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The Knife
Set in contemporary London The Knife tells the story of the last of the old-ones – creatures afflicted with a condition not unlike vampirism. This last old-one has decided to end his life following the suicide of his true love. But, as the sun rises over a rough London estate, bringing his death with it, the old-one is held up at knifepoint and stabbed. His assailant runs, pocketing the knife that is drenched in the blood of this creature, now dead…
With life on the estate being what it is, it’s not long before a young, abused and neglected child cuts himself on the infected blade and the old-one finds himself resurrected in the battered body of this mewling infant. So begins his quest to retrieve the knife before he becomes lost in the feral underbelly of the city.
The Knife is a short, angry novel, which will bring events seen through your TV into sharp focus: the murders of Baby P, Jamie Bulger and Damilola Taylor. It joins the dots between the social neglect that led to those terrible crimes and the explosion of violence that tore through the streets of London in the summer of 2011.
With life on the estate being what it is, it’s not long before a young, abused and neglected child cuts himself on the infected blade and the old-one finds himself resurrected in the battered body of this mewling infant. So begins his quest to retrieve the knife before he becomes lost in the feral underbelly of the city.
The Knife is a short, angry novel, which will bring events seen through your TV into sharp focus: the murders of Baby P, Jamie Bulger and Damilola Taylor. It joins the dots between the social neglect that led to those terrible crimes and the explosion of violence that tore through the streets of London in the summer of 2011.
282 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
September 5, 2017
Wow. Loved it!
Beautifully written. Intriguing story.
Could not put it down!
Recommended!
Received as a Gr giveaway.
Beautifully written. Intriguing story.
Could not put it down!
Recommended!
Received as a Gr giveaway.
August 7, 2017
Review copy
The Truants is Lee Markham's debut novel and in some ways, it shows.
I admit I had a love-hate relationship with this book. It was a bit esoteric for me and the author had an annoying habit of just listing the character's actions. For example...
"She looks at him, and shakes her head. Then she pulls the sheet up and over his face, hangs the notes back on the end of the bed and pads out of the room. The door swishes quietly closed behind her. And the boy sits up. The sheet falls away and his eyes open. They are pale. Blue irises. They'd been brown, like his skin, when he died. But now they are pale, as is his skin without blood. He has changed."
The writing style aside there is much to like in The Truants. Without ever mentioning vampires, the author manages to tell the story of the last of their kind who, a week apart, end things on the same park bench by staying out in the sun. But, due to unforeseen circumstances, they are doomed to begin again.
"And he dies. For just a moment, he dies, and he submits, and he gives himself to me. This feral little rat-child kneels before me and prays for my grace. I give it to him. Then I open our eyes. And we rise."
Overall, The Truants, is decidedly different, in a good way. Twisted, and filled with some remarkable imagery, and a creep factor that is exceptionally high.
Recommended.
The Truants is published by The Overlook Press and is available in both paperback and e-book formats.
From the author's bio - Lee Markham is the founder of the children’s publishing house Chestnut Tree Tales and No Man, an independent publishing house. He has previously worked as a brand content developer, and he has written articles for magazines including Admap and Brand Strategy. The Truants is his debut novel.
The Truants is Lee Markham's debut novel and in some ways, it shows.
I admit I had a love-hate relationship with this book. It was a bit esoteric for me and the author had an annoying habit of just listing the character's actions. For example...
"She looks at him, and shakes her head. Then she pulls the sheet up and over his face, hangs the notes back on the end of the bed and pads out of the room. The door swishes quietly closed behind her. And the boy sits up. The sheet falls away and his eyes open. They are pale. Blue irises. They'd been brown, like his skin, when he died. But now they are pale, as is his skin without blood. He has changed."
The writing style aside there is much to like in The Truants. Without ever mentioning vampires, the author manages to tell the story of the last of their kind who, a week apart, end things on the same park bench by staying out in the sun. But, due to unforeseen circumstances, they are doomed to begin again.
"And he dies. For just a moment, he dies, and he submits, and he gives himself to me. This feral little rat-child kneels before me and prays for my grace. I give it to him. Then I open our eyes. And we rise."
Overall, The Truants, is decidedly different, in a good way. Twisted, and filled with some remarkable imagery, and a creep factor that is exceptionally high.
Recommended.
The Truants is published by The Overlook Press and is available in both paperback and e-book formats.
From the author's bio - Lee Markham is the founder of the children’s publishing house Chestnut Tree Tales and No Man, an independent publishing house. He has previously worked as a brand content developer, and he has written articles for magazines including Admap and Brand Strategy. The Truants is his debut novel.
November 30, 2017
One of my favourite vampire crime noir series is the Joe Pitt novels by Charlie Huston. So any similar creation gets an instant comparsion ( I know its unfair but my brain immediately does it). This sounds like a great concept but it.didnt work for me. The characters weren't overly likeable. The plot was pretty standard but simply paced. I just found the writing a little strange and it didnt flow for me. The sentence structures were too stagnated and staccato in style. Might appeal to some but didnt work for me.
October 31, 2017
I won this book in a goodreads drawing.
A very old vampire is stabbed by a magic knife, and now everybody stabbed by the knife gets possessed. A new twist on the old vampirism as infection angle, this time tying it to violence.
A very old vampire is stabbed by a magic knife, and now everybody stabbed by the knife gets possessed. A new twist on the old vampirism as infection angle, this time tying it to violence.
May 25, 2017
This review can also be found on my blog The Tattooed Book Geek: https://thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress...
I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
!!!Spoiler warning!!! Whilst I try my best to always stay away from spoilers, this review will contain a couple. I'm a fantasy fan, particularly the grimdark sub-genre and as such, I like dark, visceral, violent, grim and bloody tales. I have become accustomed to them and nothing much really bothers me while I'm reading, gaming or watching TV/film. Saying that however, there are a couple of instances in The Truants, near to the very start that unsettled me and I feel need mention.
Firstly, I abhor cruelty to animals in real-life and it's one of the things that I don't like reading about or watching, in The Truants there's a part with a pet dog, the owner, a drug-addled hoody wearing crackhead chav by the name of Ste kicks the dog twice during the course of a couple of pages, it's only a very small thing and the dog is a vicious and nasty canine but I immediately thought 'piece of scum/bastard/filth' it served no purpose other than to show the lowlife as the thug he is and it was unnecessary violence. You might be questioning how something so trivial can be an issue for me when I read books with battles full of visceral combat and decapitation. Simple, fantasy is not real, cruelty to animals is and I'm a believer that anyone who hits a pet deserves it back tenfold. I guess we all have things that we disagree with and don't like to read about when reading and this is one of my only triggers.
Secondly, and this was the major issue for me, that same drug-addled chav crackhead has a girlfriend and child (Donna and Peter). Living in a flat that resembles a den of depravity, the child is neglected and abused, the poor two-year-old is left dirty, soiled and alone in his squalid room whilst the adults get high and watch porn, I guess my thought that these sort of people watch Jeremy Kyle was wrong! Sadly, just like the abuse of pets it's something that occurs regularly in reality, especially in the type of settings depicted in The Truants, a lower class, tenement style council estate full of scum (no offence is meant as the residents in The Truants regardless of their station and whether they live in multi-million pound mansions or a council flat are not decent and upstanding citizens, they are the dregs of society and the social underclass).
From the blurb you will have read the mention of the knife that the old-one wants to get back, the hoody (yes, another drug addled smackhead) who stabbed him goes to the flat with the child to get a hit of drugs from Ste, his supplier. Unbeknownst to the adults, the child 'Peter' creeps out of his room and cuts himself on the knife which has fallen out of the chavs pocket. Peter starts to cry, making a noise and disrupting the adults, especially Ste who's cooking up the other chavs hit of drugs. Due to the interruption and just because he's a bastard Ste hits him in the stomach, Markham describes how Peter toddles back to the room, realising that something inside is damaged, broken and that he can't breathe, then laying down to die. Ste murders his two-year-old, let's not bandy words and use terms like 'accidental death' or shit like that a grown man punching a two-year-old, the outcome is sadly inevitable. It's an integral part of the story as the knife cut and subsequent death allows the old one to enter and take over Peter but damn, it was uncomfortable reading!
I'm fully aware that a story about vampires is going to be dark and that there will be unsettling moments and that is my point about me being a grimdark fan, I read gritty and grim books ,often containing copious amounts of grisly bloodshed and death on an epic scale and yet these two occurrences in The Truants, especially the death of Peter made me feel really uncomfortable. If they make someone like myself uneasy who is accustomed to violence and harsh events in books, then those of a more delicate disposition would find it even harder and upsetting to read.
I've found The Truants a hard book to review and that's why this resembles more a collection of my thoughts than a coherent well-structured review. I have to admit that I considered not finishing the actual book after Peter's death, it unsettled me, it was uncomfortable to read and I stepped away from the book for a few days while I considered whether or not to continue reading, putting the book down and asking myself do I want to read any more? The book itself is only around 250 pages and I'd read the first 50 pages which is one of the main reasons why I continued and finished the book, due to its short length and I decided that I wanted to see where the story went, I also doubted that there would be any further scenes that were quite so chilling than the murder of Peter and I was right. If The Truants had been 400 or more pages in length then I can't say that I'd have completed the book, it would have been too long and too many pages to get through after the heinous events at the start. As it was, with The Truants I will steal an apt phrase from Magnus Magnusson and say it was a case of 'I've started so I'll finish'.
When you get to the end of a book, if the book has been great throughout and you find the ending to be a disappointment, it somewhat sours the whole experience of the book as it's what you are left with, the poor last impression. Likewise, if a book isn't particularly great but the ending really pulls it all together, it improves your thoughts overall on the book as the last thing you read about, you enjoyed. With The Truants the ending for me was irrelevant, it could have been the best book ever written but I couldn't shake what had happened back in a few paragraphs in the initial 50 pages. When I got to the ending and had finished it was still the beginning that was playing on my mind.
I'm being negative with this review, I know that, but I'm just being honest and I'm also trying my best to not be needlessly negative. I always try to look for the positive aspects in a book I didn't like, to counterbalance the negative and there is some good ideas in The Truants. The very beginning is an interesting concept that is written well. The old-one sat on the bench waiting to die, Markham does a good job of depicting the thought that it's a simple thing to kill yourself and die but it's far harder to work up the courage to actually do it. It's after the old one has been stabbed that for me things went down hill, those two events I've mentioned soured my reading experience and are my lasting impression of the book, harsh but unfortunately, it's true.
Markham is a decent writer, I liked his style, the pacing in The Truants is fast and the story flows well. As you follow the knife's journey, trading hands from one person to another you find that Markham is good at describing the lower class society of the UK and evoking a bleak setting and tale. The old-one refers to humans as 'rats' and with Markham's writing you can't help but think that it's a valid view of the present-day state of humanity and the gutter it dwells in.
The Truants is also deep, it's not just a vampire novel but it is a very interesting take on the whole vampire mythology, a Twilight sparkly vampire the ancient old-one is not and I enjoyed the dialogue and outcome between the old-one and the original vampire late on. At times the whole vampire part is very understated, playing a secondary role to the books more harrowing aspects and about halfway through you realise that the book isn't a vampire book, it's a dissection of the poverty, neglect, teen gangs and knife crime culture that are rampant and rife within the UK.
The characters featured are not a likeable bunch, though The Truants isn't the type of book with good guys to root for and villains to hate where you should at least find some characters to like. On the whole, I couldn't empathise or even sympathise with any of them, if the book was meant to make me question whether it is societies fault for how they turn out, does that make me bad that I didn't feel for them? The only character I felt anything slight for was Danny, an unsuspecting young victim of knife crime but even he wanted revenge on the youth who stabbed him (he was stabbed with the knife that contained the old one's essence, so was turned into a vampire). We are told in real-life by everyone in every type of media that revenge is wrong, it's not a good thing to want and it isn't innocent. If Markham really wanted us to care for Danny and see the good in him he should have considered changing that Danny wanted revenge and had him forgive the youth. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and he only wanted revenge due to the influence of the old-one, but I think it would have worked better for the story and the character if Danny had simply forgiven the youth. Markham could have shown the old-one that not every human is a worthless rat and both the old-one and us readers that there is forgiveness in the world, a small bit of light in the dark. Something along the lines of 'every day for the rest of your life, you will have to live with what you did to me, you took my life, make yours count, I forgive you' I just think it would have shown the goodness and innocence in Danny better than him wanting revenge, just letting it go, which he does in the end. I just think a conversation between Danny and the youth who stabbed him would have had that emotional pull, that for me, the book had been sorely lacking throughout. Though the ending does bring us a little hope to the forefront after the darkness of the near entirety of the book.
With Pokemon you've 'gotta catch' em all' and with books you 'can't like them all' and this is one I couldn't like due to the events at the beginning. They stayed with me throughout the reading and even as I write this Peter's death still makes me uneasy with part of me thinking I should have stopped reading after that, going on to something that I'd have enjoyed more instead of spending a week struggling through the following 200 pages. But, a small part is also glad that I endured to the end of The Truants as it's an informative and unique if somewhat disturbing look into the degradation and underbelly of modern society.
Remember, this review is only my own opinion, The Truants currently has 12 reviews on Amazon UK that are all 4 or 5 stars and what one person dislikes, another might enjoy. I appear to be the odd one out, so maybe it's just me!
Markham, I do think that you are a talented author who knows how to tell a story and I will wish you well with future books, unfortunately, The Truants just wasn't for me.
I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
!!!Spoiler warning!!! Whilst I try my best to always stay away from spoilers, this review will contain a couple. I'm a fantasy fan, particularly the grimdark sub-genre and as such, I like dark, visceral, violent, grim and bloody tales. I have become accustomed to them and nothing much really bothers me while I'm reading, gaming or watching TV/film. Saying that however, there are a couple of instances in The Truants, near to the very start that unsettled me and I feel need mention.
Firstly, I abhor cruelty to animals in real-life and it's one of the things that I don't like reading about or watching, in The Truants there's a part with a pet dog, the owner, a drug-addled hoody wearing crackhead chav by the name of Ste kicks the dog twice during the course of a couple of pages, it's only a very small thing and the dog is a vicious and nasty canine but I immediately thought 'piece of scum/bastard/filth' it served no purpose other than to show the lowlife as the thug he is and it was unnecessary violence. You might be questioning how something so trivial can be an issue for me when I read books with battles full of visceral combat and decapitation. Simple, fantasy is not real, cruelty to animals is and I'm a believer that anyone who hits a pet deserves it back tenfold. I guess we all have things that we disagree with and don't like to read about when reading and this is one of my only triggers.
Secondly, and this was the major issue for me, that same drug-addled chav crackhead has a girlfriend and child (Donna and Peter). Living in a flat that resembles a den of depravity, the child is neglected and abused, the poor two-year-old is left dirty, soiled and alone in his squalid room whilst the adults get high and watch porn, I guess my thought that these sort of people watch Jeremy Kyle was wrong! Sadly, just like the abuse of pets it's something that occurs regularly in reality, especially in the type of settings depicted in The Truants, a lower class, tenement style council estate full of scum (no offence is meant as the residents in The Truants regardless of their station and whether they live in multi-million pound mansions or a council flat are not decent and upstanding citizens, they are the dregs of society and the social underclass).
From the blurb you will have read the mention of the knife that the old-one wants to get back, the hoody (yes, another drug addled smackhead) who stabbed him goes to the flat with the child to get a hit of drugs from Ste, his supplier. Unbeknownst to the adults, the child 'Peter' creeps out of his room and cuts himself on the knife which has fallen out of the chavs pocket. Peter starts to cry, making a noise and disrupting the adults, especially Ste who's cooking up the other chavs hit of drugs. Due to the interruption and just because he's a bastard Ste hits him in the stomach, Markham describes how Peter toddles back to the room, realising that something inside is damaged, broken and that he can't breathe, then laying down to die. Ste murders his two-year-old, let's not bandy words and use terms like 'accidental death' or shit like that a grown man punching a two-year-old, the outcome is sadly inevitable. It's an integral part of the story as the knife cut and subsequent death allows the old one to enter and take over Peter but damn, it was uncomfortable reading!
I'm fully aware that a story about vampires is going to be dark and that there will be unsettling moments and that is my point about me being a grimdark fan, I read gritty and grim books ,often containing copious amounts of grisly bloodshed and death on an epic scale and yet these two occurrences in The Truants, especially the death of Peter made me feel really uncomfortable. If they make someone like myself uneasy who is accustomed to violence and harsh events in books, then those of a more delicate disposition would find it even harder and upsetting to read.
I've found The Truants a hard book to review and that's why this resembles more a collection of my thoughts than a coherent well-structured review. I have to admit that I considered not finishing the actual book after Peter's death, it unsettled me, it was uncomfortable to read and I stepped away from the book for a few days while I considered whether or not to continue reading, putting the book down and asking myself do I want to read any more? The book itself is only around 250 pages and I'd read the first 50 pages which is one of the main reasons why I continued and finished the book, due to its short length and I decided that I wanted to see where the story went, I also doubted that there would be any further scenes that were quite so chilling than the murder of Peter and I was right. If The Truants had been 400 or more pages in length then I can't say that I'd have completed the book, it would have been too long and too many pages to get through after the heinous events at the start. As it was, with The Truants I will steal an apt phrase from Magnus Magnusson and say it was a case of 'I've started so I'll finish'.
When you get to the end of a book, if the book has been great throughout and you find the ending to be a disappointment, it somewhat sours the whole experience of the book as it's what you are left with, the poor last impression. Likewise, if a book isn't particularly great but the ending really pulls it all together, it improves your thoughts overall on the book as the last thing you read about, you enjoyed. With The Truants the ending for me was irrelevant, it could have been the best book ever written but I couldn't shake what had happened back in a few paragraphs in the initial 50 pages. When I got to the ending and had finished it was still the beginning that was playing on my mind.
I'm being negative with this review, I know that, but I'm just being honest and I'm also trying my best to not be needlessly negative. I always try to look for the positive aspects in a book I didn't like, to counterbalance the negative and there is some good ideas in The Truants. The very beginning is an interesting concept that is written well. The old-one sat on the bench waiting to die, Markham does a good job of depicting the thought that it's a simple thing to kill yourself and die but it's far harder to work up the courage to actually do it. It's after the old one has been stabbed that for me things went down hill, those two events I've mentioned soured my reading experience and are my lasting impression of the book, harsh but unfortunately, it's true.
Markham is a decent writer, I liked his style, the pacing in The Truants is fast and the story flows well. As you follow the knife's journey, trading hands from one person to another you find that Markham is good at describing the lower class society of the UK and evoking a bleak setting and tale. The old-one refers to humans as 'rats' and with Markham's writing you can't help but think that it's a valid view of the present-day state of humanity and the gutter it dwells in.
The Truants is also deep, it's not just a vampire novel but it is a very interesting take on the whole vampire mythology, a Twilight sparkly vampire the ancient old-one is not and I enjoyed the dialogue and outcome between the old-one and the original vampire late on. At times the whole vampire part is very understated, playing a secondary role to the books more harrowing aspects and about halfway through you realise that the book isn't a vampire book, it's a dissection of the poverty, neglect, teen gangs and knife crime culture that are rampant and rife within the UK.
The characters featured are not a likeable bunch, though The Truants isn't the type of book with good guys to root for and villains to hate where you should at least find some characters to like. On the whole, I couldn't empathise or even sympathise with any of them, if the book was meant to make me question whether it is societies fault for how they turn out, does that make me bad that I didn't feel for them? The only character I felt anything slight for was Danny, an unsuspecting young victim of knife crime but even he wanted revenge on the youth who stabbed him (he was stabbed with the knife that contained the old one's essence, so was turned into a vampire). We are told in real-life by everyone in every type of media that revenge is wrong, it's not a good thing to want and it isn't innocent. If Markham really wanted us to care for Danny and see the good in him he should have considered changing that Danny wanted revenge and had him forgive the youth. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and he only wanted revenge due to the influence of the old-one, but I think it would have worked better for the story and the character if Danny had simply forgiven the youth. Markham could have shown the old-one that not every human is a worthless rat and both the old-one and us readers that there is forgiveness in the world, a small bit of light in the dark. Something along the lines of 'every day for the rest of your life, you will have to live with what you did to me, you took my life, make yours count, I forgive you' I just think it would have shown the goodness and innocence in Danny better than him wanting revenge, just letting it go, which he does in the end. I just think a conversation between Danny and the youth who stabbed him would have had that emotional pull, that for me, the book had been sorely lacking throughout. Though the ending does bring us a little hope to the forefront after the darkness of the near entirety of the book.
With Pokemon you've 'gotta catch' em all' and with books you 'can't like them all' and this is one I couldn't like due to the events at the beginning. They stayed with me throughout the reading and even as I write this Peter's death still makes me uneasy with part of me thinking I should have stopped reading after that, going on to something that I'd have enjoyed more instead of spending a week struggling through the following 200 pages. But, a small part is also glad that I endured to the end of The Truants as it's an informative and unique if somewhat disturbing look into the degradation and underbelly of modern society.
Remember, this review is only my own opinion, The Truants currently has 12 reviews on Amazon UK that are all 4 or 5 stars and what one person dislikes, another might enjoy. I appear to be the odd one out, so maybe it's just me!
Markham, I do think that you are a talented author who knows how to tell a story and I will wish you well with future books, unfortunately, The Truants just wasn't for me.
Read
November 27, 2017So this book is 256 pages long, which isn't long by any means. And I managed to get to page 186...and it was a struggle.,.and I can't continue. So yep, this is one of a few select DNF books for me and yep, I'm still reviewing it because I've read enough to form an opinion.
"The Truants" features mean, dirty and gritty vampires, which is how I prefer my vamps. And I really looked forward to reading it. However, the problem with this book for me lies in the fact that I never felt attached to ANY character. In fact, I hated them all. It's told in first-person POV which is fine. But "the old one" is a jerk and even though he decided to finally end it all, thanks to a stupid teen, or "rat" as the old one calls ALL humans, his essences ends up on the blade of a knife before he does so and now a part of him is ending up in people all over the city. I sort of felt sorry for Danny, a 10-year-old who ends up "infected" but I couldn't even root for him.
This book contains child abuse and animal abuse as well as lots of stupidity. I can't stand by animal abuse but it actually fit with the plot and if only the dog would have survived longer, I may have found a "character" I could cheer on. So I think people will either love or hate this book. I checked some reviews before making the DNF plunge and lots of people seem to like it a lot and think Markum is making some statement about society as a whole. I will consider reading this author again in the future, but am not in any hurry.
"The Truants" features mean, dirty and gritty vampires, which is how I prefer my vamps. And I really looked forward to reading it. However, the problem with this book for me lies in the fact that I never felt attached to ANY character. In fact, I hated them all. It's told in first-person POV which is fine. But "the old one" is a jerk and even though he decided to finally end it all, thanks to a stupid teen, or "rat" as the old one calls ALL humans, his essences ends up on the blade of a knife before he does so and now a part of him is ending up in people all over the city. I sort of felt sorry for Danny, a 10-year-old who ends up "infected" but I couldn't even root for him.
This book contains child abuse and animal abuse as well as lots of stupidity. I can't stand by animal abuse but it actually fit with the plot and if only the dog would have survived longer, I may have found a "character" I could cheer on. So I think people will either love or hate this book. I checked some reviews before making the DNF plunge and lots of people seem to like it a lot and think Markum is making some statement about society as a whole. I will consider reading this author again in the future, but am not in any hurry.
December 23, 2017
The “Old One” is the last of an ancient immortal race, he is centuries old and is awaiting death with the rise of the sun. Following in the footsteps of his lover, who has already taken this route. But things go awry when he is stabbed, his blood carried like a plague ready to infect others in the inner city estates. When his blood infects another, his consciousness is transferred across to it’s new host.
Now this is a hard to read at times book, there are mentions of cruelty to a dog and neglect of a child, be warned! This story has a “hive” aspect to it, with a controlling leader over it’s workers, but it then delves a lot further than that. As the consciousness awakens, it takes in the the way some people live their lives in a poverty, drink and drug ridden section of society. The vampire aspect of this story is actually a “Trojan Horse” concealing a much darker, grim and depraved story. It explores the filth, stench and grim ridden slums and the desperate people who inhabit them. Now this is bleak reading, but I found also quite addictive and compelling as there is a hint of hope.
The story is told from several perspectives, giving a “both sides of the fence” viewpoint, as well as giving first hand accounts of those living in the estates and the how they struggle to live. This also has mentions of riots and I was reminded of the London Riots, and the child neglect, again putting me in mind of the case that was in the news headlines regarding Baby P a few years ago.
When I started this book I thought i was going to race through it, but that really was not the case, and it was not what I was expecting, I took my time over it. I am annoyed that it has been sat on my shelf since I bought it back in May and it has taken me until now (December) to read it.
Now this is a little difficult to recommend to readers, I liked a hell of a lot, but I am also aware that there are things that will not sit right with some readers, and this I get. Yes it has a horror / fantasy factor to it. But also an Dark Urban Fiction ( if there is such a thing), but it is very dark, real, gritty and truthful about what happens in the world, just look at the news, (not the vampire bit though) !
Now this is a hard to read at times book, there are mentions of cruelty to a dog and neglect of a child, be warned! This story has a “hive” aspect to it, with a controlling leader over it’s workers, but it then delves a lot further than that. As the consciousness awakens, it takes in the the way some people live their lives in a poverty, drink and drug ridden section of society. The vampire aspect of this story is actually a “Trojan Horse” concealing a much darker, grim and depraved story. It explores the filth, stench and grim ridden slums and the desperate people who inhabit them. Now this is bleak reading, but I found also quite addictive and compelling as there is a hint of hope.
The story is told from several perspectives, giving a “both sides of the fence” viewpoint, as well as giving first hand accounts of those living in the estates and the how they struggle to live. This also has mentions of riots and I was reminded of the London Riots, and the child neglect, again putting me in mind of the case that was in the news headlines regarding Baby P a few years ago.
When I started this book I thought i was going to race through it, but that really was not the case, and it was not what I was expecting, I took my time over it. I am annoyed that it has been sat on my shelf since I bought it back in May and it has taken me until now (December) to read it.
Now this is a little difficult to recommend to readers, I liked a hell of a lot, but I am also aware that there are things that will not sit right with some readers, and this I get. Yes it has a horror / fantasy factor to it. But also an Dark Urban Fiction ( if there is such a thing), but it is very dark, real, gritty and truthful about what happens in the world, just look at the news, (not the vampire bit though) !
July 29, 2020
The “Old One”(he was never given a name) was the last of his kind, he was waiting for the sun to rise, so that he could rise and turn into ashes just like his lover did a week ago, following her footsteps was his plan, but his plan failed because a hooded guy stabbed him and the Old-one in return broke his arm as he hated human, he called them as 'Rats', just before burning from inside out, unaware of his existence, the old-one end up into a small child. His blood was in the knife, the hooded guy named Cal, went to his friend's house Ste, to help him with his broken arm, the knife was still in his pocket, Ste's son Peter comes out and accidentally cuts his finger from the knife and Peter dies, making him the host for the old one, with the help of Peter and Danny (Cal returns to his home and his brother John, takes the knife with him secretly without Cal's knowledge and accidentally stabs Danny which infects him too) the old one's need to find the knife before it infects anyone else, but later people do get infected and it spreads like a plague, many people killed in process of finding the knife, many other characters which are main to the plot, Anna and Tom investigate the crime scenes (The ashes on the bench and Ste's house)and they gonna play a good role in the old one's life, but there is someone else who wants to stop the old one. Who is it? Will the old one find the knife? or will he be infecting more people? What role did Anna play?
This book is indeed engaging and well written, but it was hard for me to read the first few pages as the language was something I never saw before. Characters were not explained much, but their nature and emotions were. Reading something so dark, grim, blood crawling scenes made me stop reading mid-way on many occasions as it was my first book with such crime scenes. Took me time but it was worth it. The story is told from several character's points of view, one scenario explanation from two characters was something new to me so it made it more appealing.
There is mention of drug use, child abuse and animal abuse, so yes I felt depressed at those parts.
A mixture of fantasy and horror made me look at vampires in a different way. Must-read.
This book is indeed engaging and well written, but it was hard for me to read the first few pages as the language was something I never saw before. Characters were not explained much, but their nature and emotions were. Reading something so dark, grim, blood crawling scenes made me stop reading mid-way on many occasions as it was my first book with such crime scenes. Took me time but it was worth it. The story is told from several character's points of view, one scenario explanation from two characters was something new to me so it made it more appealing.
There is mention of drug use, child abuse and animal abuse, so yes I felt depressed at those parts.
A mixture of fantasy and horror made me look at vampires in a different way. Must-read.
July 30, 2017
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This review originally appeared on New York Journal of Books: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...
Early one morning in a London neighborhood, a man waits on a park bench for the sun to rise—only, he is no man, but something far older that lurks in the night and feeds upon blood. His mate, as old or possibly older than himself, had committed suicide the week before in the exact same manner on the same bench in the sunlight.
However, in his final moment, something unexpected happens: a mugger tries to take the Old One’s money, threatening him with a knife; and although the Old One vanquishes his attacker and lets himself be engulfed by flames, he overlooked one detail: The mugger’s knife managed to cut its target.
In the hours and days and weeks following, the knife cuts other people, some by accident and some on purpose, passing the Old One’s blood into them . . . and with it, his spirit, soon spreading into an ever-increasing number of hosts as a shared consciousness.
Despite his rebirth, the Old One is only interested in lying low and passing into darkness—but to do so, he must reclaim that knife. And with a growing trail of bodies, the Old One (in his growing number of vessels) is now being hunted by police . . . as well as by someone else.
Yes, this is a vampire novel, but not one which aims for dramatic pathos. These are truly the vampires that stalk the night in the bodies of the dead, haunting and supping upon the blood of the living. Markham manages to treat the vampires of his novel in a classically terrifying sense, while infusing them with brilliant new ideas and themes in this refreshingly original tale.
Throughout the novel, Markham manages to avoid referring to the Old One and his vessels as vampires. In some ways, this enhances the tension, bringing new life into the overdone trope by treating it as a creeping menace—yet without focusing on characters stopping to question and figure out what’s going on.
The Truants is very intentionally set in the streets and amongst the inner-city youth of contemporary London, living with poverty, grime, drugs, and gangs. With this gritty backdrop, the gothic tropes of nocturnal bloodlust are redefined into something more akin to the threat of street-level tension, with the horror nicely doubling as a socio-political conversation.
But again, make no mistake about the true nature of this book: It is a horror novel, and it is scary. There are some powerfully unsettling scenes, especially when the Old One’s multiple-host presence comes into play. There are merciless deaths of children and women and even animals, as well as of men—and of course, this being a vampire novel, with death comes un-life.
Besides the refreshing take on the mythology and presentation of the vampires, The Truants also showcases some impressive storytelling acrobatics, with the narrative shifting from suspenseful third-person descriptions to moody and ominous first-person accounts from the Old One.
At one early point, the Old One reflects of his first victim, a little boy who’d accidentally cut his finger on the stolen knife. “He lays his hand back down by his side and doesn’t try to sake on any more breaths. Then he closes his eyes. And he dies. For just a moment, he dies, and he submits, and he gives himself to me. This feral little rat-child kneels before me and prays for my grace. I give it to him. Then I open our eyes. And we rise.”
Later, in another vessel, the Old One awakens in a hospital morgue and tries to figure out how far his influence has been spread. “He prowls the rooftop, looking and hearing and feeling, searching for the beacon that will tell him where to go. Because out there, somewhere, behind one of those countless, dead-eyed windows, someone is looking back at him. And that someone is the other half of him. And he needs to find him before he splits again.”
The knife serves the plot as more than a McGuffin; it represents an ongoing dilemma for the Old One and an encroaching force upon the lives of the innocent humans who possess it. In some ways, it is a character unto itself.
There are deliberate shifts back and forth in the timeline of events as the Old One moves (and spreads) about, and as other characters are affected by his actions. At times, these narrative shifts can be a little jarring, disorienting, or even confusing, but it all comes together very organically in the end.
In many ways, this novel is prime material for a possible TV series. There are enough split narratives, character arcs, and subplots that could very easily be explored or expanded without losing the overall direction or vibe of the tale. Yet as multilayered and multifaceted as the book is, it is still a short and tight tale, and with its many short subchapters, it reads very quickly.
Lee Markham’s The Truants is a welcome and memorable addition to the vampire subgenre, full of original ideas and some nightmarishly vivid imagery. And considering that this is his debut, told with all the confidence and finesse of a veteran writer, it marks the beginning of a promising career.
Early one morning in a London neighborhood, a man waits on a park bench for the sun to rise—only, he is no man, but something far older that lurks in the night and feeds upon blood. His mate, as old or possibly older than himself, had committed suicide the week before in the exact same manner on the same bench in the sunlight.
However, in his final moment, something unexpected happens: a mugger tries to take the Old One’s money, threatening him with a knife; and although the Old One vanquishes his attacker and lets himself be engulfed by flames, he overlooked one detail: The mugger’s knife managed to cut its target.
In the hours and days and weeks following, the knife cuts other people, some by accident and some on purpose, passing the Old One’s blood into them . . . and with it, his spirit, soon spreading into an ever-increasing number of hosts as a shared consciousness.
Despite his rebirth, the Old One is only interested in lying low and passing into darkness—but to do so, he must reclaim that knife. And with a growing trail of bodies, the Old One (in his growing number of vessels) is now being hunted by police . . . as well as by someone else.
Yes, this is a vampire novel, but not one which aims for dramatic pathos. These are truly the vampires that stalk the night in the bodies of the dead, haunting and supping upon the blood of the living. Markham manages to treat the vampires of his novel in a classically terrifying sense, while infusing them with brilliant new ideas and themes in this refreshingly original tale.
Throughout the novel, Markham manages to avoid referring to the Old One and his vessels as vampires. In some ways, this enhances the tension, bringing new life into the overdone trope by treating it as a creeping menace—yet without focusing on characters stopping to question and figure out what’s going on.
The Truants is very intentionally set in the streets and amongst the inner-city youth of contemporary London, living with poverty, grime, drugs, and gangs. With this gritty backdrop, the gothic tropes of nocturnal bloodlust are redefined into something more akin to the threat of street-level tension, with the horror nicely doubling as a socio-political conversation.
But again, make no mistake about the true nature of this book: It is a horror novel, and it is scary. There are some powerfully unsettling scenes, especially when the Old One’s multiple-host presence comes into play. There are merciless deaths of children and women and even animals, as well as of men—and of course, this being a vampire novel, with death comes un-life.
Besides the refreshing take on the mythology and presentation of the vampires, The Truants also showcases some impressive storytelling acrobatics, with the narrative shifting from suspenseful third-person descriptions to moody and ominous first-person accounts from the Old One.
At one early point, the Old One reflects of his first victim, a little boy who’d accidentally cut his finger on the stolen knife. “He lays his hand back down by his side and doesn’t try to sake on any more breaths. Then he closes his eyes. And he dies. For just a moment, he dies, and he submits, and he gives himself to me. This feral little rat-child kneels before me and prays for my grace. I give it to him. Then I open our eyes. And we rise.”
Later, in another vessel, the Old One awakens in a hospital morgue and tries to figure out how far his influence has been spread. “He prowls the rooftop, looking and hearing and feeling, searching for the beacon that will tell him where to go. Because out there, somewhere, behind one of those countless, dead-eyed windows, someone is looking back at him. And that someone is the other half of him. And he needs to find him before he splits again.”
The knife serves the plot as more than a McGuffin; it represents an ongoing dilemma for the Old One and an encroaching force upon the lives of the innocent humans who possess it. In some ways, it is a character unto itself.
There are deliberate shifts back and forth in the timeline of events as the Old One moves (and spreads) about, and as other characters are affected by his actions. At times, these narrative shifts can be a little jarring, disorienting, or even confusing, but it all comes together very organically in the end.
In many ways, this novel is prime material for a possible TV series. There are enough split narratives, character arcs, and subplots that could very easily be explored or expanded without losing the overall direction or vibe of the tale. Yet as multilayered and multifaceted as the book is, it is still a short and tight tale, and with its many short subchapters, it reads very quickly.
Lee Markham’s The Truants is a welcome and memorable addition to the vampire subgenre, full of original ideas and some nightmarishly vivid imagery. And considering that this is his debut, told with all the confidence and finesse of a veteran writer, it marks the beginning of a promising career.
December 13, 2024
A unique take on vampires, which is hard to come by
May 13, 2018
I have to confess to reading this novel on something of a whim. I request books from a variety of sources, including nb magazine and nudge-book.com. While perusing their selection I saw this title, read its blurb and thought I would give it a go. I’m incredibly grateful that I did.
I can do the plot of this novel no better justice than to quote the blurb directly: “Following his lover’s suicide, the last of the ‘old-ones’ – ancient immortal beings, as clever as they are ruthless, and unable to withstand the light of the sun – has had enough and decides to end his existence. Yet as he waits for the burning dawn on a bench near a council estate, he is held up by knifepoint by a youth and stabbed. While the old-one’s body turns to ash as the sun rises, his assailant scurries back into the estates feral underbelly with the knife in his pocket. The old-one’s blood is still seared into its sharpened blade, and as the knife does its menacing rounds his consciousness is awakened in the city’s children from the depths of the afterlife. Determined to die, he must find and destroy the knife to regain control of his soul.”
If this story sounds as intriguing to you as it did to me, then you’re unlikely to be disappointed. This is a brilliant novel, told with a real adeptness of touch. As the knife is used again and again, wounding multiple people, the old-one is awakened in each of them, splitting his consciousness amongst their number. The story is thus told from multiple perspectives, each chapter from a different character’s perspective. In a writer of less talent this might prove confusing, the various characters insubstantial cut-outs. Yet despite this being a relatively short novel – just 282 pages – the author avoids such pitfalls. The multiple strands complement each other to weave a rich tapestry, while the characters are three-dimensional.
This is a novel that’s equal parts horror, crime thriller and social commentary. As with many cities, London is a patchwork quilt, where wealth and prosperity lie side by side with real deprivation. The estates plagued by poverty are all too often riven by drugs and gangs, virtual no go areas to those who live elsewhere. The Truants touches on this hidden and shameful underbelly of our cities, how violence that would be unthinkable in more salubrious neighbourhoods is tolerated and ignored when it afflicts the residents of such sink estates. Would I be reading too much into the narrative to consider that the vampirism that takes holds, that finally pulses out to spread terror throughout the wider city, is an allegory for how the problems we as a society allow to fester in such neglected communities will eventually affect us all? Perhaps.
The horror element, the vampirism, feels fresh. As with zombies and werewolves, there are innumerable books, films and television shows that feature vampires. As with the other two pillars of this hellish triptych, it’s often tempting to dismiss the vampire genre as done to death (excuse the pun). But just like the other two, vampire fiction stubbornly refuses to die (I know, I know, I’m laying it on a bit thick here). Occasionally something will come along that breathes new life into the genre (Sigh! I know, right? Three puns in just one paragraph!) and The Truants might just be that book.
This is a really good take on the vampire story and is a brilliantly written, entertaining read. There are parts which will have your hair standing on end, parts which are brutally violent, and then there are moments of touching poignancy. In short, this is something special and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.
A thoroughly recommended 5 Stars
I can do the plot of this novel no better justice than to quote the blurb directly: “Following his lover’s suicide, the last of the ‘old-ones’ – ancient immortal beings, as clever as they are ruthless, and unable to withstand the light of the sun – has had enough and decides to end his existence. Yet as he waits for the burning dawn on a bench near a council estate, he is held up by knifepoint by a youth and stabbed. While the old-one’s body turns to ash as the sun rises, his assailant scurries back into the estates feral underbelly with the knife in his pocket. The old-one’s blood is still seared into its sharpened blade, and as the knife does its menacing rounds his consciousness is awakened in the city’s children from the depths of the afterlife. Determined to die, he must find and destroy the knife to regain control of his soul.”
If this story sounds as intriguing to you as it did to me, then you’re unlikely to be disappointed. This is a brilliant novel, told with a real adeptness of touch. As the knife is used again and again, wounding multiple people, the old-one is awakened in each of them, splitting his consciousness amongst their number. The story is thus told from multiple perspectives, each chapter from a different character’s perspective. In a writer of less talent this might prove confusing, the various characters insubstantial cut-outs. Yet despite this being a relatively short novel – just 282 pages – the author avoids such pitfalls. The multiple strands complement each other to weave a rich tapestry, while the characters are three-dimensional.
This is a novel that’s equal parts horror, crime thriller and social commentary. As with many cities, London is a patchwork quilt, where wealth and prosperity lie side by side with real deprivation. The estates plagued by poverty are all too often riven by drugs and gangs, virtual no go areas to those who live elsewhere. The Truants touches on this hidden and shameful underbelly of our cities, how violence that would be unthinkable in more salubrious neighbourhoods is tolerated and ignored when it afflicts the residents of such sink estates. Would I be reading too much into the narrative to consider that the vampirism that takes holds, that finally pulses out to spread terror throughout the wider city, is an allegory for how the problems we as a society allow to fester in such neglected communities will eventually affect us all? Perhaps.
The horror element, the vampirism, feels fresh. As with zombies and werewolves, there are innumerable books, films and television shows that feature vampires. As with the other two pillars of this hellish triptych, it’s often tempting to dismiss the vampire genre as done to death (excuse the pun). But just like the other two, vampire fiction stubbornly refuses to die (I know, I know, I’m laying it on a bit thick here). Occasionally something will come along that breathes new life into the genre (Sigh! I know, right? Three puns in just one paragraph!) and The Truants might just be that book.
This is a really good take on the vampire story and is a brilliantly written, entertaining read. There are parts which will have your hair standing on end, parts which are brutally violent, and then there are moments of touching poignancy. In short, this is something special and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.
A thoroughly recommended 5 Stars
August 20, 2014
Set in the brutalised world of the have-nots The Knife takes on modern media monsters. Yes, those scallywag hoodies are here, as a broken reflection of the feral kids from the film 'F'. Into the mix comes the vampiric, here as a conduit for ideas, hysterias, memes and notions as a virus. Here I could see echoes of David Cronenberg's Shivers and The Brood. Both perpetrator and victim, the outraged and the excuser contribute to a backdrop of deep suspicion and good old fear. I should state that I am not a fan of traditional vampire fiction, most of which I find too arch. Here the strand of the story relating to vampiric mythology I found the weakest. Personal taste: 'nough said. I craved to see more of the crazed toddler, Peter. The novel starts with his vampire infusion and is the most compelling theme of the several story threads visited throughout. A junkie Chucky of my dreams, the inappropriately astute innocent is a great motif. Having said that the characters were built well enough to justify the leaping structure of the narrative. The addressing of identity and influence was also interesting. Relating more as a hive those under the influence of the knife deal with thinning blood and perpetually diminishing cohesion.
Making good use of recent moral panics and hunger for poverty porn The Knife is ambitious for it's short length. Overall some great ideas, although some of the character interactions did come across as a touch sentimental. The structure also gave a meandering feel to the narrative and I thought that the ending suffered as a result. Left me wanting more heft to the social commentary and focus in the momentum toward the denouement.
I received the book through Goodreads First Reads but all opinions are my own.
Making good use of recent moral panics and hunger for poverty porn The Knife is ambitious for it's short length. Overall some great ideas, although some of the character interactions did come across as a touch sentimental. The structure also gave a meandering feel to the narrative and I thought that the ending suffered as a result. Left me wanting more heft to the social commentary and focus in the momentum toward the denouement.
I received the book through Goodreads First Reads but all opinions are my own.
April 24, 2023
An interesting twist on the vampire myth as the last vampire learns that his partner since the Stone Age has killed herself. Rather than face eternity alone he decides to commit suicide by waiting for the sun to claim him. His plans are thwarted however when he’s stabbed as the sun rises, his suicide remains successful, yet he retains a degree of consciousness as his soul is now being spread through each subsequent victim that falls to the blade. He must get the knife back and reclaim his soul, the problem is, someone doesn’t want him to get it back.
The Truants is a tale of the social underclass, of knife crime, drug abuse and poverty with a clever new interpretation of the Vampire mythology woven between the rat infested tower blocks. It’s beautifully written, almost poetic at times, there were several passages that literally stopped me reading for a moment it was so powerful. The way Markham details the grief of a murdered childs mother were stunning, the vile descriptions of poverty and abuse in a small flat where drug addled parents fester whilst their dirty, lice ridden child is in another room desperate for love and attention is simply heartbreaking.
The story is certainly not an easy read, but the elegant way in which it’s written pulls you through the blood and filth.
The Truants is a remarkable piece of work that demands to be read.
The Truants is a tale of the social underclass, of knife crime, drug abuse and poverty with a clever new interpretation of the Vampire mythology woven between the rat infested tower blocks. It’s beautifully written, almost poetic at times, there were several passages that literally stopped me reading for a moment it was so powerful. The way Markham details the grief of a murdered childs mother were stunning, the vile descriptions of poverty and abuse in a small flat where drug addled parents fester whilst their dirty, lice ridden child is in another room desperate for love and attention is simply heartbreaking.
The story is certainly not an easy read, but the elegant way in which it’s written pulls you through the blood and filth.
The Truants is a remarkable piece of work that demands to be read.
August 6, 2014
I received this book via goodreads first reads
Wow what a book! I loved every word of it, it was bloody brilliant. Defiantly going on the favourite shelf and I can see me reading this again and again. It's such a new take on vampires, keeps you reading all the way through, Lee Markham has a new fan in me and I WILL be reading all future works by him especially The Knife 2, which I can't wait to get my hands on. Pick this up its one great read!
Wow what a book! I loved every word of it, it was bloody brilliant. Defiantly going on the favourite shelf and I can see me reading this again and again. It's such a new take on vampires, keeps you reading all the way through, Lee Markham has a new fan in me and I WILL be reading all future works by him especially The Knife 2, which I can't wait to get my hands on. Pick this up its one great read!
October 25, 2012
An unusual and gripping tale. Highly recommended! Would be great as a film too.
September 16, 2018
Harsh, visceral and strangely poetic. Not so much a vampire yarn as a social commentary.
August 23, 2022
Vampires, and an endorsement by that delightful horror fiend and novelist, Jack Ketchum, is enough to sell me on a book. I don’t care that it’s 2022: I will never tire of reading about vampires. At their core, they are fun to read about, and there still is much to do with them, as Lee Markham’s 2017 novel, The Truants, proves. At least, I can’t recall vampire mythology that involves the vampires possessing each body that gets the “gift” of being bitten and having their blood sucked, and then each body is held in the vampire’s command as their consciousness hops around, albeit, that diminishes the vampire. (Interestingly, I don’t think Markham once used the word “vampire”, just “the Old-One”).
The premise of the novel is that the Old-One is ready to kill himself on a park bench in London because his fellow vampire, the one who turned him probably back when humans were still hunters and gathers, apparently killed herself. However, just before he can, Cal, a drug addict, accosts him, and then stabs him with a knife. That act transfers the Old-One’s blood to the knife, which then spreads like a virus to other “rats,” as the Old-One calls humans, in the area, including a two-year-infant named Peter, a dog, and a 10-year-old who just wants to watch werewolves on Harry Potter.
But as it turns out, the Old-One’s love didn’t really kill herself, but instead, she orchestrated a scheme to escape his abusive, controlling ways. She’s trying to stop him. To end the nihilism he engenders and spreads like a plague: That the rats — humans — have poisoned the Earth. Her plan to stop him doesn’t manifest before mayhem, though, like Peter, again, a two-year-old through the power of the Old-One, gnawing on the family dog, his mother, his father, and then Cal, who thereafter has his hands cut off and his teeth ripped out to send to his poor, also drug-addicted, mother. The Old-One is trying to gather a flock of sorts so he can get the knife back, and cause the aforementioned mayhem along the way. In so doing, Markham also gives a nice passage on the dangers of cults and cult leaders, especially preying on the desperate, the destitute, and the lost, as the children of this book are. At one point, the Old-One remarks, “The wonder of radicalisation [British spelling!] is its capacity for delayed gratification on the promise of prophesized glory. Not a permanent solution, but a decent enough holding pattern.” That is everything. I’ve never heard extremism, conspiracy theorizing, and cultish behavior explained so clearly and succinctly. Because that’s part of Markham’s thematic point: Some of these kids, thanks to the regular human society, were already predisposed to being vampiric; that is, it didn’t take much nudging to turn them into blood-sucking mayhem monsters. However, as was later shown in the book, that doesn’t make them irredeemable, either.
Along the way, detectives Tom and Anna are investigating the unexplainable. Anna is like the Old-One in terms of being stubbornly cynical, but Tom is our respite; he’s hopeful, and believes the arc of the world bends toward progress.
The ting is, because of the Old-One, and Anna, and the dour characters, largely abused and neglected children, Markham’s novel could come across as espousing a nihilistic viewpoint, being deeply cynical, and just plain sad to read. After all, through those characters, Markham tells us repeatedly that nothing matters; the vampiric version of, “Eat at Arby’s,” but instead of roast beef, it’s blood. The Old-One early-on even makes the observation, “Habit. Sometimes living just becomes a habit, and the longer you do it, the harder it is to kick …” However, the book bends in conjunction with Tom’s preferred worldview and arc. Even the Old-One changes, or at least, comes to realize his mistake. The message isn’t that the world is going to hell; it’s that the older one gets, the more one thinks the children aren’t capable of being handed the ball — the ball being Earth and the future — and steering Earth away from hell, even though, when they were younger, they, too, were doubted by the “old-ones” of their time.
As it happens, the children of today are capable, and will be capable, just as we are capable and were capable. Heck, the story even ends on a decidedly positive note, with Tom and his family, and Anna, and her unorthodox family being … happy. Anna disappeared mid-way through the book because she became part of the Old-One’s flock. After being saved by the original vampire, Anna, Peter, and the vampire, who is a fun play on gender roles, given she’s a woman occupying a human man’s body, form a family. That family passes Tom in a garden, but Tom doesn’t realize it’s Anna, but they wave to each other all the same. Anna is even pregnant, and Tom suggests to his wife that they should have another child. Hope. Future. Promise. It matters!
In other words, the moral of the message is that Arby’s is pretty delicious. Embrace it. Sauce it up. In all seriousness, I thoroughly enjoyed this oddball take on the vampire story, and if you are into vampires as well, I’m sure you would, too.
The premise of the novel is that the Old-One is ready to kill himself on a park bench in London because his fellow vampire, the one who turned him probably back when humans were still hunters and gathers, apparently killed herself. However, just before he can, Cal, a drug addict, accosts him, and then stabs him with a knife. That act transfers the Old-One’s blood to the knife, which then spreads like a virus to other “rats,” as the Old-One calls humans, in the area, including a two-year-infant named Peter, a dog, and a 10-year-old who just wants to watch werewolves on Harry Potter.
But as it turns out, the Old-One’s love didn’t really kill herself, but instead, she orchestrated a scheme to escape his abusive, controlling ways. She’s trying to stop him. To end the nihilism he engenders and spreads like a plague: That the rats — humans — have poisoned the Earth. Her plan to stop him doesn’t manifest before mayhem, though, like Peter, again, a two-year-old through the power of the Old-One, gnawing on the family dog, his mother, his father, and then Cal, who thereafter has his hands cut off and his teeth ripped out to send to his poor, also drug-addicted, mother. The Old-One is trying to gather a flock of sorts so he can get the knife back, and cause the aforementioned mayhem along the way. In so doing, Markham also gives a nice passage on the dangers of cults and cult leaders, especially preying on the desperate, the destitute, and the lost, as the children of this book are. At one point, the Old-One remarks, “The wonder of radicalisation [British spelling!] is its capacity for delayed gratification on the promise of prophesized glory. Not a permanent solution, but a decent enough holding pattern.” That is everything. I’ve never heard extremism, conspiracy theorizing, and cultish behavior explained so clearly and succinctly. Because that’s part of Markham’s thematic point: Some of these kids, thanks to the regular human society, were already predisposed to being vampiric; that is, it didn’t take much nudging to turn them into blood-sucking mayhem monsters. However, as was later shown in the book, that doesn’t make them irredeemable, either.
Along the way, detectives Tom and Anna are investigating the unexplainable. Anna is like the Old-One in terms of being stubbornly cynical, but Tom is our respite; he’s hopeful, and believes the arc of the world bends toward progress.
The ting is, because of the Old-One, and Anna, and the dour characters, largely abused and neglected children, Markham’s novel could come across as espousing a nihilistic viewpoint, being deeply cynical, and just plain sad to read. After all, through those characters, Markham tells us repeatedly that nothing matters; the vampiric version of, “Eat at Arby’s,” but instead of roast beef, it’s blood. The Old-One early-on even makes the observation, “Habit. Sometimes living just becomes a habit, and the longer you do it, the harder it is to kick …” However, the book bends in conjunction with Tom’s preferred worldview and arc. Even the Old-One changes, or at least, comes to realize his mistake. The message isn’t that the world is going to hell; it’s that the older one gets, the more one thinks the children aren’t capable of being handed the ball — the ball being Earth and the future — and steering Earth away from hell, even though, when they were younger, they, too, were doubted by the “old-ones” of their time.
As it happens, the children of today are capable, and will be capable, just as we are capable and were capable. Heck, the story even ends on a decidedly positive note, with Tom and his family, and Anna, and her unorthodox family being … happy. Anna disappeared mid-way through the book because she became part of the Old-One’s flock. After being saved by the original vampire, Anna, Peter, and the vampire, who is a fun play on gender roles, given she’s a woman occupying a human man’s body, form a family. That family passes Tom in a garden, but Tom doesn’t realize it’s Anna, but they wave to each other all the same. Anna is even pregnant, and Tom suggests to his wife that they should have another child. Hope. Future. Promise. It matters!
In other words, the moral of the message is that Arby’s is pretty delicious. Embrace it. Sauce it up. In all seriousness, I thoroughly enjoyed this oddball take on the vampire story, and if you are into vampires as well, I’m sure you would, too.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 7, 2017
The nitty-gritty: A visceral and bloody tale of a power struggle between two vampires.
On the train, in the tunnels, it is quiet. Nearly last train. Everyone is detritus. As is she. She closes her eyes and floats. Her hands are getting colder. Her heart feels weak. Her wrist aches. Throbs. Insistently. She goes to the place where it hurts and she rides the pain. It keeps her steady. Ensconced in the darkness behind her eyelids the throb acts like a beacon, a dark star for her to orbit. A centre of gravity. A supermassive black hole.
I’ve seen all kinds of mixed reviews for The Truants , which is one sure way to get me excited about a book. If someone loves it and someone doesn’t, then I want to find out why. And when I saw the dark and moody book cover (which by the way is excellent!), I couldn’t wait to get started. The Truants has a lot going for it, although I did have a couple of issues.
Lee Markham gives us a unique take on the vampire mythos. When the story opens, an unnamed “old-one” is sitting on a park bench, waiting for the sun to rise. He’s lamenting the recent loss of his love, who killed herself a week ago on this very bench, leaving behind nothing but scorched wood. But just before the sunrise can take him too, a punk with a knife attacks him, and his blood and essence are absorbed into the knife.
As the boy with the knife moves through the city, he manages to cut or nick more and more people, each one changing as the blood of the old-one enters their systems. Soon the city of London is overrun with vampires, who prey on the city’s “rats.” Even worse, the old-one now lives in each of his victims—watching, controlling, and influencing them. He’s created an army.
But someone is watching this happen, and she’s not happy about it. And there’s only one way to stop the carnage: find the knife and destroy it for good.
The story gets off to a fantastic start. We watch things unfold through multiple points of view, including the knife-wielding punk, a ten-year-old boy named Danny, a toddler named Peter, and a couple of police detectives who are investigating some shocking murders. I have to say the first third of the book was probably my favorite. The writing is gritty yet elegant, and Markham doesn’t flinch when it comes to describing the violence. The setting is depressing: these are people on the fringes of society: drug dealers, addicts, poor and marginalized characters who care more for their next hit than they do for their children (and the first thought I had when I started reading was that this story reminded me a lot of the movie Trainspotting).
If you’re particularly upset by child abuse and animal cruelty, then some of the scenes in this book might push you over the edge. And as much as I hate these things, I have to admit they fit within the context of the story, and so I can’t find fault with the author for including them. After writing hundreds of book reviews, I find I’m able to distance myself from the bad shit that happens in stories and simply evaluate the story on a critical level. Some authors use gratuitous violence that doesn’t make sense, but Lee Markham’s violence is completely at home in this book.
And despite the overall bleak atmosphere, there are some moments of hope and love. Danny is one of the most heartbreaking characters, a young boy who is on his way home to his mum, looking forward to her bolognaise and watching Harry Potter on TV. Except he never makes it. I loved following him through the story, as he goes from a regular kid to a reluctant vampire, and yet throughout he still retains the memories of his loving mum.
But many of the most powerful moments in the story involve grief, and the lost opportunities between two people. The mother of two horrible teens—who to be fair, are horrible probably because their mother is a drug addict herself—experiences regret when she realizes her son John has killed another child. Even though this woman is clearly unfit to be a mother in the first place, I felt for her, maybe because I’m a mother myself.
I did struggle with a couple of things, however. For such a short book, I found the pacing to be uneven. The story moves along at a pretty good pace, but sometimes in the middle of the action it slows down as the author lets the characters do some soul-searching. Now don’t get me wrong—I enjoy when characters reflect on their lives and come to conclusions about their actions, but sections of The Truants bordered on existentialism. It felt more like the author was trying to come to grips with things himself, rather than the characters, and it pulled me out of the story and made me want to skim those parts.
There are a lot of characters in this story, maybe too many, and I’ll admit some of them started to blend together. Probably the most confusing part of the book, though, was the multiple points of view. Not only does the POV move around from character to character, but it also switches from first person to third person, depending on who is speaking. Add in the fact that we don’t even know a few of the characters’ names, and sometimes it took a couple of pages to figure out who was talking.
The Truants isn’t an easy read, but occasionally I like stepping out of my comfort zone. Lee Markham is a skilled wordsmith whose beautiful prose tells a horrible story, and that’s not easy to pull off well. For readers who are willing to take a trip to the dark side, you won’t be disappointed.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Above quote was taken from an uncorrected proof, and may differ in the final version of the book.
**I have an upcoming interview with Lee Markham, so check back soon! This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy
On the train, in the tunnels, it is quiet. Nearly last train. Everyone is detritus. As is she. She closes her eyes and floats. Her hands are getting colder. Her heart feels weak. Her wrist aches. Throbs. Insistently. She goes to the place where it hurts and she rides the pain. It keeps her steady. Ensconced in the darkness behind her eyelids the throb acts like a beacon, a dark star for her to orbit. A centre of gravity. A supermassive black hole.
I’ve seen all kinds of mixed reviews for The Truants , which is one sure way to get me excited about a book. If someone loves it and someone doesn’t, then I want to find out why. And when I saw the dark and moody book cover (which by the way is excellent!), I couldn’t wait to get started. The Truants has a lot going for it, although I did have a couple of issues.
Lee Markham gives us a unique take on the vampire mythos. When the story opens, an unnamed “old-one” is sitting on a park bench, waiting for the sun to rise. He’s lamenting the recent loss of his love, who killed herself a week ago on this very bench, leaving behind nothing but scorched wood. But just before the sunrise can take him too, a punk with a knife attacks him, and his blood and essence are absorbed into the knife.
As the boy with the knife moves through the city, he manages to cut or nick more and more people, each one changing as the blood of the old-one enters their systems. Soon the city of London is overrun with vampires, who prey on the city’s “rats.” Even worse, the old-one now lives in each of his victims—watching, controlling, and influencing them. He’s created an army.
But someone is watching this happen, and she’s not happy about it. And there’s only one way to stop the carnage: find the knife and destroy it for good.
The story gets off to a fantastic start. We watch things unfold through multiple points of view, including the knife-wielding punk, a ten-year-old boy named Danny, a toddler named Peter, and a couple of police detectives who are investigating some shocking murders. I have to say the first third of the book was probably my favorite. The writing is gritty yet elegant, and Markham doesn’t flinch when it comes to describing the violence. The setting is depressing: these are people on the fringes of society: drug dealers, addicts, poor and marginalized characters who care more for their next hit than they do for their children (and the first thought I had when I started reading was that this story reminded me a lot of the movie Trainspotting).
If you’re particularly upset by child abuse and animal cruelty, then some of the scenes in this book might push you over the edge. And as much as I hate these things, I have to admit they fit within the context of the story, and so I can’t find fault with the author for including them. After writing hundreds of book reviews, I find I’m able to distance myself from the bad shit that happens in stories and simply evaluate the story on a critical level. Some authors use gratuitous violence that doesn’t make sense, but Lee Markham’s violence is completely at home in this book.
And despite the overall bleak atmosphere, there are some moments of hope and love. Danny is one of the most heartbreaking characters, a young boy who is on his way home to his mum, looking forward to her bolognaise and watching Harry Potter on TV. Except he never makes it. I loved following him through the story, as he goes from a regular kid to a reluctant vampire, and yet throughout he still retains the memories of his loving mum.
But many of the most powerful moments in the story involve grief, and the lost opportunities between two people. The mother of two horrible teens—who to be fair, are horrible probably because their mother is a drug addict herself—experiences regret when she realizes her son John has killed another child. Even though this woman is clearly unfit to be a mother in the first place, I felt for her, maybe because I’m a mother myself.
I did struggle with a couple of things, however. For such a short book, I found the pacing to be uneven. The story moves along at a pretty good pace, but sometimes in the middle of the action it slows down as the author lets the characters do some soul-searching. Now don’t get me wrong—I enjoy when characters reflect on their lives and come to conclusions about their actions, but sections of The Truants bordered on existentialism. It felt more like the author was trying to come to grips with things himself, rather than the characters, and it pulled me out of the story and made me want to skim those parts.
There are a lot of characters in this story, maybe too many, and I’ll admit some of them started to blend together. Probably the most confusing part of the book, though, was the multiple points of view. Not only does the POV move around from character to character, but it also switches from first person to third person, depending on who is speaking. Add in the fact that we don’t even know a few of the characters’ names, and sometimes it took a couple of pages to figure out who was talking.
The Truants isn’t an easy read, but occasionally I like stepping out of my comfort zone. Lee Markham is a skilled wordsmith whose beautiful prose tells a horrible story, and that’s not easy to pull off well. For readers who are willing to take a trip to the dark side, you won’t be disappointed.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Above quote was taken from an uncorrected proof, and may differ in the final version of the book.
**I have an upcoming interview with Lee Markham, so check back soon! This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy
April 26, 2019
The short version is a vampire (sort of) has decided to end his life by greeting the morning sun. Before he can, a junkie accidentally slices him in a failed stick-up. While the body burns, the consciousness of the monster lives on in the blood, finds a new host, and begins to reproduce.
If the rest of the book had only been that and how the monster tries to completely kill himself, it would have been an interesting read. The author tossed a few more characters, twists, and turns on top of the story and makes it a very good tale that peels apart modern British society and still remains an excellent morality play.
Find it! Read it!
If the rest of the book had only been that and how the monster tries to completely kill himself, it would have been an interesting read. The author tossed a few more characters, twists, and turns on top of the story and makes it a very good tale that peels apart modern British society and still remains an excellent morality play.
Find it! Read it!
November 20, 2018
The Truants begins on a park bench. As dawn approaches, a vampire who has been alive since pre-history, is waiting to end his life. A teenager approaches, demands money, pulls out a knife and stabs him. In the immediate aftermath, the knife infects two children with the old-one's blood, thwarting his suicide attempt and allowing him to intermittently control the victims: Peter, an infant who has been abused since birth; Danny, a beloved son who enjoys Harry Potter.
Author Lee Markham was inspired by real life events: murders committed by children; the London riots during summer 2011. So the book shines a light on the hellish life for many in today's Britain. Generations have lived with abuse, yet society "blames the victims of [the] sins for the sins [-] perpetrated against them." It warns that once life becomes hopeless, when "there is nothing to lose, and perhaps nothing even to gain, then why not just lash out?"
Then again, if you're just after a decent horror story, the book provides some gory scenes and a gripping account of a desperate search to retrieve a bloodied knife before it infects the city.
Author Lee Markham was inspired by real life events: murders committed by children; the London riots during summer 2011. So the book shines a light on the hellish life for many in today's Britain. Generations have lived with abuse, yet society "blames the victims of [the] sins for the sins [-] perpetrated against them." It warns that once life becomes hopeless, when "there is nothing to lose, and perhaps nothing even to gain, then why not just lash out?"
Then again, if you're just after a decent horror story, the book provides some gory scenes and a gripping account of a desperate search to retrieve a bloodied knife before it infects the city.
August 30, 2017
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway. It was definitely a unique twist on the vampire mythos. I enjoyed it, but it was confusing at some points.
July 17, 2023
"They can have it. Her words, and he'd agreed, but she'd put her money where her mouth was. They could have it. The rats had taken over the ship. And she'd thrown herself overboard, into the darkness beyond the prow of this world's gloom horizon. Devoured by flame and resignation. She'd gone. And now he was alone. On the neck where she'd done it. About to do it too."
After his lover's suicide, the last of the old ancient, vampiric beings is determined to die. But as he sits on a bench, waiting for the sun to burn him, a young man stabs him and runs away. As the knife does its bloody rounds in the city's underbelly, the old one's consciousness is transported into those whose lives are claimed by the knife carrying his blood. The old one begins his brutal rampage, determined to get his hands on the knife.
I'm convinced that somewhere in my heart, I have a vampire girlie side, and so when I saw this modern, urban vampire novel for hardly any money at all, I wanted to try it out to see if these could be the type of vampire story I would love. Unfortunately this novel didn't wow me nor did it become anything close to a new favourite, but it was still a good time. The way it dealt with vampires - these centuries old, immortal hunters and their newly turned followers - was fun and interesting.
I liked how the author tackled the mindset of an ancient immortal being. While I did get a bit tired of him constantly repeating the words "rat" and "vermin" when thinking of humans, it did set him apart from the humans he so hated and made his narration stand out from the bunch of other point of views we got. My favorite points of view were the old one, Danny - a boy who is randomly murdered and becomes, against his will, one of the old one's puppets - and I think the book suffered, for me at least, a little bit from having so many points of view. I am a very character-focused author and since the narration constantly jumped from one pov to the next, I never really felt like I was able to connect with the characters enough to care. While the ancient voices were intriguing, the only character I felt emotionally connected to was Danny, cause that poor boy asked for none of this, just wanted to watch Harry Potter with his mom and got involved in a whole lot of crazy stuff because of the old one. His ending, with him
Markham's writing style was one that I both liked and felt occasionally frustrated by. There were moments of lovely prose and description, and I do think he created the dark atmosphere of this horror story well, but sometimes his style felt a bit too clunky for me. For example this moment: "They were colleagues. Not friends. But they got on fine. Did what had to be done. Worked well enough together. They'd never slept with each other. Or ever even flirted. There was no story. No big deal. Tom was married. Happily. One kid. Anna wasn't married. No kids." This kind of staccato writing style sometimes works for me, but in this story it didn't and just frustrated me a little bit. I also think some moments and word choices bordered on feeling a bit pretentious.
The story tackled some interesting issues. Tom and Anna - the two cops who try and figure out what is going on - represent two different kinds of worldviews: Anna is a cynic who has lost her ability to believe in the goodness of people and in progress, and she has become numb in many ways, while Tom is someone who holds on to hope that people are getting better, less violent, and that there is an innate goodness in humans. I liked how both views on humanity and the violence we are able to commit felt valid. Sometimes I feel more like Anna and I see no hope for us as a species, but then I see people being good, doing good, helping others and working for a better world and I am more like Tom, who believes we are moving beyond our worst instincts that have led us, in the past, to things like world wars, crusades and violent oppression. The novel explores themes of violence and cycles of violence in both a concrete way - the knife making its rounds, infecting people with vampirism and causing chaos - and in a more philosophical way, as the author explores how people are often trapped in these heinous cycles cause they don't have the means or support to escape those situations they are, more often then not, born into. The book also touches upon why violent riots and rebellions begins, and how pent up anger, frustration, hopelessness and the feeling that no one cares about you, can erupt and lead to violent outbursts. The novel mainly focused on people who have been, in one way or another, left to fend for themselves by the society they live in, and while their bad deeds (there are not many good people in this story) are not excused, it is also brought up that these people have often felt hopeless and like they had no other choices to make.
I do wish the book had gone a bit deeper with all the more philosophical themes the book touched upon. This was a very fast-to-read, short horror novel, and it didn't have time to go super in depth with anything, but I enjoyed those moments and conversations a lot and would've loved to have more.
My last gripe about the book was how there was one black character, who was often simply referred to as the "black kid" or something like that, and multiple times did people use the n-word to describe him. There was no grander message about, for example, how black people face different kinds of struggles than white people do, even if they are in a similar sosioeconomical situation, or anything like that. It just felt like the author wanted to have a black character and then didn't do anything with him other than remind us in very clunky, uncomfortable ways of the color of his skin. It just made me feel a bit iffy.
All in all, this was a fun read and I had a good time, but I don't think this book will stick with me for super long. I will continue on my journey to find the kinds of vampires and vampire stories I like. I'm glad I gave this book a shot, but it just wasn't a new fave!
After his lover's suicide, the last of the old ancient, vampiric beings is determined to die. But as he sits on a bench, waiting for the sun to burn him, a young man stabs him and runs away. As the knife does its bloody rounds in the city's underbelly, the old one's consciousness is transported into those whose lives are claimed by the knife carrying his blood. The old one begins his brutal rampage, determined to get his hands on the knife.
I'm convinced that somewhere in my heart, I have a vampire girlie side, and so when I saw this modern, urban vampire novel for hardly any money at all, I wanted to try it out to see if these could be the type of vampire story I would love. Unfortunately this novel didn't wow me nor did it become anything close to a new favourite, but it was still a good time. The way it dealt with vampires - these centuries old, immortal hunters and their newly turned followers - was fun and interesting.
I liked how the author tackled the mindset of an ancient immortal being. While I did get a bit tired of him constantly repeating the words "rat" and "vermin" when thinking of humans, it did set him apart from the humans he so hated and made his narration stand out from the bunch of other point of views we got. My favorite points of view were the old one, Danny - a boy who is randomly murdered and becomes, against his will, one of the old one's puppets - and I think the book suffered, for me at least, a little bit from having so many points of view. I am a very character-focused author and since the narration constantly jumped from one pov to the next, I never really felt like I was able to connect with the characters enough to care. While the ancient voices were intriguing, the only character I felt emotionally connected to was Danny, cause that poor boy asked for none of this, just wanted to watch Harry Potter with his mom and got involved in a whole lot of crazy stuff because of the old one. His ending, with him
Markham's writing style was one that I both liked and felt occasionally frustrated by. There were moments of lovely prose and description, and I do think he created the dark atmosphere of this horror story well, but sometimes his style felt a bit too clunky for me. For example this moment: "They were colleagues. Not friends. But they got on fine. Did what had to be done. Worked well enough together. They'd never slept with each other. Or ever even flirted. There was no story. No big deal. Tom was married. Happily. One kid. Anna wasn't married. No kids." This kind of staccato writing style sometimes works for me, but in this story it didn't and just frustrated me a little bit. I also think some moments and word choices bordered on feeling a bit pretentious.
The story tackled some interesting issues. Tom and Anna - the two cops who try and figure out what is going on - represent two different kinds of worldviews: Anna is a cynic who has lost her ability to believe in the goodness of people and in progress, and she has become numb in many ways, while Tom is someone who holds on to hope that people are getting better, less violent, and that there is an innate goodness in humans. I liked how both views on humanity and the violence we are able to commit felt valid. Sometimes I feel more like Anna and I see no hope for us as a species, but then I see people being good, doing good, helping others and working for a better world and I am more like Tom, who believes we are moving beyond our worst instincts that have led us, in the past, to things like world wars, crusades and violent oppression. The novel explores themes of violence and cycles of violence in both a concrete way - the knife making its rounds, infecting people with vampirism and causing chaos - and in a more philosophical way, as the author explores how people are often trapped in these heinous cycles cause they don't have the means or support to escape those situations they are, more often then not, born into. The book also touches upon why violent riots and rebellions begins, and how pent up anger, frustration, hopelessness and the feeling that no one cares about you, can erupt and lead to violent outbursts. The novel mainly focused on people who have been, in one way or another, left to fend for themselves by the society they live in, and while their bad deeds (there are not many good people in this story) are not excused, it is also brought up that these people have often felt hopeless and like they had no other choices to make.
I do wish the book had gone a bit deeper with all the more philosophical themes the book touched upon. This was a very fast-to-read, short horror novel, and it didn't have time to go super in depth with anything, but I enjoyed those moments and conversations a lot and would've loved to have more.
My last gripe about the book was how there was one black character, who was often simply referred to as the "black kid" or something like that, and multiple times did people use the n-word to describe him. There was no grander message about, for example, how black people face different kinds of struggles than white people do, even if they are in a similar sosioeconomical situation, or anything like that. It just felt like the author wanted to have a black character and then didn't do anything with him other than remind us in very clunky, uncomfortable ways of the color of his skin. It just made me feel a bit iffy.
All in all, this was a fun read and I had a good time, but I don't think this book will stick with me for super long. I will continue on my journey to find the kinds of vampires and vampire stories I like. I'm glad I gave this book a shot, but it just wasn't a new fave!
April 26, 2017
This is something very different, a rare and beautiful treasure. Some might question it being called beautiful, being the visceral, industrial, cold book that it is, but it is beautiful, great beauty within its message and beauty within how it has been written and constructed.
But expect little beauty or joy from its tone or setting; Broken Britain, the forgotten (but ever growing) underbelly of the UK, where people are downtrodden and kept down by a society built on wealth and the wealthy, not those most at risk and most in need. Into this, Markham has woven vampires, and about halfway through you realise that the book isn’t about vampires at all, but that the vampires are an inspired vehicle, a metaphor, to present to the reader, in gruesome, shocking, humbling imagery and writing, a picture of everything that is wrong, broken and callous about modern life in so called ‘Great’ Britain; an essay in society’s underclass, of knife crime, social neglect, the London riots, horrific murders that made mainstream news.
In less skilled and considered hands, it could have been a preaching, righteous mess. Instead we have something bleakly stunning and doggedly thought-provoking.
It’s a demanding read, but such is its quality in how it has been written, that it doesn’t feel demanding to read. It hooks you instantly and holds you there, in its unrelenting claws until the final page, leaving you spent (in a good way) and its message lingering within you, like the vampires who possess their victims within them book.
Strap yourselves in. One of the most intelligent and erudite books I’ve read in a long while.
But expect little beauty or joy from its tone or setting; Broken Britain, the forgotten (but ever growing) underbelly of the UK, where people are downtrodden and kept down by a society built on wealth and the wealthy, not those most at risk and most in need. Into this, Markham has woven vampires, and about halfway through you realise that the book isn’t about vampires at all, but that the vampires are an inspired vehicle, a metaphor, to present to the reader, in gruesome, shocking, humbling imagery and writing, a picture of everything that is wrong, broken and callous about modern life in so called ‘Great’ Britain; an essay in society’s underclass, of knife crime, social neglect, the London riots, horrific murders that made mainstream news.
In less skilled and considered hands, it could have been a preaching, righteous mess. Instead we have something bleakly stunning and doggedly thought-provoking.
It’s a demanding read, but such is its quality in how it has been written, that it doesn’t feel demanding to read. It hooks you instantly and holds you there, in its unrelenting claws until the final page, leaving you spent (in a good way) and its message lingering within you, like the vampires who possess their victims within them book.
Strap yourselves in. One of the most intelligent and erudite books I’ve read in a long while.
October 23, 2017
Although I've seen a lot of vampires on the screen, I haven't yet read anything of this genre, and I was hooked. This is dark, really dark. And a completely different kind of love-through-the-ages type vampire story, that I haven't seen before.
The book featured some really clever plot devices, esp an infected knife that is instrumental in introducing new characters and leading us through the dark alleyways and pages of this labyrinthian underworld. Plus a brilliantly fresh take on infection and the relationship between vampires and their maker.
It's also a pretty dark portrayal of the underbelly of society and the frightening ease at which mob rule can descend. This provides an all too realistic backdrop to the fantastical tale, which at times makes this uncomfortable reading.
And with death on every page, the author doesn't hold back on gore. This isn't for the faint-hearted.
Switching between POVs in the first few chapters was really creative, and I'd have liked to have seen this developed further. For example, I would have liked to have got to know the central female character Anna more at the start.
The Truants is as gripping as it was dark. Brutal, unrelenting, carefully crafted and vividly delivered. It is a tale that stays with you long after the final chapter. And I sincerely hope it makes it to the screen one day.
The book featured some really clever plot devices, esp an infected knife that is instrumental in introducing new characters and leading us through the dark alleyways and pages of this labyrinthian underworld. Plus a brilliantly fresh take on infection and the relationship between vampires and their maker.
It's also a pretty dark portrayal of the underbelly of society and the frightening ease at which mob rule can descend. This provides an all too realistic backdrop to the fantastical tale, which at times makes this uncomfortable reading.
And with death on every page, the author doesn't hold back on gore. This isn't for the faint-hearted.
Switching between POVs in the first few chapters was really creative, and I'd have liked to have seen this developed further. For example, I would have liked to have got to know the central female character Anna more at the start.
The Truants is as gripping as it was dark. Brutal, unrelenting, carefully crafted and vividly delivered. It is a tale that stays with you long after the final chapter. And I sincerely hope it makes it to the screen one day.
August 11, 2014
Wow. What a story! I don't think I can even put it into words other than WHOAH.
This is unlike anything I have ever read before and it is entirely delicious. I gobbled it up. At first I found it quite confusing - I still don't understand just exactly what I was reading about - but things were happening all over the place and it didn't matter whether or not I understood it because it was so freaking GOOD. It held my attention completely.
The only reservation I have in rating this a full 5 stars is the rampant littering of the story with F-words. I mean, I get it - the story involves some pretty trashy people and they have gutter mouths. It helps the author keep things "realistic". But for goodness' sake did it have to be spelled out each time?! /:
Also, it would be nice to have an explanation as to just what exactly these beings - these "old-ones" - were. I was disappointed that the end didn't really explain who/what she was, or what her origin was; more about the beginning when she and he first meet - the whole him-seeing-her-and-taking-her-hand thing. What was that?? I don't understand but I want to so badly!
This is a uniquely dark, fierce, gripping story with a plot that packs a punch. And then a bite. And then another punch.
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This is unlike anything I have ever read before and it is entirely delicious. I gobbled it up. At first I found it quite confusing - I still don't understand just exactly what I was reading about - but things were happening all over the place and it didn't matter whether or not I understood it because it was so freaking GOOD. It held my attention completely.
The only reservation I have in rating this a full 5 stars is the rampant littering of the story with F-words. I mean, I get it - the story involves some pretty trashy people and they have gutter mouths. It helps the author keep things "realistic". But for goodness' sake did it have to be spelled out each time?! /:
Also, it would be nice to have an explanation as to just what exactly these beings - these "old-ones" - were. I was disappointed that the end didn't really explain who/what she was, or what her origin was; more about the beginning when she and he first meet - the whole him-seeing-her-and-taking-her-hand thing. What was that?? I don't understand but I want to so badly!
This is a uniquely dark, fierce, gripping story with a plot that packs a punch. And then a bite. And then another punch.
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June 18, 2018
I agree with the other reviewers who said the quality of the writing belied this being the author's first novel- lots of unnecessary adjectives, while some of the characters feel quite rote, such as the police officers. That said, the premise is great; without spoilers, there's a bit of a Gone Girl feel to one of the twists that I really liked, and in most cases the author does a good job of creating very distinctive tones of voice for the different narrators.
Be warned: this is bleak and disturbing, and I don't feel the ending rings true after what went before. But it's certainly engaging and keeps a good pace.
Be warned: this is bleak and disturbing, and I don't feel the ending rings true after what went before. But it's certainly engaging and keeps a good pace.
September 30, 2017
I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway. I am seeing a lot of good reviews on this book so it seems that many have loved this book. However, this was one that I struggled with. I don't think this should put anyone off of this book because there are a wide range of opinions on it.
November 22, 2014
I received this book from goodreads first reads.
At first I was a little disappointed because it seemed like your typical over-saturated with metaphors about humanity being vermin/rodents et cetera vampire novel but by the second chapter i could not put this book down. It's a fresh take on an old concept and the interwoven stories add a level of suspense in the short space of the novel. It's worth picking up even if it doesn't seem like your thing.
At first I was a little disappointed because it seemed like your typical over-saturated with metaphors about humanity being vermin/rodents et cetera vampire novel but by the second chapter i could not put this book down. It's a fresh take on an old concept and the interwoven stories add a level of suspense in the short space of the novel. It's worth picking up even if it doesn't seem like your thing.
September 30, 2017
Such a dark and gruesome book. It's also a very different take on what is normally perceived as a typical vampire novel. Love the term that is used for humans!!!.
April 17, 2018
This is a first novel, and it reads like one. It's not by any means bad, just trying a little too hard in some places. And the social commentary that every pull quote on the cover and inside talks about is incisive, but also unoriginal and lacking in empathy. That said, the plot is fast and twisty and fun, and the book's take on vampirism is a very different one from any other I've read. Do I recommend it? Yes, depending on what you want from it.
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