Bad to the Bone

by Philip Caveney

The Deceivers are a rock band at the height of their powers when guitarist Scott Griffin ODs gruesomely on-stage. For co-songwriter and lead singer Jenny Slade it's a devastating loss. To get Jenny and the band back on the rails, their manager books them into The Grange, a rehearsal/studio complex in the remote Welsh countryside, hoping that the change of scene will get the band's creative juices flowing again. But The Grange is not quite the rural idyll it seems. Its enigmatic owner, Gareth Reed, has an unhealthy interest in bizarre occult practices, and far from exorcising the ghosts of the past, The Grange seems to act as a magnet for the most disturbing spiritual phenomena. And then the killings begin...

Genres: Horror

281 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1996

About the author

Philip Caveney was born in North Wales in 1951. The son of an RAF officer, he spent much of his childhood travelling the length and breadth of Britain and spent several years in Malaysia and Singapore.

He attended the Kelsterton College Of Art where he obtained a diploma in Graphic Design. Whilst there, he became drummer (and latterly vocalist) with rock band, Hieronymus Bosch.

After leaving college, he worked extensively in theatre both in London and Wales and wrote the lyrics for rock adaptations of The Workhouse Donkey and Oscar Wilde’s Salome.

His first novel, The Sins Of Rachel Ellis, was published in 1976.

Published Works for Adults

The Sins Of Rachel Ellis: St Martin’s Press/ Robert Hale/Berkeley Press. ‘a spine chilling debut.’ – Doubleday Book Club magazine
Tiger Tiger – ‘ St Martin’s Press/Granada ‘…an intriguing tale of rivalry and honour ‘– Flintshire Chronicle
The Tarantula Stone – Granada - ‘breathtaking action.’ Kirkus
Cursery Rhymes Cornerhouse Books– ‘wickedly funny’ – City Life
Speak No Evil – Headline/Headline Review/ ‘cracking summer reading.’ City Life
Black Wolf – Headline/ Headline Review/ nominated for WH Smith Thumping Good Read award.
Strip Jack Naked – Headline/Headline Review - ‘a triumphant thriller’ - Evening Post
Slayground – Headline/Headline Review ‘,,, breakneck pace’ – Daily Mirror
Skin Flicks – Headline/headline Review – ‘Caveney uses the central image with considerable skill’ – Sunday Times
Burn Down Easy – Headline/Headline Review – ‘the fiction equivalent of standing on Semtex’ – Pure Fiction
Bad To The Bone – Headline/ Headline Review ’10 little Indians on speed!’ Tangled web
1999 – Headline/Headline Review ‘more than just a return to form.’ City Life
Love Bites – Xlibris – ‘a frighteningly funny read!’ Tregolwyn reviews.

Published works for Children

Cursery Rhymes(with Bob Seal) (Cornerhouse Books)
Sebastian Darke - Prince Of Fools (2007) (Random House)
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates (2008) (Random House)

Coming soon…

Sebastian Dark: Prince of Explorers (2009) (Random House)
Alec Devlin: The Eye of The Serpent (2008) (Random House)
Alec Devlin: The Kingdom of the Skull (2009) (Random House)

He wrote the screenplay for the short film Dream Factory, directed by Philip Davenport and has recently written his first full-length screenplay The Sick House for director Curtis Radclyffe.

He is also an advertising copywriter and has been the co-ordinator for the Manchester Writers Workshop for over twenty five years.

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the horror market collapse of the early 90s there were a few major publishing imprints that continued to put out fairly high quality paperback originals well into the decade, most notably Dell/Abyss and Leisure in the US (the latter of which somehow went from largely bottom of the barrel Zebra-type trash in the 80s to publishing the likes of Clegg, Shirley, and Piccirilli toward the end of the 90s). But in the UK it was all about Headline Books, who continued releasing hardcovers for even their midlisters. Its main problem, imo, was the same as those of Abyss and Leisure: the books are way too damn long. I know people love Stephen King and his doorstops, but in general I feel the genre works best at shorter page counts. The bloatedness wasn’t even the fault of the authors much of the time, but encouraged or mandated by the publishers.

At 370-some pages, this doesn’t suffer as much as some, but it still took well over 100 pages before any hint of creepiness or tension was introduced, outside of a (seeming) dream sequence. But I can forgive that as the setup and character work were well done. And how can you beat this setup: a famous rock band, after grieving the loss of their lead guitarist to an overdose, decides it’s time to get back together and rehearse for a potential new album. The location? A remote, secluded old monastery that’s recently been converted into a recording studio. Of course, rumors and legends of hauntings relating to the occult and such abound, but lead singer Jenny doesn’t believe in all that superstition. Once they become snowbound and people start ending up dead, she just might change her tune.

This was a fun read pretty much throughout, despite the padding, with a few genuinely chilling moments. The characters were somewhat caricature-ish — you have the drunk asshole, the quiet one, the stud, the bitch, etc. — but protagonist Jenny was well-drawn and sympathetic, and I wanted to see her make it through. She’s a bit full of herself, but I suppose being a famous singer with millions of adoring fans will do that to most anyone. The mystery of just what the hell was happening was intriguing as well, and kept me hooked, even if it wasn’t entirely original. Was their guitarist’s death really an accident, or is someone — or something — hunting them? Is HE hunting them?

Anyone into isolated, snowbound terror as well as locked-room mysteries (with possibly a supernatural flair) should dig this one. My only real disappointment was discovering that Caveney has written very little horror, and is more well known for his children’s books. Oh well, I’ll still be looking into his other genre work.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

It pains me to say anything complimentary about the British, but I think it probably has to be conceded that they're better than us at writing comic books, playing (inventing) heavy metal, and telling ghost stories. This novel covers the latter two points pretty well; and even though it's not a comic, I found myself visualizing some of the events with panels and dialogue bubbles- probably because it's a pulpy story with colorful characters, good dialogue, and a great setting. But before we reach that setting, we're introduced in the first chapter to The Deceivers, a popular British rock band who are just finishing up their American tour in Seattle when guitarist Scott fatally ODs onstage. Apparently his heroin was cut with something worse. Jenny, The Deceivers' lead singer, retreats to her parents' place in Manchester for a few months, until her manager and the rest of the band coax her out to a monastery-cum-studio in Wales called The Grange. The place is in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, and they'll have plenty of privacy to try out a new guitarist- maybe even record a new album. But what about the threatening letters Jenny's been getting, suggesting that Scott's death might not have been an accident? And what about the creepy fan outside her house who told her that Scott was trying to "get in touch" with her?

This hit a lot of sweet spots for me- the remote location, the spookiness of the story, the fact that it was written in the 90s. Everyone smokes indoors, the music industry hasn't yet been totally upended by Napster and the internet. Caveney has an unadorned writing style that at this point in my life I'll take just about any day over most modern "literary" fiction, and a story centered around a rock band is also a big plus for me; author James Caveney knows enough about music to make those aspects of the story plausible, at least to a non-musician like myself, and The Deceivers felt to me like a real band, even if I had trouble coming up with a real-world analogue for them. They weren't as popular as, say, Oasis, but they weren't a one-hit wonder like The Verve or The Wallflowers, either (then again, I recently learned that Garth Brooks sold more albums in the 90s than anyone else- so what do I really know about the decade?). I got the sense that they might have sounded a little like High 'n' Dry-era Def Leppard with a female vocalist, which I personally think would sound pretty cool.

The characters are also pretty well-done, distinctive at any rate, and they make up a colorful cast of suspects once they get to The Grange and bodies start piling up, the story shifting into Agatha-Christie-meets-John-Carpenter mode. There's Des for example, a resentful ex-drummer turned drug-dealer, Lezard the band's seemingly level-headed American manager, Chris the current drummer and party animal who shows up with a surprise "fiancee", Adrian the sardonic and somewhat hostile keyboardist, and Gareth the charismatic-yet-oddly-aloof owner of The Grange, an aspiring producer who it turns out just might belong to something called The Order of the Snake, itself connected to a Crowley-like figure named Obediah Wadleigh, who in the late 19th century brought his 12 disciples to the very premises of The Grange to practice "sex-magic rituals" and other activities that sound like fun but were evidently frowned upon in the Victorian period (the story gets a bit more sinister when Jenny learns how it all ended- that one winter, Wadleigh and his 12 disciples were snowed-in by a blizzard...and after the storm had passed, they were all found...murdered!). The characters are all interesting, if a bit dim at times in ways that seemed necessary to ramp up the tension and lend plausibility to the red-herrings- in the way, for example, they allow themselves to start suspecting Jenny, simply because the mysterious killer in their midst is using lyrics from her songs to taunt the group. It made me think of the Bill Hicks joke where he talks about the idea that Judas Priest had included subliminal messages in their music, telling listeners to kill themselves: "Excuse me...what fuckin' performer wants his audience dead?" You wouldn't think a singer would want to kill her own band, either, though I guess stranger things have happened.

The Grange- with its creepy mythology and its proximity to an eerie circle of stones in the woods nearby- is a great setting, especially when a blizzard starts moving in and cutting the group off from the rest of the world, just as happened to Wadleigh and his disciples. I was surprised (pleasantly), as I mentioned above, to discover just how much of an Agatha Christie story this turns into- Agatha Christie by way of an 80s slasher that is, if Christie's characters got their intestines ripped out and if the possibility of the supernatural were in play- and also by the degree to which Caveney leans into genre conventions. There's even a scene where the killer finally steps out of the shadows (literally- the electricity goes out), and proceeds to chucklingly explain his entire plot. And I can imagine that some would find this formulaic. But we're not reinventing the wheel here, and the denouement will probably bring a big smile to your face if you like this kind of thing.

Midway through the book, while they're walking in the woods, Gareth lays out for Jenny his vision of how he would produce the next Deceivers album:

'Ever hear the Lou Reed album, New York? You know the sound he got there? Raw, unsophisticated, but full of energy. He used just a couple of little amps and miked up like he was doing a gig at his local bar. That's how I'd produce The Deceivers. I mean, what are you in essence? Just a good time, kick-ass bar band. I think you've lost sight of that.'

And that's what this book is: just a good time, kick-ass creepy mystery.

Last thing- I'm proud to say that I guessed the killer correctly this time. I used to think I would die for sure if I ever ended up in a situation like this, but maybe I've finally read and watched enough of these kinds of stories that I'll have a chance.

[tinalouisereadsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a rock band's lead guitarist dies of a heroin overdose their manager books them into a converted monastery, hoping to draw them out of their depression. But when mysterious letters start arriving, and deaths begin, it becomes clear that the guitarist's ghost wants revenge.

This book is your classic slasher yarn. It also very much like a Richard Laymon novel crossed with Agatha Christie. My reason being is that you have an group of characters thrown together in rambling house in the middle of nowhere, and with difficulty leaving due to heavy snowfall. Then the killings begin and who could it be ? Nobody has left the house so it has to be one of them. When the reason behind the killings is revealed I found the reason behind it a bit silly and I would have liked to have seen a better legend rather than the one that was given. The characters are what you would expect in this sort of tale, a right motley crew. This is the second book by this author for me and overall it was quite good, but as a choice for my Halloween reads this year it wasn’t quite creepy enough but does have plenty of gore.

[David Larsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it never goes as far as beeing an overwhelming, life-changing experience, "Bad to the Bone" is a fun and easy-digestible ride of horror. Personally, I would have wanted more of the occult stuff, since I'm a sucker for those things. Otherwise, the characters were pretty well-written, the story was solidly paced and I didn't feel that it dragged. Recommended if you're into horror fiction, even if there's plenty of books that's better.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well over ten years since I read this but I still do remember it being a pretty solid entry of its type. I suppose it helped that I was still in my Little Angels/Dogs Damour phase so probably lapped up the whole rock band scenario. I think this one easily stands alongside some of the other genre efforts by the likes of Shaun Hutson and co.