Devil's Island (2012)

Sex :
Violence :
Author C. M. Saunders Reviewer :
Publisher Rainstorm Press
Length 132 pages
Genre Psychological
Blurb None Listed
Country

Review

"Now tell me more about this adventure you seemed to have, especially the part about the devil." - Venke

Davon Rice is an ex-soldier who is down on his luck and unable to find work for his particular skill set. One morning down the unemployment office he runs across an advert on the net that might be just the break he needs, and a helping hand out of the council estates. There's not a lot of detail about what the job entails but Rice applies anyway and is surprised when he receives a reply by email that sounds positive. All they need is a few personal details, his address etc. Rice emails backs the required information and is further surprised when an email almost immediately comes back setting up an appointment at his council flat for the following Monday at 10am sharp.

Long story short Rice gets the job which involves simply guarding a disused MOD (Ministry of Defence) facility on the isolated Devil's Island. In return for his services over the next four months Rice is being paid very well with enough to set himself up. Naturally he takes the job, clearly not having seen a horror flick before. The apparently deserted Devil's Island isn't as deserted as he was lead to believe with something out in the forest surrounding the facility, and even worse something hiding in the shadows in the facility. Has Rice stepped into a highly dangerous situation involving supernatural predators or is there another answer? Either way Rice is going to be lucky to get out of this one alive.

Every now and again you run across a novel that simply refuses to sit up and beg, no matter what your expectations were going in or how you approached the book. Devil's Island just refused to conform to any of my ideas of what was going to happen in the narrative or how author C. M. Saunders would approach the modern Brit horror novel. So the first thing to be aware of when going into this book is that you are going to get something entirely different to what you might figure you are dealing with, Saunders isn't another James Herbert clone, he has something else going down as you are left wondering by the mid way point of Devil's Island where the narrative is heading. As such I pretty much can't talk the plot here, there are some major twists and revelations that the readership is best left to discover for themselves.

While I'm not about to compare Saunders to Brit legend Herbert, that would be slightly trite to be honest, this does not mean the Author doesn't know how to construct a paragraph or build a structure that you can hang your coat on. Quite the contrary, Saunders is a very solid writer with a grasp of his craft that makes Devil's Island a pleasure to read, and to be honest there needs to be a few more writers in the genre who actually know how to use the language. I'm not going to mention Meyers again, she's an abomination at best, but I recently sat down to try and wade through a shark novel with the unlikely title of Meg and am left with the opinion that the U.S education system has imploded given this Writer's inability to actually use the language constructively. Saunders knows the language, knows how to use it, and more importantly doesn't strangle it to death. In essence you have the prime and proper English horror novel, well written, concise, with Devil's Island flowing naturally from the page.

Saunders has taken a slow approach to writing the novel that may have some readers concerned he might have forgotten a few things, like an antagonist or a conflict for example, however there's a good reason for the structure of the novel. I'm avoiding spoilers here so am going to refrain from giving the definitive answer as to why the novel hides it's antagonist till well into the narrative, but by the final page I'm sure you'll agree this was pretty much the only way Saunders could have constructed his plot. It actually works well within the confines of where the narrative is heading, but for some readers might seem a tad on the convoluted side of the pen. About the only criticism I'm going to poke at Devil's Island was a slight feeling of dissatisfaction once all is revealed, Saunders does well in hiding the resolution but I'm not entirely sure if the payoff justified the time spend in country as Devil's Island gave up its secrets.

Once again avoiding spoilers I have to say the conclusion of Devil's Island was pretty abrupt, I would have liked maybe another chapter to round a few things out. We get to the end, which is building as pretty dramatic with our central character in danger of not making to the final page, and the narrative decides to pretty much go into summary mode and finish off without leveraging much in the way of additional shocks. Saunders isn't alone in this approach by the way, a lot of Stephen King novels fall gasping for breath at the finish line, see Under the Dome.

Think I've about cover this one, and probably have been slightly more critical than I should be, but just wanted to mention our central character before closing the innings. Davon Rice as the central, and for large stretches of the narrative the only, character is pretty much exactly what you after in a horror protagonist. He is sympathetic, is prepared to bring the bravery when required, and ultimately is fighting against things he has no understanding of. In short Rice is the character you will want to survive the novel, the character you have a vested emotional interest in. Once again author Saunders demonstrating he understands the horror novel.

I decided over the weekend to sit down and start working through our backlog of novels and comics waiting for a review. There's been some major disruptions here at ScaryMinds and we're well behind where we should have been by now, my apologises to those waiting on a review. Devil's Island was first cab off the rank, and while the narrative took a slow pace I rocked on to what author Saunders was delivering. This is one tight, well constructive, and ultimately satisfying read, if for the moment we dispense with thoughts about the abrupt conclusion. I was right behind Davon Rice as he stepped into something he couldn't begin to comprehend and stayed with the character as the novel setup one hell of a dramatic final assault on my senses. If you like well written very British style horror then Devil's Island is for you; just don't expect car chases, explosions, or love of the necrophilia kind. I'm more than happy to have run across another Author writing cool British prose in the dark genre, will be checking out more of the Saunders' work.

Devil's Island comes at us from publishing house Rainstorm Press and is available in both print and electronic forms. I got the pdf version, which proved to be problematic as my Kobo wasn't having anything to do with it and attempts to convert to epub proved to be a disaster. I ended up reading the novel via my lappie, which did have the advantage of allowing music to be played in the background. So slight issue there for Rainstorm, and word to your mother, get an electronic format that meets your requirements or spring for the print version.

Beyond Scary Rates this read as ...

  Very solid Brit horror novel that springs its surprises in gratifying fashion.