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The Half Man
'The Half Man is an eldritch place!'
What is the secret of The Half Man, a creepy old inn on the windswept coast of Norfolk? Vic, a low-ranking foot soldier from London's gangland, has orders to find out what it is and bring it back to his boss... or else. But easier said than done, for no sooner has Vic checked in than one of his fellow guests is decapitated right in front of him.
Everyone knows whodunit, but why? No-one staying at The Half Man is what they appear to be, and soon Vic will find himself fighting for his life in an imbroglio of hot dames, nosy cops, old magic, ancient rituals and quicksand. Lots of quicksand.
The Half Man is a fast-paced supernatural thriller with echoes of Get Carter, the mysteries of Agatha Christie and the ghost stories of M.R. James.
What is the secret of The Half Man, a creepy old inn on the windswept coast of Norfolk? Vic, a low-ranking foot soldier from London's gangland, has orders to find out what it is and bring it back to his boss... or else. But easier said than done, for no sooner has Vic checked in than one of his fellow guests is decapitated right in front of him.
Everyone knows whodunit, but why? No-one staying at The Half Man is what they appear to be, and soon Vic will find himself fighting for his life in an imbroglio of hot dames, nosy cops, old magic, ancient rituals and quicksand. Lots of quicksand.
The Half Man is a fast-paced supernatural thriller with echoes of Get Carter, the mysteries of Agatha Christie and the ghost stories of M.R. James.
- GenresHorror
209 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 18, 2019
About the author
Anne Billson
39 books75 followersANNE BILLSON is a film critic, novelist, photographer, style icon, wicked spinster, evil feminist, and international cat-sitter who has lived in London, Tokyo, Paris and Croydon, and now lives in Belgium. She likes frites, beer and chocolate.
Her books include SUCKERS (an upwardly mobile vampire novel), STIFF LIPS (a Notting Hill ghost story), THE EX (a supernatural detective story) and THE COMING THING (Rosemary's Baby meets Bridget Jones) as well as several works of non-fiction, including BILLSON FILM DATABASE, BREAST MAN: A CONVERSATION WITH RUSS MEYER, and monographs on the films THE THING and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.
Her latest book is CATS ON FILM, the definitive work of feline film scholarship.
She sometimes writes about film for the Guardian, and is currently working on a screenplay and a sequel to her vampire novel, SUCKERS. She has three blogs: multiglom.com (the Billson Blog), catsonfilm.net (a blog about cats in the cinema), and lempiredeslumieres.com (photographs of Belgian beer, bars and sunsets).
Her books include SUCKERS (an upwardly mobile vampire novel), STIFF LIPS (a Notting Hill ghost story), THE EX (a supernatural detective story) and THE COMING THING (Rosemary's Baby meets Bridget Jones) as well as several works of non-fiction, including BILLSON FILM DATABASE, BREAST MAN: A CONVERSATION WITH RUSS MEYER, and monographs on the films THE THING and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.
Her latest book is CATS ON FILM, the definitive work of feline film scholarship.
She sometimes writes about film for the Guardian, and is currently working on a screenplay and a sequel to her vampire novel, SUCKERS. She has three blogs: multiglom.com (the Billson Blog), catsonfilm.net (a blog about cats in the cinema), and lempiredeslumieres.com (photographs of Belgian beer, bars and sunsets).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 20, 2021
This turned out to be exactly what the back cover copy seemed to promise: all-out action and horror and mystery -- after the initial setup that is -- and finding out that it started its life as a screenplay came as no surprise. It's too bad this was never made into a film.
Almost the entirety of the novel takes place in a very old, rundown inn on the coast of Norfolk known as The Half Man. Low-level thug Vic is there to try and retrieve an ancient artifact for his boss in London. He's barely there for an hour before he witnesses a decapitation and what looked to be displays of sorcery in the inn's tavern. He'd just as soon leave, as all the other guests are obviously "off" in some way (and he'd rather not deal with the cops that were called), but his boss will kill him if he comes back empty-handed. The creepy lodgers appear to be both hiding something and looking for something. They also all seem to have sordid histories with one another, and Vic is now caught in the middle of their nefarious shenanigans. He hopes he can just survive the night.
Billson is adept at combining horror with bits of comedy, finding that perfect balance so that the horror elements aren't dampened by the humor. A couple other reviewers here mentioned the Evil Dead films, and that's as good a comparison as any, as the story just keeps getting more and more outrageous as it goes. It also has elements of old British "occult detective/adventure" novels of the 60s and 70s, ala Peter Saxon, only much more well-written.
Billson's been one of my favorite "discoveries" in recent years, and I'm surprised her work doesn't have more of a following.* I'll certainly be reading more of it.
*At least as far as her fiction is concerned. She seems to be pretty well-regarded as a film critic.
Almost the entirety of the novel takes place in a very old, rundown inn on the coast of Norfolk known as The Half Man. Low-level thug Vic is there to try and retrieve an ancient artifact for his boss in London. He's barely there for an hour before he witnesses a decapitation and what looked to be displays of sorcery in the inn's tavern. He'd just as soon leave, as all the other guests are obviously "off" in some way (and he'd rather not deal with the cops that were called), but his boss will kill him if he comes back empty-handed. The creepy lodgers appear to be both hiding something and looking for something. They also all seem to have sordid histories with one another, and Vic is now caught in the middle of their nefarious shenanigans. He hopes he can just survive the night.
Billson is adept at combining horror with bits of comedy, finding that perfect balance so that the horror elements aren't dampened by the humor. A couple other reviewers here mentioned the Evil Dead films, and that's as good a comparison as any, as the story just keeps getting more and more outrageous as it goes. It also has elements of old British "occult detective/adventure" novels of the 60s and 70s, ala Peter Saxon, only much more well-written.
Billson's been one of my favorite "discoveries" in recent years, and I'm surprised her work doesn't have more of a following.* I'll certainly be reading more of it.
*At least as far as her fiction is concerned. She seems to be pretty well-regarded as a film critic.
July 13, 2019
This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com - the author provided a copy for review consideration
‘The Half Man’ by Anne Billson is a hard book to review because it’s so unlike most other things out there. It’s a witty, baudy, surreal, head trip of a book that mixes occultism and East End gangsters together with the kind of humour and great sense of character that Anne Billson shows in all her books. It helps that this one is also incredibly gory at times.
The book starts with a beautifully observed bit of stiff upper lip adventuring, with a British adventurer (think Indiana Jones played by Terry Thomas) infiltrating a European castle with his daughter and her fiancée. They’re searching for an arcane artefact which they find and take back to England. Years later, when the last of the trio dies, a bizarre cast of characters assemble at a weird country pub ‘The Half Man’, each of them trying to find the artefact for themselves. We have a sexy, shallow socialite, a rock star, a gangster, a gruff publican and more.
The set up feels a bit like the plot of one of those 60s or 70s movies that featured a superstar cast thrown together for spurious reasons. In fact, Billson explains in the postscript that the book did in fact start life as a screenplay. The backstory (as fun as it is) becomes kind of irrelevant as the colourful cast starts playing up and the events get weirder and weirder. The gangster, Vic, settles in as the main character, and his common sense view of world makes him an amusingly bewildered spectator as the story spins completely out of control. I don’t want to give away, because this is a book that needs to be enjoyed unspoiled. Let’s just say that it consistently surprised and delighted me with its utterly bizarre twists and turns. It’s not bizarro as such, but it’s definitely bloody odd. In the end it feels like a collaboration between ‘Evil Dead 2’ era Sam Raimi and surrealist Luis Bunuel.
Billson is an author that I think more people need to discover. Her books are consistently funny, imaginative and entertaining. They’re packed with pop culture references and her prose is lovely to read. ‘The Half Man’ is a great antidote to the formulaic nasties and creature features that make up so much of the genre nowadays.
‘The Half Man’ by Anne Billson is a hard book to review because it’s so unlike most other things out there. It’s a witty, baudy, surreal, head trip of a book that mixes occultism and East End gangsters together with the kind of humour and great sense of character that Anne Billson shows in all her books. It helps that this one is also incredibly gory at times.
The book starts with a beautifully observed bit of stiff upper lip adventuring, with a British adventurer (think Indiana Jones played by Terry Thomas) infiltrating a European castle with his daughter and her fiancée. They’re searching for an arcane artefact which they find and take back to England. Years later, when the last of the trio dies, a bizarre cast of characters assemble at a weird country pub ‘The Half Man’, each of them trying to find the artefact for themselves. We have a sexy, shallow socialite, a rock star, a gangster, a gruff publican and more.
The set up feels a bit like the plot of one of those 60s or 70s movies that featured a superstar cast thrown together for spurious reasons. In fact, Billson explains in the postscript that the book did in fact start life as a screenplay. The backstory (as fun as it is) becomes kind of irrelevant as the colourful cast starts playing up and the events get weirder and weirder. The gangster, Vic, settles in as the main character, and his common sense view of world makes him an amusingly bewildered spectator as the story spins completely out of control. I don’t want to give away, because this is a book that needs to be enjoyed unspoiled. Let’s just say that it consistently surprised and delighted me with its utterly bizarre twists and turns. It’s not bizarro as such, but it’s definitely bloody odd. In the end it feels like a collaboration between ‘Evil Dead 2’ era Sam Raimi and surrealist Luis Bunuel.
Billson is an author that I think more people need to discover. Her books are consistently funny, imaginative and entertaining. They’re packed with pop culture references and her prose is lovely to read. ‘The Half Man’ is a great antidote to the formulaic nasties and creature features that make up so much of the genre nowadays.
April 5, 2023
Love Billson. I was completely blind on what this one was all about. It ended up being a very weird book. The main character is trying to capture an ancient artifact; there is a murder (by beheading), episodes involving quicksand, ghosts, and sexual escapades involving shapeshifters. Wasn’t one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, but it was certainly an entertaining read.
May 6, 2023
A riot
Fast, nicely gruesome and a lot of fun. A wild set of characters and resistance to explain its mythology which works well.
Fast, nicely gruesome and a lot of fun. A wild set of characters and resistance to explain its mythology which works well.
September 23, 2022
It’s fun, easy to read and scary enough. It’s not gonna make you lose your sleep, but will definitely get you reading it in two days. There’s a mysterious object that many powerful people want, there are many questions and the main character doesn’t seem to have an answer.
November 24, 2020
A very good horror novel, one that's more darkly comic than it is horrific. The Half Man is very movie-like, you can instantly see the action as you're racing through this well-paced thriller. There's elements of the Evil Dead in here and it has a very late 1970s / early 80s horror movie feel to it. Really good fun.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews