'Thirst II – The Plague' – Guy N. Smith (New English Library)

Last week wasn't a bad week, at work, but there was loads to get done and not quite enough Graeme to do it all. And the weekend... Again, not a bad weekend but not enough time to sit down and have a proper read. You know what I mean... A comfy chair, a few snacks and a big thick book that you can get lost in for hours. What was the alternative then? I'll tell you... A short, sharp dose of horror that you can read for five minutes, here and there, and a couple of packets of Chewits to eat while you're doing it. Yes, we're back in Guy N. Smith country once again and this time... Well, the 'Thirst' is back.

I had completely forgotten but my first book review, here, was Guy N. Smith's ' Thirst'. I'd found 'The Thirst' and 'Locusts' in a Charing Cross Road bookshop and thought reviewing these would be something a little different. I'm rubbish at keeping up with what's new, these days, so thought I'd just feature what I liked instead. I only thought I'd do a couple of books... I had no idea that a couple of years on, I'd still be posting reviews of Guy N. Smith's work, there's certainly plenty to keep me going. Oh well...

I thought 'Thirst' had tied things up quite neatly and that there was no way it would come back. 'Thirst II' was an intriguing book then as the 'Thirst' clearly had come back... but how? Let's find out... shall we?

Relentlessly, silently, the snow fell, shrouding the hills. Already the village was completely cut off, no on able to get out, no help able to get in. Well stocked up with food and fuel, they should have been able to survive. But this time everything was different. This time there was something more in the village. The first victim lay staining the snow with dark blood. His face, eyes staring blankly, was a weeping mass of ulcers. His expression was a mask of animal hatred. Now the others, crazed with thirst and blood lust, were stumbling through the streets. And still the soft snow fell.

In keeping with Guy N. Smith's line of 'eco-horror', the 'Thirst' makes its reappearance in a way that underlines the consequences of humanity messing with the environment while neatly explaining how it took five years to come around again. The twist here is a good one and it's fun to look back and see how Smith hides it in plain sight. You'll probably get it quicker than I did but when I did realise, I was all 'wow...'

'Thirst II' is a short read (just over a hundred and fifty pages) and a real page turner as Smith fills it full of mystery and horror as people slowly succumb to the 'Thirst' and indulge in some pretty sick stuff before they die. Luckily, some of this is only suggested and doesn't actually happen, Smith erring on the side of caution regarding what is titillation and what blatantly isn't. It's a shame then that his depiction of the two village 'busybodies' (two very unlikeable women) is a poor treatment of survivors of rape, Edna Lupoff in particular. You can see that, back in the day, it would have been explained away as more horror that these two women faced but to build them up as so unlikeable and then make a passing comment to sexual trauma in the passages leading up to their deaths? It doesn't sit well with me as it feels like they're being blamed for their inability to cope and what it has made them become.

It's a real shame that this was an issue as the rest of the book was Guy N. Smith very much on form. The snowed in Welsh village is suitably claustrophobic and makes the ensuing violence that much more powerful. It's not just the people either, animals are now susceptible to the 'Thirst' and this makes for some disturbing moments when pets snap. As ever, Smith doesn't stint on the visual horror of the 'Thirst', showing us exactly what it does to the human body, and if this wasn't enough he takes inside the heads of those who are suffering. We can see the delusions gradually take shape and then explode into bloody violence; it's nasty yet compelling, you have to keep reading. I thought the approach that Smith employs, to kill off the bulk of the infected, was a little too easy but you could see how it could happen with a bunch of people desperate for a drink.

'Thirst II' does the job, that it sets out to do, very well; a claustrophobic horror with the gore standing out in the bright white snow. Be warned though, it does have one foot firmly in problematic territory with it's treatment of two female characters.