GARY FRY

Yeah, you read it right. A nine book deal. I've been writing fiction for 28 years (about 10 with a mind to publication), and so days like August 31st, 2013 should be treasured. It was birthday. I got up a bit cross-eyed from the pre-celebration celebrations the previous evening and logged on to my email. And there it was: a communication from Shane Staley over at DarkFuse in the US offering me a three-year deal, involving the publication of three novels and six novellas. I was delighted, as you probably imagine, not just because DF have a real presence in the US horror market, but also because it offers me a regular market for my work, a readership to nurture, a focus and a purpose that is sorely lacking when you're just an odd-jobbing writer trying to hit as many markets as possible in the hope being noticed. I've already got started on the fiction, first a sequel to my next DF novel (April, 2014) called SEVERED. The follow-up will involve the same character, a guy called

My new novel SEVERED, due April 2014 from the peerless DarkFuse...

A review by Gary Fry I acquired this novella after joining the DarkFuse Kindle book club, which is one helluva deal: 36 books a year, with 5 free upon joining, and a bunch of other stuff thrown in. All for $59. Anyway, advert over. The novella. It's a cracker. It's a story set in my own heyday, the gaudy '80s. Naff music, fairgrounds, boys hanging out in gangs short of cash. The works. I really enjoyed all these prompts to nostalgia, but think they'll appeal to more folk than my own and Savile's generation. There's a gentle lyricism to the prose, an earnestness about the voice. The author obviously had a good time summoning all these playful details, providing a convincing backdrop to a story whose outré elements are decidedly ambiguous. The tale swings back and forth, from the present day to the past. It's the story of boys up to their games, and then dealing with the consequences, often over decades. There's a villain of the piece, artfully kept largel