I've been waiting for this one for a while. The British horror boom in the seventies and eighties led to covers like this one being readily visible in high street newsagents like W. H. Smith's to anyone who might walk past the horror aisle. Now I have to worry about it being taken down by Facebook because, uhoh, there are actual nipples on it. That's Kim Armstrong on the cover having a bath in the Lochside Hotel, only for the water to turn to blood, making her think that she'd slit her wrists in a dream. It's one of their selling points.

You see, the Lochside Hotel is part of a tourist attraction, a new building attached to a crumbling castle that's been turned into a gruesome waxworks. The horror theme has already attracted the likes of Gothic Films, who are shooting 'Deathcast' there, but it's somehow soaking into the minds of the actors, Leon Fayle taking a bite out of Angela Allison's neck for real, which doesn't impress the director, Frank Svoboda. It's just the beginning, though, as an ancient evil is awakening under the castle that has the power to turn all the fake horror into real horror.

If that sounds a bit cheesy, it is, perhaps inevitably given that, when the death toll starts to grow, the apparent killers seem to be the waxworks. They're agreeably varied, but what are characters supposed to do when inanimate objects like the Vampire, the Cannibal and the Executioner start claiming lives? Cheesy isn't a vibe that I tend to get from Guy N. Smith. Gratuitous, sure. Over the top, absolutely. But not cheesy. Sure, I'd remembered the cover art a lot longer than anything on its pages but I was surprised at how weak this felt, especially given that Guy was on relatively well-trodden ground here in a whole slew of ways.

He had set a lot of books in Scotland, from 'Night of the Werewolf' in 1976 to 'Cannibals' a decade on, two titles before this one. It's always been an evocative location for him because he loved the countryside and often visited on wildfowling expeditions. There's a mention here of Caerlaverock, just in passing, a castle Kim and her husband Eric visited on the way to Lochside. That was one of Guy's regular haunts and its name shows up frequently in his world, as I explained in my review of 'Warhead', set in a Welsh nuclear missile installation that was named for it. However, there isn't much local flavour to be found here at all. Most of what happens unfolds in the castle itself rather than the land around it, unusually for a writer so keen on getting outside. Frankly, Lochside could have been anywhere.

He had also built a lot of books around battles between contemporary characters and ancient evil, so his fans were used to scenes of psychological torment where reality bleeds away, often in order to transport someone to a past time, whether temporarily as part of a crucial vision or physically to be sacrificed by druids or some such. These scenes have made for some of Guy's most powerful and vivid and there are similar scenes of power here, such as that one with Kim Armstrong in the bath, but they never ring true in the castle. Those scenes feel like Hammer Horror knockoffs.

It does pick up during the second half, becoming so busy that it's almost action horror, with sides set and psychic battle commencing, but individual details that had worked so well in earlier books somehow fail to bite here. For instance, Ursula Illingsworth arrives in time for that battle and she has the chops for it, as an exorcist who can astral travel, but Guy can't put those talents to as good a use as he did with the Mark Sabat books. It feels like all the elements were here for Guy to nail this novel, but he can't stop the cheesiness of the Lochside exhibits from bleeding into his story.

Part of the problem is that there are precious few characters. It's out of season now for Lochside, so there aren't many people staying there. Kim and Eric are horrorhounds on their honeymoon, a glorious concept that doesn't reach its potential because Kim turns into a wuss, a frustrating habit for many wives in Guy N. Smith novels, and Eric doesn't take up the slack. He does save her once or twice but he never feels like a worthy combatant in this battle against evil. At least he stays alive, unlike George Vallance, a cheap author who writes about haunted houses, or Caroline Chadderton, an annoying journalist there for a story.

The police won't let the Armstrongs leave the scene of what they believe are multiple crimes, but they start to seem rather lonely there. Smith doesn't flesh out the skeleton staff either, with the manager, Simon Weaver, frequently hidden off screen and only a receptionist otherwise playing a part, however minor, in proceedings. After the first couple of deaths, bookings pick up, off-season or not because no publicity is bad publicity, but Lochside is never busy. There's Ursula and a guest called Mark Pendeford who can see ghosts. They both become part of the side of good taking on the fight against evil. Rose Shaylor, an American holidaymaker who breaks down nearby with her twelve-year-old psychopath of a son, Davy, is just a brief distraction.

The best part of this book is the second half, when it feels a little busier, a little less cheesy and a lot more serious. Smith gets into gear and salvages something from the mess of a first half, which is easily the worst part of this book. I often read reviews of Guy's work and it's always interesting to see what people have to say who don't have a background with him. Fans can write this one off as a failure, especially the first half, and see some of the reasons why, like the author awkwardly avoiding playing to his strengths, but new readers can't do that. Any that start here get an awful first impression of what he does and so make assumptions that aren't particularly accurate.

I don't know if Smith felt that this was a failure too, but it marks the end of a long string of eight standalone novels, including career highlights like 'The Wood', 'Abomination' and 'Cannibals'. In its wake, he went back to older titles, writing sequels to 'Thirst' and 'Deathbell' and extending his 'Crabs' series to six novels, before returning to standalone novels with 'The Island', another book set in Scotland that plays with an ancient evil, but I remember the Laird of Ulver in that one a lot better and with a lot more gruesome fondness than the Laird of Benahee here. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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