What do you think?
Rate this book
The Lurkers
Peter Fogg, a writer, moves to a country cottage in Wales to write his next book. But everything seems to be against him: the locals are hostile to outsiders (and to the English), their pets are sacrificed on the local stone circle, and malicious tricks are being played on him. His wife and son soon withdraw from the battleground, leaving Fogg to stand his ground on his own.
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1982
2 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
175 books298 followersI was born on November 21, 1939, in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. My mother was a pre-war historical novelist (E. M. Weale) and she always encouraged me to write.
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 22, 2021
A man moves his family to an isolated house in the mountains of Wales to start work on his second novel. His wife and young son would rather be back in the city. Strange things start to happen all around them. Their pets go missing. The locals are very clannish, and want nothing to do with outsiders. His son is picked on at school for being English. The land they are staying on has a strange circle of rocks that may have some kind of druid meaning. Also the wealthy Welshman who owns all the land around the property the author is renting has repeatedly tried to buy it to no avail.
This was a really quick, nicely done thriller. Not a lot of the usual gory body count kind of stuff. More of a build up of mind games and their psychological effect on the family. The down side was the way this ended. It turned into some kind of Scooby Doo unvailing. One of the better Guy books I've read in awhile.
This was a really quick, nicely done thriller. Not a lot of the usual gory body count kind of stuff. More of a build up of mind games and their psychological effect on the family. The down side was the way this ended. It turned into some kind of Scooby Doo unvailing. One of the better Guy books I've read in awhile.
September 24, 2024
If Guy N. Smith had a common theme in 1982, it was to combine all the ideas that he had been exploring in his books into each novel, at least as far as he could. Of course, there was the clash between country people and the townies who don't understand their ways. There was a religious angle, usually tied into Satanism or devil worship. There was some sort of tie to the past, with characters in the present having visions of an ancient evil or even being transported back to face it. 'The Pluto Pact' trawled in still more that we remembered from earlier books, spinning them all into a new story.
'The Lurkers', on the other hand, has no intention of doing any of this beyond that time-honoured clash between country folk and a family of interlopers who don't fit. In this case, they're Peter Fogg, his wife Janie and their nine-year-old son Gavin, who all used to live on a generic housing estate in the Midlands when Peter worked a regular day job. However, he wrote a book which became an unexpected bestseller and so they've moved to Hodre, a dilapidated Welsh country cottage outside the village of Woodside so that he can concentrate on writing the follow-up. Needless to say, the locals aren't happy about it.
It's not difficult to imagine that Smith was remembering being in a similar situation. He knocked out an unexpected bestseller with 'Night of the Crabs' in 1976, which allowed him to ditch his day job at a bank, move from the Midlands to a new house on the Welsh borders and become a full time writer. Of course, he was already a country person at heart and had been renting the shooting rights on the Black Hill for some time, so he wasn't entirely an outsider. To underline the connection, his wife's name was Jean and one of his four children was named Gavin. I hope they didn't go through what the Foggs do here.
And rather than trawl in those other themes Smith had been working with, even when we start to think that he might, he stays ruthlessly focused on the Foggs' experience in Woodside. Chapter one is Janie's concerns and fears about that change, not least because Snowy the cat has oddly disappeared and her son is apparently not happy at school. We don't leave the cottage and we don't meet anyone else, even though we learn about a few of them.
Hodre is owned by Clive Blackstone, who's rich enough to live on the south coast and ignore any offers. The nearest neighbours are the Ruskins, with whom they don't get on, who live on the other side of the forest. The Wilsons are school bullies who blacked Kevin Arnold's eye and aim to beat up Gavin for being an English bastard. Mr. Hughes is the headmaster who doesn't want to do anything about it. Everyone's at a remove at this point and while they won't stay there throughout, they mostly will.
The first people to show up other than the Foggs are the Wilson bullies' elder brothers, who scare Gavin by riding their motorcycles down the hill towards him. Peter knocks one of them off his bike to shout at him. It's clear already that jumpy Janie is scared of pretty much everyone and everything so wants out of there as soon as is humanly possible, while stubborn Peter simply refuses to be scared of anyone and anything and gets right in its way to dismiss it with scorn, quite literally in the case of the Wilsons in the second chapter.
Chapter three is the Foggs visiting the Cat pub in Woodside to a chill response from the landlord and an array of horror stories about Hodre and the stone circle from a couple of poachers called Don and Mick. Chapter four is more fear. Chapter five is Peter pressing Malcolm Hughes, the headmaster, into keeping the kids under his care safe and discovering that Snowy has been ruthlessly sacrificed on an altar in the stone circle. Chapter six is Gavin getting what the younger Wilsons promised and Janie threatening to leave. Peter talks to PC George Calvert, who's not far off retirement, and gets some background on the village and its troublemakers. Deer show up in chapter seven and Janie receives a silent phone call. The wood goes up in flames in chapter eight and the Foggs just avoid a collision with a Land Rover.
And we're halfway through the book. We've spent almost every moment with the Foggs and only eight other characters have been named, not all of whom received dialogue. The only death thus far is Snowy the cat. None of these facts are remotely typical for Smith's novels at the time, but then this refuses to be typical, even with a typical front cover blurb, "New terror in a place of ancient dread." Smith fans at the time would have seen that on shelves in W. H. Smith's and known exactly what they were picking up, but they'd all have been wrong because this is really a thriller in horror clothing.
The first half is all about a townie family moving to the countryside and being rejected. Sure, some of it is a little brutal, like the call that sends Peter chasing off to a hospital in Rhayader to see how badly hurt his wife was in a car accident, only to find that it was all fake news. She's back at the cottage, healthy if still scared out of her wits by everything around her. But it's all that basic clash of country vs. town and Welsh vs. English. Sure, Snowy was apparently sacrificed in the stone circle but nobody's died, nobody's gone missing and nobody's had a vision of ancient druids threatening modern evil.
I won't spoil where Smith takes us, because there are a whole slew of possibilities. Maybe Tim Ruskin is trying to scare them away so that Clive Blackstone will sell Hodre to him. Maybe the poachers are doing what they can to keep them away from their business. Maybe the Wilsons are being vindictive. Ancient druids returning to sacrifice them in the stone circle is way down the list of possibilities. What I will say is that Janie and Gavin promptly leave the field of play after the second death, this time of a rabbit, so Peter's left to fend off whoever it is on his own, as the snow arrives and buries the countryside, and the absence of the usual ensemble cast makes this all the more claustrophobic.
I'll also add that three further characters are named during the second half, but we don't actually meet any of them. There are two deaths, which is surely the lowest for a Guy N. Smith horror novel thus far, a body behind his debut novel, 'Werewolf by Moonlight', and we only see one of those actually happen. It just isn't that sort of novel and we have to revisit that cover blurb, because it's not actually lying to us. We may have read a lot into those eight words, almost all of which was completely wrong, but it's fair to say that this is all about terror and dread. Whatever else is going on, it's about a family being so scared by unknown external factors that they become utterly helpless, whether they're a young boy like Gavin, an easy target like Janie or a stubborn fighter like Peter. They all get there in the end.
So where does that leave this book in the big picture of Smith's ever-expanding bibliography? Well, it's a weak and underwhelming way to end a run of eight excellent books for Hamlyn, which included some of his best and most original horror novels. That said, whatever themes run through them, they each did a different job and this continued that trend. Between them, they're an impressive portfolio. However, it would be fair to say that this is probably the least of them, with as much in common with the 'Truckers' novels as anything from his horror career.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in September 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
'The Lurkers', on the other hand, has no intention of doing any of this beyond that time-honoured clash between country folk and a family of interlopers who don't fit. In this case, they're Peter Fogg, his wife Janie and their nine-year-old son Gavin, who all used to live on a generic housing estate in the Midlands when Peter worked a regular day job. However, he wrote a book which became an unexpected bestseller and so they've moved to Hodre, a dilapidated Welsh country cottage outside the village of Woodside so that he can concentrate on writing the follow-up. Needless to say, the locals aren't happy about it.
It's not difficult to imagine that Smith was remembering being in a similar situation. He knocked out an unexpected bestseller with 'Night of the Crabs' in 1976, which allowed him to ditch his day job at a bank, move from the Midlands to a new house on the Welsh borders and become a full time writer. Of course, he was already a country person at heart and had been renting the shooting rights on the Black Hill for some time, so he wasn't entirely an outsider. To underline the connection, his wife's name was Jean and one of his four children was named Gavin. I hope they didn't go through what the Foggs do here.
And rather than trawl in those other themes Smith had been working with, even when we start to think that he might, he stays ruthlessly focused on the Foggs' experience in Woodside. Chapter one is Janie's concerns and fears about that change, not least because Snowy the cat has oddly disappeared and her son is apparently not happy at school. We don't leave the cottage and we don't meet anyone else, even though we learn about a few of them.
Hodre is owned by Clive Blackstone, who's rich enough to live on the south coast and ignore any offers. The nearest neighbours are the Ruskins, with whom they don't get on, who live on the other side of the forest. The Wilsons are school bullies who blacked Kevin Arnold's eye and aim to beat up Gavin for being an English bastard. Mr. Hughes is the headmaster who doesn't want to do anything about it. Everyone's at a remove at this point and while they won't stay there throughout, they mostly will.
The first people to show up other than the Foggs are the Wilson bullies' elder brothers, who scare Gavin by riding their motorcycles down the hill towards him. Peter knocks one of them off his bike to shout at him. It's clear already that jumpy Janie is scared of pretty much everyone and everything so wants out of there as soon as is humanly possible, while stubborn Peter simply refuses to be scared of anyone and anything and gets right in its way to dismiss it with scorn, quite literally in the case of the Wilsons in the second chapter.
Chapter three is the Foggs visiting the Cat pub in Woodside to a chill response from the landlord and an array of horror stories about Hodre and the stone circle from a couple of poachers called Don and Mick. Chapter four is more fear. Chapter five is Peter pressing Malcolm Hughes, the headmaster, into keeping the kids under his care safe and discovering that Snowy has been ruthlessly sacrificed on an altar in the stone circle. Chapter six is Gavin getting what the younger Wilsons promised and Janie threatening to leave. Peter talks to PC George Calvert, who's not far off retirement, and gets some background on the village and its troublemakers. Deer show up in chapter seven and Janie receives a silent phone call. The wood goes up in flames in chapter eight and the Foggs just avoid a collision with a Land Rover.
And we're halfway through the book. We've spent almost every moment with the Foggs and only eight other characters have been named, not all of whom received dialogue. The only death thus far is Snowy the cat. None of these facts are remotely typical for Smith's novels at the time, but then this refuses to be typical, even with a typical front cover blurb, "New terror in a place of ancient dread." Smith fans at the time would have seen that on shelves in W. H. Smith's and known exactly what they were picking up, but they'd all have been wrong because this is really a thriller in horror clothing.
The first half is all about a townie family moving to the countryside and being rejected. Sure, some of it is a little brutal, like the call that sends Peter chasing off to a hospital in Rhayader to see how badly hurt his wife was in a car accident, only to find that it was all fake news. She's back at the cottage, healthy if still scared out of her wits by everything around her. But it's all that basic clash of country vs. town and Welsh vs. English. Sure, Snowy was apparently sacrificed in the stone circle but nobody's died, nobody's gone missing and nobody's had a vision of ancient druids threatening modern evil.
I won't spoil where Smith takes us, because there are a whole slew of possibilities. Maybe Tim Ruskin is trying to scare them away so that Clive Blackstone will sell Hodre to him. Maybe the poachers are doing what they can to keep them away from their business. Maybe the Wilsons are being vindictive. Ancient druids returning to sacrifice them in the stone circle is way down the list of possibilities. What I will say is that Janie and Gavin promptly leave the field of play after the second death, this time of a rabbit, so Peter's left to fend off whoever it is on his own, as the snow arrives and buries the countryside, and the absence of the usual ensemble cast makes this all the more claustrophobic.
I'll also add that three further characters are named during the second half, but we don't actually meet any of them. There are two deaths, which is surely the lowest for a Guy N. Smith horror novel thus far, a body behind his debut novel, 'Werewolf by Moonlight', and we only see one of those actually happen. It just isn't that sort of novel and we have to revisit that cover blurb, because it's not actually lying to us. We may have read a lot into those eight words, almost all of which was completely wrong, but it's fair to say that this is all about terror and dread. Whatever else is going on, it's about a family being so scared by unknown external factors that they become utterly helpless, whether they're a young boy like Gavin, an easy target like Janie or a stubborn fighter like Peter. They all get there in the end.
So where does that leave this book in the big picture of Smith's ever-expanding bibliography? Well, it's a weak and underwhelming way to end a run of eight excellent books for Hamlyn, which included some of his best and most original horror novels. That said, whatever themes run through them, they each did a different job and this continued that trend. Between them, they're an impressive portfolio. However, it would be fair to say that this is probably the least of them, with as much in common with the 'Truckers' novels as anything from his horror career.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in September 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
July 17, 2021
Another blast from the past in regard to a Guy N Smith an author whose lurid and slim paperbacks used to be regularly read in my formative years and one whom I suspected in adulthood to be less impressed with...however..
Though not a groundbreaking work of fiction (more the age old tale of townies trying to make sense of a rural community steeped in pagan lore) this had some stuff to recommend it.
In attitudes it hasn't aged as badly as say ..Dennis Wheatley (sorry Dennis)..there's some bits that are hardly 'new man' but generally it's ok and though a oft told tale ..well this is told fairly well.
I do remember 'the Black Fedora' by Smith from memory being fairly well written but I was surprised that this was as good as it was as I seem to recall generally these being disposable pulp shockers.
I've never read Smith's 'Crabs' tales which are as synonymous with him as Rats for James Herbert and Slugs for Shaun Hutson but you know what?...maybe the times right.
Anyhow familiar tale but well executed and it's the kind of story worse Dramas have been eeked from..the suspense is just about right too.
I did read recently the author has left us ..I believe due to this darn pandemic which is a shame...it's also a shame that so few physical copies of his works still stand.
Anyhow an exercise in nostalgia I don't regret.
Though not a groundbreaking work of fiction (more the age old tale of townies trying to make sense of a rural community steeped in pagan lore) this had some stuff to recommend it.
In attitudes it hasn't aged as badly as say ..Dennis Wheatley (sorry Dennis)..there's some bits that are hardly 'new man' but generally it's ok and though a oft told tale ..well this is told fairly well.
I do remember 'the Black Fedora' by Smith from memory being fairly well written but I was surprised that this was as good as it was as I seem to recall generally these being disposable pulp shockers.
I've never read Smith's 'Crabs' tales which are as synonymous with him as Rats for James Herbert and Slugs for Shaun Hutson but you know what?...maybe the times right.
Anyhow familiar tale but well executed and it's the kind of story worse Dramas have been eeked from..the suspense is just about right too.
I did read recently the author has left us ..I believe due to this darn pandemic which is a shame...it's also a shame that so few physical copies of his works still stand.
Anyhow an exercise in nostalgia I don't regret.
Read
July 26, 2022no nawet trzyma w napięciu
July 31, 2021
Peter and his family go to reside in a small Welsh village to find that the locals despise his English heritage, his pets will be gutted and sacrificed in an ancient druid circle, his child will be bullied and beaten by local lads. Outside a force is lurking and Peter is shit scared. As the snow settles in his paranoia will drive him to the brink of insanity. Another guy n smith book that lacks his renowned gore and schlock.
August 25, 2012
Not Guy N Smith at his best I think, although still well worth reading as a good, tense story of fear in the Welsh countryside. Particularly liked the atmosphere of the snowbound cottage. Nicely done.
June 28, 2015
Managed to read this little novel while travelling from Lowestoft to London and back again. Easy.
April 10, 2017
This is as fun as all the other Guy N Smith books, only it tries to be more suspenseful than the others. Some of the scenes in the book are great, especially the ones in the snowstorm. Pretty damn good
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews