This latest sees Clark turning to Bram Stoker, Nosferatu and the like for the sourcing of his latest post-modern horror. Clark’s remixed plenty of stock SF concepts in previous novels, so it’s time for some more horror clichés. It’s a small-scale disaster this time, with the carnage confined to Leppington, a small town on the Yorkshire moors. You won’t be surprised to learn that it’s near Whitby. The place is evoked in grim fashion: in Industrial Revolution days it was virtually one big slaughterhouse. Then there are the local legends: ancient gravestones show ‘swordsmen fighting, riding or even mating with she-monsters’, and there’s the whip-wielding 7th century nun who beheaded the local snakes, in whose day the place was infested with blood-drinking demons. And so on. When Bernice Mochardi and David Leppington arrive it gets going.

The horror’s generally of the sort that leaves me feeling bloated and queasy. Bloody, and full of accomplished characterisation and history; this is the north of England all right. One might point out the debt Clark owes Ramsey Campbell. If that’s a flaw, the only other is another it shares with Clark’s other novels (and many of Campbell’s): it’s a bit too long; a bit more tightness would have been welcome. Like those other books, it could do with a bit more editing, and like those other books, it would make a great British horror movie.