Hodder & Stoughton, UK, 1998, ISBN 0-340-69608-7 hardback, ISBN 0-340-69609-5 paperback
Vampyrrhic is reviewed by Derek M. Fox
Simon Clark is taller than me, and I'm six two. But, hey, I'm not griping. He's a quietly spoken, unassuming guy who can put away a pint or two, can't we all? (I'm talking beer here!) And they do say don't judge a book by its cover. That's good advice because despite the covers on Simon's books - which are pretty graphic anyway – the prose behind such titles as 'Nailed by the Heart'; 'Blood Crazy' and 'King Blood' drips with Clark's own brand of not so quiet, subliminal terror. of course, there is a beast lurks within us all – it waits to escape!
Considering having 'bitten off more than you can chew' in believing you had read every conceivable vampire story/novel there is, the tall guy from Doncaster throws this out for our consumption. Face it, fans, bloodsucking tales are timeless anyway.
Vampyrrhic is far from being your average suck it and see Prince o' Darkness tale. Fine, it may have a 'sheep returning to the fold of his youth' type slant and you may think you've travelled the route countless times. WRONG! You ain't been this route, brothers and sisters.
Sure Whitby is mentioned, why not? The granddaddy of all vampires vacationed there right? End of connection. Instead Clark takes us to the village of Leppington, North Yorkshire, admittedly not a bat's flight away from Whitby. The main protagonist, David Leppington, a doctor who is descended from a long line of Leppingtons', returns here after an absence of 20 years to consider taking up a post as GP and to catch up with family ties. Some ties!
Myth, legend and urban reality of the village kind, underscore this uneasy tale, with Doc' taking a room at the Station Hotel – a cross between the hotels we can all recall as kids with curving staircases and umpteen floors, and the things which scared us like cellars, dark, miserable corridors and lifts. It is a monster of a place and complements the brooding quality of the narrative.
Highly readable characters infest its pages, some recognisable like Leppington and Bernice, a fellow guest, and Electra, hotel owner and one time Goth, whose clothes become a fascination for Bernice. Then we have Jack Black, the epitome of human evil, a sadist, a drug pusher, and yes, a guardian of the grim and terrible. By this intermix of real and unreal characters, Clark achieves a grand balance, but the puzzling factor remains: Who in hell do you trust in this quiet(?) backwater?
Videos left by a previous guest – an American psychic investigator – become an obsessive need for Bernice; something darkly ominous glides the hotel corridors; an ancient slaughterhouse – now breeding leeches of all things(!) infuses the sewers with blood – or it did until some idiot closed it. Now, those who lurk beneath have to gain their sustenance elsewhere...something like a mobile takeaway I guess...on legs. And what lurks in the sewers gives us real cause for alarm, and we wonder what did chew the fingers off the council worker.
Viking lore is tapped, courtesy of George Leppington, the Doc's ageing uncle, and a sword with the power to destroy is recreated, and put to use...And how! WOW!
The present becomes unwilling victim to an evil past, village streets and subterranean darkness running with victims' life force, David Leppington realising he is faced with a choice: that of accepting his true inheritance, or becoming the destroyer of a rapidly growing race of predators.
The prose surges like an express train lending the book an unputdownable quality. One word of warning: Do not look for the saturnine nobleman a la Drac, there isn't one. This is visceral stuff, written on a high which will appeal to lovers of dark horror.
My personal gripe is there wasn't enough, and I was sorry to have finished it.
It grips. Clark started well – he gets better. Compliments to him on a powerful book. It certainly nails you, so read it, and you'll see what I mean.
Derek M. Fox's novels Recluse and Demon are published by Tanjen.