'Sour Candy' – Kealan Patrick Burke

Children are creepy and I should know, I've got two who are more than happy to get in touch with their dark side. I don't live with them but apparently, the other morning saw my youngest sneak into her sister's room so that when she woke up, the first thing she'd see would be her little sister stood by right by her, just staring...

So yes, little children are nasty, creepy little creatures whose natural habitat is the horror book or film; which leads me onto 'Sour Candy' by Kealan Patrick Burke. Now here is an author that I always mean to read more of but never quite seem to get round to it. Amazon threw me this title, the other day, and I thought I'd give it a shot. And I'm really glad that I did.

At first glance, Phil Pendleton and his son Adam are just an ordinary father and son, no different from any other. They take walks in the park together, visit county fairs, museums, and zoos,
and eat together overlooking the lake. Some might say the father is a little too accommodating given the lack of discipline when the child loses his temper in public. Some might say he spoils his son by allowing him to eat candy whenever he wants and set his own bedtimes. Some might say that such leniency is starting to take its toll on the father, given how his health has declined.

What no one knows is that Phil is a prisoner, and that up until a few weeks ago and a chance encounter at a grocery store, he had never seen the child before in his life.

'Sour Candy' is a vicious little tale that never allows you to settle into the read. Every time I thought I had a handle on it, 'Sour Candy' seemed to take great pleasure in throwing me onto even darker paths that I had no idea were there. Just that approach, on it's own, makes 'Sour Candy' a compelling read but there's also the added bonus of seeing Phil Pendleton gradually lose his mind in a situation where he has no idea why things are happening (and everyone else thinks it's all perfectly normal, a nicely unsettling counterpoint there), only that they are and that his death may well be the only way out. Honestly, it's like something out of 'The Twilight Zone', the way in which Burke takes this regular guy and slowly strips him of everything that's normal about his life; leaving him with a strange child in his house who is not quite a Damien but comes pretty close. There is something really unsettling about seeing a human child that's actually not quite human. Just the fact that Adam is clearly following some kind of 'human child script' is enough to make my skin crawl and Burke is happy to let Adam do just that for the whole book.

The perfectly timed twist, right at the end, rounds off a bite-sized chunk of cosmic horror (well, at least from where I was standing) that reminds me that I really should be reading more stuff by Kealan Patrick Burke. And so should you if you aren't already. Give 'Sour Candy' a go, I don't think you'll regret it.