THE ABOMINABLE by Dan Simmons

THE ABOMINABLE Dan Simmons (dansimmons.com) Sphere (www.littlebrown.co.uk/Sphere) £18.99 George Leigh Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on the North-East Ridge of Mount Everest in early June 1924. A couple of days later, another Englishman, Lord Percival Bromley – not officially part of Mallory’s expedition – disappeared from the same location along with a […]

DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King

DOCTOR SLEEP Stephen King (www.stephenking.com) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £19.99 ‘Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.’ Thirty-six years after the events described in The Shining, Dan Torrance – once Danny to most, and doc to those that mattered – is living in […]

THE SHINING by Stephen King

THE SHINING Stephen King (www.stephenking.com) Hodder (www.hodder.co.uk) £8.99 It came as no surprise when this month’s Hodderscape Review Project title dropped through the letterbox and turned out to be Stephen King’s classic novel, The Shining. With this month seeing Hodder & Stoughton publish the book’s highly-anticipated (by me!) sequel, Doctor Sleep, it was the obvious […]

HOW A GUNMAN SAYS GOODBYE by Malcolm Mackay

HOW A GUNMAN SAYS GOODBYE Malcolm Mackay Mantle (www.panmacmillan.com) £14.99 Careful on these stairs. That would be some return, falling flat on his face the first day back. Not the first time he’s been to the club since he had his hip replaced. He’s been haunting the place for the last two weeks. Letting everyone […]

PATH OF NEEDLES by Alison Littlewood

PATH OF NEEDLES Alison Littlewood (www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk) Jo Fletcher Books (www.jofletcherbooks.com) £7.99 PC Cate Corbin is one of the first officers on the scene when the body of a young girl is discovered in rural West Yorkshire. Seeing something familiar in the way the body has been posed – the gown, mirror, partially-eaten apple – Cate […]

JOYLAND by Stephen King

JOYLAND Stephen King (www.stephenking.com) Titan Books / Hard Case Crime (titanbooks.com / http://www.hardcasecrime.com) £7.99 The safety bars came down with a clank, and a few girls tuned up with preparatory screams. Clearing their vocal chords for dark-ride arias to come, you might say. There was a jerk, and we rode into Horror House. Summer, 1973. […]

NOS4R2 by Joe Hill

NOS4R2 Joe Hill (joehillfiction.com) Gollancz (www.gollancz.co.uk) £18.99 Released: 30th May 2013 The Brat was nine years old the first time she rode over the covered bridge that crossed the distance between Lost and Found. Nine-year-old Victoria “Vic” McQueen’s new bicycle brings with it an uncanny new ability: when she rides it across the condemned structure […]

Hospital Reading Round-up, or: A Letter of Apology

Dear Reader, I hope you will forgive this break from the usual straightforward literary(?) criticism for this personal note to explain the relative quiet at Reader Dad of late, and to apologise to authors, publishers, publicists and potential readers for the lack of reviews written and published on the site since mid-February. Anyone who follows […]

WE ARE HERE by Michael Marshall

WE ARE HERE Michael Marshall (www.michaelmarshallsmith.com) Orion Books (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £16.99 On a visit to New York to meet his publisher, David bumps into a man on the street – the sort of innocent collision that happens all the time on busy city pavements – who follows him back to Penn Station and confronts him. He […]

GUN MACHINE by Warren Ellis

GUN MACHINE Warren Ellis (www.warrenellis.com) Mulholland Books (www.mulhollandbooks.co.uk) £13.99 On playing back the 911 recording, it’d seem that Mrs. Stegman was more concerned that the man outside her apartment door was naked than that he had a big shotgun. John Tallow is a New York City detective, riding on the coattails of his much more […]