The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

The Loney was a perfect read during the time when a chill in the air catches your breath, pumpkins and all sorts of witchy goodies are on sale in the supermarket and you feel the sudden urge to watch a horror film. If you haven’t got this book already, go out and get it.

Have you ever noticed that the outline at the Britain looks like a witch riding a pig? Next time you look at a map take a closer look. The Loney is set in a strange netherworld right on the witch’s throat or as Andrew Michael Hurley describes it a “strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune”.

The opening pages are ode to this desolate and unforgiving landscape. A place where “unlucky fishermen” drown and wash up later, “with green faces and skin like lint”.

There is something in the language of the coast that sounds foreign, poetic and in some cases eerie. Hurley uses this treasure trove to his advantage. The prose is packed full of words like – “scrimshaw”, “tundra”,” boggart” or “causeway”. Even the names of birds sound unsettling – “curlews” “jackdaws” or “gull”.

The tale recounts memories of an annual Pilgrimage made by a London parish of St Jude to this area of Lancashire.

When mixed with themes of Catholic faith and damnation, this fictional debut opens a dark cavernous space where the tide of imagination can flow into. A description of a painting of Hell in a village church on page 136 is counted among the passages that I will later revisit.

The plot is simple. It is Hurley’s writing style that builds the tension expertly, until you turn a page and a jolt of fear forces you to put the book down and put something funny on the telly.

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

I once attended a lecture by an author who opened with the line “While I was writing this book I knew it would be made into a film.”  

Unfortunately this sentence echoed in my mind while I was reading The Girl in Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz. I feel this book was produced to capitalise on the fervour for the Millennium series, and despite its well-written composition, I see it as little more than a cash-cow.  

The characters who I had come to know under Stieg Larsson’s pen felt strange and soulless in David Lagercrantz’s rendition. The names Salander and Blomkvist were inserted like brand names into manufactured copy and lacked the danger the original penman was capable of creating.

With that said I’m sure it will make a satisfactory popcorn movie. 

Alongside the drawbacks of the final product, the whole Stieg Larsson backstory has helped me reach this conclusion. 

Steig Larsson was a very interesting man. His CV lists a year in Eritrean, training a squad of female guerrillas, and counts job roles such the president of a Swedish science-fiction fan club and co-founder of the investigative magazine Expo.

I hope one day to read his biography written by his life-long partner Eva Gabrielsson, who is currently battling for rights over Larsson’s literary legacy. There was no legal will left by Stieg Larsson, so by default his estate, including the Millennium unpublished manuscripts, went to his estranged father and brother. This is still a contested issue as settlement with Eva Gabrielsson doesn’t appear to have yet been made.

The jury is still out and the general reading public may never know the details of the case (as it is a personal matter I don’t think they should). However David Lagercrantz’s Acknowledgements thanking the father and brother was enough for me to make up my mind. I’m sure they are comforted with the sales figures anyway.