With 'Fiend', Guy N. Smith was dipping back into longer horror novels for Sphere and, only four books later, he would soon do likewise for Grafton, starting with 'Phobia', but he also continued to knock out short, tight novels for Arrow and this one's about as tight as it gets. In fact, while it has a location and a bunch of different characters, we could be forgiven for thinking that it's all about Dean Lazenby, the most dominant force in any of Smith's novels thus far.

In many ways, he's the master of the title. When we meet him in the prologue, he's the master of foxhounds, leading the chase and blooding young Tommy Gallimore for a good job done. The kid has guts but he really isn't into bloodsports. It doesn't matter. He's also the headmaster of Hurst College, a private finishing school in the Highlands of Scotland. As this runs on, we learn that he's a lay preacher, so he even leads the Sunday services. If there's a position of authority to be had, he has it, and even if he doesn't, he steals it. At a school football match, he marches onto the field and disallows a penalty that his own staff member had awarded as referee.

That referee is Phil Cumbes, a senior master at thirty, who quickly falls for Ann Rawsthorne, the virginal new arts teacher, a twenty-four year old who accepts a job at Hurst College only for the money because she doesn't remotely like the look of the place otherwise. We aren't surprised at all when they hook up, however quiet they keep it given the old fashioned morality in play at Hurst; but we are surprised at how long it takes. Maybe it's fear of Dean Lazenby's inevitable disapproval that makes them think twice about everything. It's almost like life is on pause for everyone else until he's ready to press the play button.

Initially, it seems that the horror here is in how Lazenby treats his pupils. When his first eleven lose 1-0 to another school, even after he disallows a penalty that might make it two, he takes it out on the team. He has them meet on the field at eleven at night, strip naked—remember it's the Highlands of Scotland, so it's pretty frickin' cold—and run laps until they drop. When each is too tired to continue, they merely become hurdles for those still going. Gallimore is able to do nineteen laps before he's done and the affair is over for now.

The youngest student is sixteen-years-old, Chris Pocklington by name, and he runs from what he sees happening, but Lazenby literally sets the dogs on his trail. Once back at the school, Chris is treated to a glimpse inside Lazenby's cane cabinet before getting ten lashes with an eight-inch cane. An hour before morning bell he hangs himself. Lazenby didn't tie the rope but everyone in the school knows that it was because of him that a sixteen-year-old boy is dead. And, of course, it shouldn't be a surprise to find that he isn't the only student to perish this term.

Then again, we've already learned something else about him by this point in the story. The head girl, Colette Balmer, seduces young Jayne Reynolds and takes her down to the chapel. It's been changed since Sunday service, black replacing white and the cross turned upside down. The men there are in robes and, after sacrificing a hen, they step forward in turn to gang-rape her. Next thing we know, Jayne's pregnant and it seems that it's all part of a plan, something to do with a mysterious hidden partner named Berrow.

Once again, everything's about Lazenby. He's a sadist of a disciplinarian. He's a callous master, putting his school before the safety of his pupils. He's a devil worshipper who sacrifices animals and rapes his students. He's clearly not anyone you want to mess with. However, he is, in many ways, the story here; the back cover blurb gives away that he has his own Master and the rituals he conducts in the dead of night are in his honour. When we learn more about this Master, the more traditional horror kicks in. As thoroughly British as this book feels, if it was adapted onto the screen, the director would have to be Italian. Nobody else handles three-foot-tall hunchbacked dwarfs with the right amount of horror and sleaze.

It's telling that when we're introduced to the staff of Hurst College as early as chapter two, no fewer than five of them on the benches watching the game with the sixth, Phil Cumbes, on the field, none of them have anything else to do in this book. We meet a lot of characters but they all fade quickly away into the subdued background because Lazenby is always about to steal the spotlight right back from them. He directs every single conversation, so everyone else is always on the defensive; even if he isn't being accusatory, which isn't often. Frankly, this applies to us too, even though we're safely on the other side of the page and can close the book any time we want. We keep reading because we don't want to incur the wrath of the Master.

There's an inevitability to this novel. It's almost all Lazenby; even when he's not in a scene, he's still the focus of conversation, but he's also the monster who's working for a bigger monster, so we know he's going to get his comeuppance at the end. How it happens is a little surprising, but it's appropriate enough. There's a lot of karma building up in this novel ready to explode in his face, even though he seems almost as unstoppable as the resurrected Andre Keschev in 'Fiend', merely without any supernatural powers. It makes him truly scary.

Having such a focus on one dominant character makes this a quick and sparse read. It has little plot and few characters have any substance. Most of them are just a blur in the background like extras in a movie. While Ann and Phil realise something is up early, it takes them forever to do anything about it and it takes a crofter whose family have been oppressed for generations to spark real action. But 'The Master' also has such an oppressive mood that we quickly feel like a student at Hurst College who has to obey every instruction given to the letter or we'll be doing a twenty-mile hike up the mountain in the snow.

Of course, if this was my book report on 'The Master' for an arts class at Hurst College, I would have to change everything I've just said. Dean Lazenby is a wonderful headmaster and the sun revolves around him. Now, can I have an A, sir, and thus avoid doing laps of the field naked? ~~ Hal C F Astell

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