{"id":6835,"date":"2021-01-09T14:58:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T14:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2021-01-09T15:04:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T15:04:03","slug":"paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"PAUL FINCH – ILL MET BY DARKNESS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, dear listener, we\u2019re all about creepy tales and horror stories, as Dave Brzeski reviews three works by veteran crime and horror writer Paul Finch<\/strong>, who may already be known to you for his Detective Mark Heckenburg series, or for his \u2018Terror Tales\u2019 anthologies…<\/p>\n

\n

THREE FROM PAUL FINCH<\/h2>\n

by Dave Brzeski<\/h4>\n

When I saw a promo post on Facebook for a new collection, Ill Met By Darkness<\/em>, the other day, I felt I had to investigate. And when I contacted the author to see if there might be a review copy available, thankfully there was, but would I be interested in reviewing these two volumes of Christmas themed stories while I was at it\u2026 Hmm? There was no implied threat, at least nothing concrete that I could report to the police\u2026 Just a faint snicker-snack sound\u2026 Besides, Finch used to be one of them, didn\u2019t he? I felt it prudent to simply comply.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus I ended up with no less than three collections by Paul Finch to cover. Four, if you count Major Craddock Investigates<\/em>, which I plan on reviewing for Occult Detective Magazine<\/em>!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"paul<\/a><\/p>\n

It would, considering the fact that two and a quarter of these three books are Christmas themed, have been better if I could have got these reviews online before the season was over, but this was never going to be possible. If you like this sort of thing, and appreciate good writing, it\u2019s never too early to start picking stuff up for next Yuletide.<\/p>\n

\"paul<\/a>
paul finch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

IN A DEEP, DARK DECEMBER: FIVE FESTIVE CHILLERS<\/h3>\n

Author: Paul Finch<\/h5>\n
Publisher: Brentwood Press<\/h5>\n
Format: Paperback<\/h5>\n

\"paul<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest here\u2026 I\u2019m not really a fan of Christmas themed anthologies & collections. They often tend to be an odd case of the whole being somewhat less than the sum of their parts. By which I mean that, irrespective of how good the individual stories are, they can get tiresome when read all at once. This, however, is a Paul Finch collection\u2026<\/p>\n

I first read Finch in a collection he had published by Gray Friar Press some years back, and had been greatly impressed by the sheer variety in his stories, so I started this book with less trepidation than I otherwise might.<\/p>\n

In a Deep, Dark December<\/em> was originally published on Kindle only in 2014. This is the first paperback edition.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Christmas Toy\u2019s\u2019 is a variation on the possessed doll concept, only writ rather larger than usual. A pair of thieves encounter far more than they anticipated when attempting to burglarize a posh house over the Christmas holidays.<\/p>\n

One of our most primal fears is that of being lost in a place that is not safe. \u2018Midnight Service\u2019 plays on that fear. Capstick is left stranded, after the bus driver announced that weather conditions were too bad to continue their journey. Most passengers waited for the driver to give them directions to a place they could stay overnight, but Capstick knew better, and set out on his own. Can you guess how well that worked out for him?<\/p>\n

While \u2018Midnight Service\u2019 is a good, creepy tale, \u2018The Faerie\u2019 is rather better. A father, who has taken his young daughter away to spend Christmas with him at her aunt\u2019s, admittedly more to spite his abusive wife than any other reason, is caught in a heavy snowstorm. Unable to see where he\u2019s going, in conditions that are becoming ever more unsafe, they see a remote house with lights on. This one is genuinely scary.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Mummers\u2019 tells a tale of ghostly revenge, but this time it\u2019s revenge enacted by the living, using the ghosts as the method. This tale with a twist, or two, further underlines Finch\u2019s mastery of the gradual, build up of dread. If he can do that so successfully in 20-30 pages, what could he achieve in a longer work? Well, those first four tales, of five, take up about half the book, so it looked like I\u2019d soon find out in the final novella length tale.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Killing Ground\u2019 introduces us to husband & wife, Ruth and Alec Whitchurch \u2013 ex-coppers, who quit the force to raise a family. When they discovered that for medical reasons that just wasn\u2019t going to happen, they set themselves up as a private investigators.<\/p>\n

Ruth and Alec do not believe in the supernatural. Neither does the obscenely rich American actor who hires them to investigate the seriously nasty legend about the estate he\u2019s bought in Herefordshire. His Catholic wife, and mother of the child that she\u2019s terrified might be in serious danger, certainly does believe, though, which is why Ruth and Alec find themselves faced with what looks to be a very lucrative Christmas holiday.<\/p>\n

As one might assume, we\u2019re straying into occult detective territory here. It\u2019s a classic case of a vengeful spirit, but in this case it\u2019s written by a successful crime writer who happens to be an ex-copper himself, so that side of things is extremely well-handled.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t say more about the story itself, for fear of spoilers. I will say, however, that the first thing I did on finishing it was search for evidence that Ruth & Alec Whitchurch turn up in more stories. As far as I can see, they haven\u2019t in the six years since \u2018The Killing Ground\u2019 was originally published, but I sincerely hope they will at some point.<\/p>\n

\n

THE CHRISTMAS YOU DESERVE<\/span>: FIVE FESTIVE <\/span>TERROR TALES<\/span><\/h3>\n
Author: Paul Finch<\/h5>\n
Publisher: Brentwood Press<\/h5>\n
Format: Paperback<\/strong><\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike In a Deep, Dark December<\/em>, The Christmas You Deserve<\/em> is not only a new collection, but it contains a previously unpublished story.<\/p>\n

The book opens with \u2018The Merry Makers\u2019, a tale that revisits the trope of a lone traveller, lost in the snow on Christmas Eve, finds possible sanctuary at a mysterious house. The lesson learned here is, if you find yourself broken down and stranded in the snow on Christmas Eve, stay in your car until morning. Your chance of surviving unscathed may be marginally higher!<\/p>\n

\u2018The Unreal\u2019 is the story of an atheist ghost debunker, who I would be in complete sympathy with, had he not been such a mean spirited, miserable bugger. He\u2019s called to investigate a haunted theatre, which most recently put on a travelling puppet show version of \u2018A Christmas Carol\u2019, so we can easily see why Finch made him that way. It\u2019s a return to that classic slow build up of terror, which Finch is so good at.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Krampus\u2019, Finch does a very good job of explaining the differences behind the various Christmas\u2026 spirits? In the UK we have Father Christmas, a kindly gift-giver with pagan roots, America has (and we have since adopted) the rather more commercialised Santa Claus. Germany, though, has a version with two aspects \u2013 Saint Nickolaus, a rather more religious themed version of our Father Christmas, and Krampus. Krampus deals with the naughty children, and is truly a figure of terror. Another interesting aspect of this story is the way Finch highlights the differences between the attitudes of children in the post-war years and modern times. Again, there\u2019s a gradualy growing terror to be found here. Read it to your kids next Christmas eve. They\u2019ll enjoy the nightmares, really they will.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Tenth Lesson\u2019 is original to this collection. It\u2019s the longest of the 4 shorter pieces, and it\u2019s worth the cost of the book on its own. Tregarron is a successful children\u2019s author who has made a fortune with a series of Christmas themed fantasy novels. What no one, other than his family and a few close confidants know is that he\u2019s an atheist who does not believe in, nor celebrate Christmas in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n

After a phone call, in which he manages to deeply offend his pagan, hedge-witch sister, he arrives home in a snow storm, to find his housekeeper has brought in a very large parcel \u2013 a present of some sort. I loved this little morality tale with all it\u2019s little twists.<\/p>\n

As with In a Deep, Dark December<\/em>, the final story is a 100 page novella.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Stain\u2019 opens with a long quoted passage from Understanding Extreme Cinema by John Jackson-Brown. Finch is so good at these fake references that you may be tempted to rush off to Amazon to seek out a copy. I did. Don\u2019t bother \u2013 it doesn\u2019t actually exist. Neither does the film, Daemonia (1969), which is held up in this non-existent critique as a prime example of the depths to which the British horror film sank, after the classic years of the late fifties and early sixties.<\/p>\n

Rick Schaefer is a full time author\/screenwriter, now working for the remnants of Lionheart Films, the company responsible for Daemonia. His boss, Stafford Wilkes, has conceived a plan to make a follow-up to Daemonia, by revisiting the actual house that was the location used for the original film. They would stay there for a few days, absorb the atmosphere and workshop a script. It goes without saying that the original movie was one of those productions fraught with bad luck, leading to speculation about a curse\u2026 and it still had enough of an evil reputation, that it hadn\u2019t managed to hold on to any tenants for very long \u2013 the current owner being an Australian who didn\u2019t actually live on the premises.<\/p>\n

One can immediately imagine so many possible situations, and, indeed, some of them do occur, but this novella has enough twists and turns to keep any fan guessing right up until the end.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

ILL MET BY DARKNESS<\/span><\/h3>\n
Author: Paul Finch<\/h5>\n
Publisher: <\/span>Sarob<\/span> Press<\/span><\/h5>\n
Format: Limited, Numbered Hardcover (250 copies)<\/strong><\/h5>\n

\"paul<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, we come to the book which led me to writing this review in the first place. Given that this one is not a themed collection, in the way that the previous two are, I was expecting the usual Finch level of variation in setting and theme. I was not to be disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u2018Snicker-Snack\u2019 introduces us to Mr Cranbourne, at least that\u2019s the name Horace Gilpin gives the aged Miss Hollowbrook when he goes to see her. He\u2019s on a mission, you see, to get a copy of an unpublished painting in her brother\u2019s \u2018Terry\u2019s Terrors\u2019 series in the Kreature Feature comic \u2013 the one in which he depicts the Jabberwock\u2026 To be able to make this legendary banned painting available to collectors would be a gold mine. Unfortunately, he\u2019s told that not only may he not borrow it to scan, he may not even see it!<\/p>\n

\u2018Down To a Sunless Sea\u2019 tells the story of one Donald Crowfoot, and how he came to obtain the solid gold bejewelled artefact that he was currently trying to sell to the representative of a museum. Having ascertained that, while Crowfoot\u2019s initial explanation couldn\u2019t be proven, neither could it be disproven \u2013 which meant the museum was safe from legal challenges from the Greek government. However the buyer insisted on hearing the true story of how Crowfoot came to acquire this statuette of the goddess, Europa.<\/p>\n

Young Milo Sowerby was heir to a criminal empire, and his father had insisted that Lassiter take him along on a mission. \u201cHe has to learn the ropes sometime.\u201d was the reasoning, but Lassiter wasn\u2019t happy about it. They\u2019d had a tip as to the whereabouts of an old colleague, who had turned rat, and was hiding out in a small town under the witness protection scheme. Their job was, as one would imagine, to quietly dispose of him before any evidence is given in court. \u2018The Hell Wain\u2019 is another of those tales involving city folks travelling to a small, quiet town named Hackenthorpe\u2026 According to a quick Google search, it had a deeply dodgy reputation. The sign they\u2019d seen as they entered, which read, \u2018No Popery\u2019, should perhaps have been enough of a clue.<\/p>\n

Finally, \u2018Spirit of the Season\u2019 brings us full circle, with another Christmas tale. This time Phil Percival, who has made a fairly successful career out of writing books about folklore, wants to investigate what he thinks is the first ever reference to Father Christmas in the written word. A reference which strongly suggests that \u2018Old Christmas\u2019 himself may have gate-crashed the Christmas feast in the castle to berate them about their perverting of the sanctity of the season to celebrate the taking of lives in battle. To do this, he\u2019s hired, at great expense \u2013 which his wife and business manager does not approve of \u2013 Wenlock Castle, or rather the mansion house that now sat on the site of the long ruined castle. His family and friends would enjoy a sumptuous Christmas feast at the manor, which was now a popular, if rather expensive venue for weddings, birthday parties and the like.<\/p>\n

He has also hired Miss Scrivener \u2013 a \u2018diviner\u2019, who claims to have the ability to send her consciousness into the past and witness events first hand.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, things do not go according to plan. This is a weird tale, and as is so often the case with Paul Finch\u2019s work, includes a character strong enough to support further stories, if the author ever has the inclination. Miss (no first name given) Scrivener is a fascinating character. Her divining abilities are unusual, and the fact that she\u2019s already sworn off divining scenes of death and violence, suggests some interesting previous experiences.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve purposely held back on giving too many story details, otherwise why would you need to read the books? But I do recommend them without reservation. Granted Finch uses the lost traveller trope a few times, but this was only noticeable because I read the first two collections in a single day. Taken as collections to dip into \u2013 most of the stories were originally published separately in magazines and anthologies, don\u2019t forget \u2013 and that\u2019s not an issue.<\/p>\n

\n

Details of all Paul Finch\u2019s works can be found on his blog, here. https:\/\/paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And his Amazon Author Page, detailing loads of his books, is here: paul finch books on amazon uk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Should you be in the mood for more winter chills, you might also find something of interest in this recently published tome:<\/p>\n

A Winter’s Tale: Horror Stories for the Yuletide<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Yuletide. The time of the longest, darkest evenings of the year, and once, a time for stories of ghosts, demons, and other night creatures, by authors like M.R. James, E.F. Benson, Jane Gaskell, and Amelia B. Edwards. A Winter\u2019s Tale seeks to revive those days with all new stories by some of the best horror writers of today. These stories run the gamut in setting and time, from traditional Victorian ghost stories to all too contemporary tales of terror. This is an anthology to be read by the fireside on cold nights with the wind howling at the windows.”<\/em><\/p>\n

a winter’s tale on amazon uk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

a winter’s tale on amazon us<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, dear listener, we\u2019re all about creepy tales and horror stories, as Dave Brzeski reviews three works by veteran crime and horror writer Paul Finch, who may already be known to you for his Detective Mark Heckenburg series, or for his \u2018Terror Tales\u2019 anthologies… THREE FROM PAUL FINCH by Dave Brzeski When I saw a … Continue reading PAUL FINCH – ILL MET BY DARKNESS<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":14,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPAUL FINCH - ILL MET BY DARKNESS - greydogtales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Creepy tales and horror stories, as Dave Brzeski reviews three works by veteran crime and horror writer Paul Finch, who may already be know to you for his Detective Mark Heckenburg series, or for his \u2018Terror Tales\u2019 anthologies...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PAUL FINCH - ILL MET BY DARKNESS - greydogtales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Creepy tales and horror stories, as Dave Brzeski reviews three works by veteran crime and horror writer Paul Finch, who may already be know to you for his Detective Mark Heckenburg series, or for his \u2018Terror Tales\u2019 anthologies...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"greydogtales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-09T14:58:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-09T15:04:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Major-Craddock-Investigates-212x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"greydogtales\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"greydogtales\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"13 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/paul-finch-ill-met-by-darkness\/\",\"name\":\"PAUL FINCH - 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