Cassius Willis is your typical working class dude in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston, simply surviving without having any way out of the drudgery he finds himself in. One night at the pub he is woken from his malaise by a stranger who offers Cassius the chance to live high on the hog and take over the stranger’s life of luxury. Unfortunately, there’s a few strings attached that don’t become apparent until Cassius adopts a new life of leisure and slaughter. Meanwhile an Angel, who is tasked with dry cleaning souls – don’t ask, is having doubts about what he is doing. Cassius and the Angel are destined to meet on the Earthly plain, and the meeting is not going to go well for either of them.

Brett McBean is the bad boy of Australian horror fiction, you don’t go into one of his books expecting kittens and puppies, McBean plays for keeps and isn’t apologetic in the least about this. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by McBean, actually it’s been a while since I’ve read any Aussie horror writer, so I was more than ready to dig into a new McBean title when it hit my review pile. Actually looking into the pile there appears to be at least another title loitering around in there dripping blood by the Aussie writer, so I’m a happy constant reader over here. Hold onto your linen kids we are going in; the devil can take the stragglers.

McBean locks and loads from the first page of his latest novella, if you are of the faint hearted brigade then you are not going to get past the first chapter here, the author describes the abduction and fate of a young lady in blood drenched detail. There’s no wasted words being splattered on the page, as McBean does not shy away from the graphic end of the horror spectrum. The first chapter is a necessary evil to underline the basic theme of the novella, and in typical McBean style no one is going to get out of the final page without being covered in gore. Great stuff folks, read this if you are a budding writer of the more robust style of horror, to see how to get the words on the page to successful effect.

I guess McBean’s central character is straight out of the playbook for the anti-hero, but the Author pulls a strong right to the reader’s stomach in how he develops this character. While Cassius Willis is your genuine psychopath, McBean questions whether this is entirely a situation of his own descent into madness, or if there might be a more metaphysical reason for Cassius’ extracurricular activities. The old “nature versus nurture” chestnut, but of course McBean throws a curve ball into the mix, hence the Angelic involvement. Not saying more here, spoilers are not what we are about.

As we have come to expect from Brett McBean, seriously if you have not been reading this author I’m going to start assigning remedial homework people, the pace of Familiar Stranger isn’t going into neutral in any paragraph. The Author knows where he is going, and correctly uses pace and prose to get there without any side trips into tangents best left unexplored. We kind of have two stories happening, a mystery to keep us guessing, and honestly no idea where we might be headed at story end. A well-constructed story doesn’t come into it; this is a brick house of a read with no fault lines visible to the reader.

Which isn’t to say that the casual reader isn’t going to have a few stumbles while devouring the novella. The metaphysics can be confusing, not enough time was spent, in my laboured opinion, on expanding what was happening there, and the ending sort of happens, with no real explanation of events leading up to the conclusion. I don’t say this very often, but Familiar Stranger could have been enhanced with another hundred odd pages exploring various aspects of the situation Cassius Willis finds himself in. Just my opinion friends and neighbours, for example Dan had a read and rocked out to the whole thing without having any doubts about the novella at all. Make your own mind up end of day, I would rather have more McBean than less, so prejudiced to the extreme over here.

So the horror is going down in Familiar Stranger, we are talking a psycho as central character here, but for mine McBean pulls a sneaky twist at the end. I’m not going to spell it out, but think of the fates of the two major characters, exactly what is the Author saying about Christian belief, and where is this ultimately going to go, beyond tale’s end. I leave it to the reader to make their own deductions there.

If you are a Brett McBean fan than clearly The Familiar Stranger is required reading, but I am also going to say that the casual horror reader should check this one out. McBean throws down a completely unique take on the subject matter that comes highly recommended. Now having said that, you may find obtaining a copy a job of work. I picked up a copy on eBay, and hey it was a signed limited release, so bonus right there. A quick check shows two copies available on eBay, unfortunately for Aussie readers they would be imports. Still, worth going through the pain in my opinion, to get your McBean read on. Thankfully the author hasn’t mellowed any, looking forward to his next one.