Fiction Reviews
They Stalk The Night
(2024) Brian Moreland, Flame Tree Press,
£12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, 297pp, ISBN 978-1-787-58857-8
In the Minnesota wilderness, the inhabitants of a remote town hold dark secrets. Retired police chief Sam Larsen knows what abomination stalks the forbidden woods atop Buckhead Hill. His worst nightmare becomes real when a pipeline company destroys a sacred barrier, unleashing an ancient enemy. Now, evil returns to feed again…
I have to confess of not being aware of the horror writing of Brian Moreland until I had read and reviewed his novel Tomb of Gods, which was a very different type of Egyptian horror story, and I might even have said he was worth looking out for. Well, he certainly is, and he’s back with They Stalk the Night, a very different offering to Tomb of Gods, and again, it comes courtesy of Flame Tree Press, who continue their sterling work in bringing international horror authors to the attention of UK readers.
Coming in at 297 pages, containing a prologue, and three parts – “Stalker”, “Beasts of Winter”, “Predators and Prey” – which are divided into thirty-one chapters, and further broken up into different scenes, then this is my type of fast-paced horror novel, especially given that it is a creature feature story. Given the remote setting, plus a forest, plus a monster, Moreland’s novel has been likened to Adam Nevill’s The Ritual, which fitted well into that horror sub-genre I call “you-don’t-want-to-go-there”, but in Moreland’s novel it’s a case of “you-don’t-want-to-go-there, and-do-that!”. If anything, I’m reminded slightly of a character in Ben Aaronovitch’s 'Rivers of London' novella Winter’s Gifts who says something along the lines “that we’ve screwed nature so long, it’s going to get it’s revenge on us”.
And so it is with They Stalk the Night, as a greedy man decides to rip up part of a forest near the town of Hellum in order to lay a pipeline across the land, despite rumours and warnings that the forest is to be left alone and not to be tampered with as there are legends and rumours of beasts that roam there. If that is true, then an uneasy peace has managed to be maintained until now, but not anymore. It’s a case of “if you go down to the woods today, don’t tamper with any sacred barriers you might find”. Some people know all about the Winter Demon that resides in the forest as there was a previous incident ten years earlier, and remember the horror that unfolded. Others just think of it as a rumour and a legend, but apart from those who are seasoned poachers, those who venture into the forest to hunt or for some other reason are never seen again.
The town of Hellum was established by Norwegian settlers and it their descendants who are aware of the old ways, and the old legends, and are at odds with some of the other townsfolk, and those who live in nearby Deer Haven who see the pipeline as providing jobs and income to the town. With the remote setting and two towns to play with, another plus point is Moreland’s ability to bring his location to life and give the reader of a real feel for the setting of a small town in deepest Minnesota, close to the Canadian border, rather like Stephen King with Jerusalem’s Lot, or the late, great Peter Straub with his town Milburn that appears in the novel Ghost Story.
Plus points in the novel go to: the setting; the action; some, but, not all of the characters – not because I’d didn’t believe in them, but because they disappear from the story fairly early on never to be seen again, or they are clearly set up as “shreddies”. More plus points also go to: the tension; the gore; and multiple story strands involving individual characters who are trying to survive, or are tied to the land for different reasons. Moreland brings all these elements and sub-plots to a variety of satisfying conclusions in a monster novel that is great fun if you like a fast-moving plot, and lots of gore. They Stalk the Night is pretty much a standard creature feature novel, but worth a read nevertheless.
Ian Hunter
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