises to the wine and cheese set, hey dark genre site, but I can't give this novel anything but a bad rating and no recommendation. The narrative labours through various subjects without getting any pace happening, the major incidents that drive the plot are few and far between, and the writing style harks back to those hoary old penny dreadfuls that we all thought Stephen King finally drove a stake through. Melodramatic comes to mind, but let's not get too snarky. Maybe if you are into the whole retro thing this might work for you, for mine it really was a task to get to the final page, and there you thought it was all steak and beer in the reviewing game. Read at your own risk, you have been warned.