Tombs are sealed shut for a reason. Opening them can have terrifying consequences . . .
John Tolworth is delighted when he is hired to help investigate a collection of mummified bodies found in the notorious Gold Tomb in Egypt. Not only is he intrigued by the work, but the collection is stored in an ancient castle in Devon, where John spent his childhood. He looks forward to revisiting the area, and to showing his family the place he grew up.
But when John and his family arrive at Baverstock Castle, John starts to remember things. Things he had forgotten. What happened the last time he was there? And why is Philip Kemmis, the former owner of the castle, and John’s childhood companion, now a raving madman?
As the mummified bodies begin to reveal their ancient secrets, John begins to think the unthinkable . . .
Born, 20th April, 1958, Simon Clark is the author of such highly regarded horror novels as Nailed By The Heart, Blood Crazy, Darker, Vampyrrhic and The Fall, while his short stories have been collected in Blood & Grit and Salt Snake & Other Bloody Cuts. He has also written prose material for the internationally famous rock band U2.
Raised in a family of storytellers – family legend told of a stolen human skull buried beneath the Clark garage – he sold his first ghost story to a radio station in his teens. Before becoming a full-time writer he held a variety of day jobs, that have involved strawberry picking, supermarket shelf stacking, office work, and scripting video promos.
He lives with his wife and two children in mystical territory that lies on the border of Robin Hood country in England.
Monday, 6 February 2017 Review - Secrets Of The Dead by Simon Clark
Secrets Of The Dead; A Novel Of Mummies And Ancient Curses by Simon Clark [Severn House HB, 1994, 217pp]
In 1997 I read my first and until-now only novel of Yorkshire-born author Simon Clark. It was his third novel, Darker, and was about an ancient invisible horror that squashed people flat. It was also very poorly written, poorly edited and proofread, and poorly everything. It was a pretty crap book [there was even a large error on the first page] and just gave every indication of being a rush-job, possibly of an earlier manuscript by Clark that had been quickly polished off and published to cash in on the success of his first two novels. Darker is among the worst horror novels I have ever read, and it single-handedly put me off Clark for over 20 years. Then, on a trip to my local library recently I noticed a book I’d never heard of before, Secrets Of The Dead by Simon Clarke. With some trepidation I borrowed it and over the next year constantly renewed it without reading it, perhaps sub-consciously putting it off. In all I’ve had the book kicking around for over a year, until, when an e-mail from the library tells me it absolutely definitely can’t be renewed again and please bring it back so we can confirm you haven’t eaten it or something, I put my current book down and started, finally, reading the thing, finishing it in less than a week. Darker was pretty terrible, but Secrets Of The Dead, to my utter surprise, was great fun.
The story revolves around John Tolworth, who has made a reputation for himself as a technological archaeologist; he photographs and scans broken archaeological artefacts and puts together the pieces using a computer program. In the story he has been employed to help work on a collection of Egyptian mummies which have until-recently been in the possession of the Kemmis family of Baverstock Castle in Devon. The work will last over the summer and John has brought his family with him to stay in a nearby cottage. However, John briefly lived in this area as a child, and the looming castle, the neighbourhood populace, the wild forests and moorlands quickly begin to rekindle memories of a horrific event in John’s past, an event that is reaching dry, withered and bandaged fingers through the years to create danger for himself and his family. Is the local madman right about the mummies waking up at night? And are they somehow changing, as X-ray scans seem to reveal – and, more bizarrely still, what are they changing into?
I really enjoyed Secrets Of The Dead. When it began, I wasn’t sure I liked the simple style and Young Adult-flavour but pretty quickly I found the pages rushing by as I was sucked into the story. It’s a reasonably quick and easy read, and reminded me a little of a sort of Hammer Horror style of story, with some creepy incidents and ideas but not extreme gory horror. The mood does darken towards the end, as a further danger – a real-world danger – threatens the family, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the second half, where the climax only very slightly let me down, but nevertheless I was satisfied and happy at the time spent reading the book. Clark obviously has a skill at writing and creating his characters; I was ‘in the zone’ with this book much more than with many others by supposed better writers. He does have though a throwback from his earlier style in the amount of repetition in his work – while it does make the story very easy to understand, he often tells you again what you’ve just read a few pages ago, just in case you’ve forgotten, which of course, unless you’re a cabbage, you haven’t. There are also one or two small editing errors here, including an occasion of a character having the wrong name. I don’t know what’s up with Clark’s editor and proofreaders but this problem seems to have plagued his books throughout his career. Nevertheless, it is barely noticeable here, and my thought is that one last edit or read-through could have easily smartened out these occasional errors in the text.
This is all a slight shame, because I really did enjoy the book and would be willing now to try some of Clark’s other works. The subject matter is slightly different in that mummies haven’t yet been done to death and bastardized into caricatures of themselves [but give it time!] like zombies and vampires. It was a quick, enjoyable, and, dare I say it, even exciting read – a perfect antidote to those rambling epics that go on forever, and when I was stuck in a bit of a reading rut, this has brought me back to the fold. Now, it wasn’t really that scary, but I still want my mummy... 8/10
This book was recommended to me because of the inclusion of mummies in the narrative. Since the plot synopsis is summarized well with the book and in other comments, I'll skip it and go right to the what I liked about Secrets of the Dead and where I found some weaknesses.
First, as others have pointed out, there were a couple of times that the characters' names were mistakenly associated with actions/flashbacks of other characters. Both instances that I recalled were early on and thereafter, did not seem to happen again. Secondly, the repetition of describing story points throughout the novel became annoying. It was almost as though the story had been serialized and recaps were needed. However, this wasn't needed. Even in YA novels that I have read, I do not recall the authors using this technique.
The characters were well-developed and congealed into decently group of individuals. I particularly enjoyed the Oliver - Fletcher storyline amongst the various characters. The exchange between Ingrid and Samantha felt a bit forced, especially when an affair is suspected, which seemed out of character for the calm, stress-managing Ingrid. The idea of "secrets" as a way of engaging the characters was initially intriguing, but regrettably, it was dropped as soon as John's secret was revealed.
Clark does excel with bringing in historical facts about the mummies, such as the unwrapping parties and English gentry seeking treasures in Egypt to fill their private collections. The idea of Kadesh as possibly the Pharaoh Akhenaten was nice touch; the fact that we don't learn the identity of the mummies I think was a good way to go with the story. Additionally, with Kadesh, Clark treats the reader to a compelling backstory that makes Kadesh almost a sympathetic monster.
I wish Clark would have included a bit more science and technology to flesh out the Egyptology research being completed by John and his colleague(s). That said, I thought the story did become convoluted with the 1955 scans verses the contemporary findings - Samantha's argument. I know that Clark was trying to establish the parallel between the Tolworths and the mummies, but it would have been more riveting through flashbacks or some other sort of narrative device that doesn't seem like a well-worn trope in other mummy stories.
While there some bumps in the story structure, it was an enjoyable mummy story.
Unfortunately this book was, for me, a bit too much horror and not enough mystery. John Tolworth is pleased when he is invited to piece together some damaged papyri which are held at a castle in Devon which he visited as a child to stay with a school friend. He is to stay a few weeks over the summer and a cottage has been provided for him and his family while he carries out the work.
What John has not told his family is that thirty years ago his friend, Philip suffered an horrific injury which was never satisfactorily explained. But that isn't John's only secret. As the boy who befriends John's son, Oliver, perceptively remarks - everyone has secrets. Mummies that walk after dark, a man who has never fully recovered from his injuries and who appears to be somewhat less than sane, and some uncanny resemblances between the living and the dead go to make this book the stuff of nightmares.
If you like horror stories then you may well enjoy this as I say, for me there was too much horror. That said it is well written and the characters were interesting and the plot convoluted but it provides too much material for nightmares. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.
Secrets of the Dead was a fun read for early(ish) in the horror season. Part mystery, part horror (probably leaning more into the horror elements) It is an interesting story that felt different from most of what I’ve read before. I mean, how often do we get novels, specifically horror, that are related to mummies? Simon Clark does a great job of building atmosphere and a general feel of creepiness that I thoroughly enjoyed.
The only downside for this book was that I felt like the ending kind of just happened. Not that it wasn’t built up to but that it fell flat for me. I was really enjoying this story but the last quarter of the book just didn’t work for me. I haven’t heard this complaint from a lot of other people so it’s likely this was just a problem that I had (probably being too picky) but it brought it down from four stars to three.
When seeking a scary novel to read for Halloween season I did not have to look any further than Simon Clark. In my opinion, he is destined to become a Master Of Horror alongside horror greats like King, Campbell, Barker and Straub.
SECRETS OF THE DEAD has many elements of classic horror story-telling: a spooky castle, a bunch of mummies, an ancient curse and a few gullible people. When the mummies that John Tolworth is studying begin to take on characteristics of he and his family you realize bad things are about to happen.
The ending was a little less intense than expected but still left things open for a potential re-visiting of these characters through Simon Clark's very fertile imagination. Sleep tight!
Honestly, not a clue where to start. This was a bizarre book. At times it was really engrossing and pacey, but for most of it it was over explained and repetitive. Sometimes you just have to trust the reader to have remembered major plot points from earlier in the story. The concept could have been ok, but the ending was just odd and didn’t make any sense. From early on I wasn’t drawn in and felt much of the writing very clunky but stuck with it in the hope that the plot would pull it through. It didn’t.
An unexpected pleasure, this tale. Good old fashioned horror. It brought a feeling of dread just like the old Karloff mummy movies evoked in me when i was little. Well written and exciting.
Yes, it's schlocky but it's so much fun! Simon Clark is this generation's Guy N. Smith with hokey horror stories set in lush English countryside. I absolutely LOVED this!
I couldn't figure out why I didn't have a stronger reaction, one way or the other, to this book. And then I figured it out. An author can go vampire, or zombie undead, or all Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos, or creepy ghostly apparition. Or he can go mummy. But once you settle on mummies you are pretty well confined to the time honored mummy conventions.
So, your heroes study them, the mummies sneak around at night, there may be curses. Reanimation is a real possibility. There can be a revenge angle, or an object of power, or a treasure hunt aspect. You can tie them to sly political or sexual or class or social problem messages, or they can just lurk about with their outstretched arms. I'm being sort of a wiseguy, but I think the point is fair.
Well, this is a really, really good mummy tale. The characters have a reasonable amount of depth and occasionally do interesting or unexpected things. The secondary characters have some style and there are some side plots and incidental characters that add real appeal or interest to the story. The author does odd and unsettling characters very well. Atmosphere is a particular strong suit, and the author is especially good at scary night scenes. There is action and some violence and threats of even greater violence but this isn't a gore fest. The mummy science is interesting but we don't get reams of Egyptian history or the usual almost mandatory lectures about how bodies were mummified.
So, the author can tell a ripping yarn, and the writing is quite up to the task of selling that yarn. The plot is intelligible, if a bit bumpy, and the pacing is very good. If you really like mummy horror stories, you should be really happy with this book. If you aren't a fan, well this is still a good and interesting enough read, but it probably won't turn you into a convert.
Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
John Tolworth takes a job working where he grew up. John's family is greeted by his childhood friend, Phillip Kemmis, owner of the castle who is ranting and raving about mummies. John had not seen Phillip since Phillip had an accident that causes him to lose a hand. Phillip seems to have gone mad, but hoe, why? John begins to work withe mummies. He discovers that the mummies are changing. As he works withe mummies, they appear to become more like John's family. When John realizes that there is a connection between the mummies and his family, he is not sure that his family will survive.
This is a mystery besides a horror novel. Clark has written a dread from the very beginning of the story. The reader is able to slowly solve the mystery but not before the story has almost ended. With the author's writing style of suspense and terror, the novel is perfect. Clark is an excellent author.
Warning: I suspect that many will not appreciate Clark's book. I believe that may be due to his style of writing. Not everyone cares for it because in a sense it is slow. . .
Disclaimer: I received a digital galley of this book free from the publisher from NetGalley. I was not obliged to write a favourable review, or even any review at all. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
I enjoyed this book for the most part, but I did think it could have used a little more depth in some places. The story was interesting, exciting even and there was a lot of horror and action, but at certain points in the story it seemed as if the author expected us to be able to read the minds of the characters.
Some scenes were on the verge of juvenile whilst others were so well thought out and complex that I wondered if I had switched books suddenly and without meaning to. With a little smoothing, I think this could be perfect.
This book is well paced, and if you don't want a lot of back story on your characters, then this would be a good choice. I didn't think it was a bad read overall, and I would still recommend it to those who like terror, chills and lots of action.
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
There aren't a lot of writers out there that capture both the chills of an old school horror novel while also providing enough mayhem and gore to satisfy newer horror fans, but Simon Clark always manages it. This novel provides a bit of everything while keeping the genre fresh and exciting. From mummies to a creepy castle to a madman who may or may not be as mad as he seems, Clark keeps the reader on his or her toes while delivering a roller coaster ride into the dark recesses of human fear. Highly readable, with the edge of British humor, this is a real treat for fans of horror who may be burnt out on pure slasher violence. This was provided to me by NetGalley for an honest review.