'Night of the Mannequins' – Stephen Graham Jones (Tordotcom)


Every so often, I'll be looking for a particular book and while I'm rummaging through a pile, I'll come across my Kindle and remember that the number of unread books in my flat is even larger than I thought... I'll promise myself that I'll read more books from my Kindle and that's where you find me now, all full of good intentions.

After being absolutely blown away by the ending of 'This was always going to happen', I knew I needed to read more from Stephen Graham Jones and being one for shorter books these days, grabbed a copy of 'Night of the Mannequins'. It's taken me a while to get to it and having read the book, I really should have read it a lot earlier (don't make my mistake). Better late than never though, I'm really glad I read it and I'd highly recommend you read it too.

We thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead.

One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. One last prank just to scare a friend. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. Until it starts killing.

Luckily, Sawyer has a plan. He’ll be a hero. He knows exactly why the mannequin is killing and he knows exactly what it will take to stop it...

I'm not going to lie, 'Night of the Mannequins' is a really difficult book to talk about as there is so much good stuff in it that I really don't want to spoil for anyone who hasn't read it yet. You should definitely read it though, I can say that. 'Night of the Mannequins' is a vicious little tale that hits every target it aims for and then flits off into the darkness, leaving you thinking, 'Damn, did that just happen...?' It did happen, it really did. Graham Jones has this mesmerising ability of being able to hide his tale in plain sight, having you think that you're reading something else entirely, until that curtain comes back and... Well, it's not that clear cut and that's the beauty of this tale. 'Night of the Mannequins' is all the more effective for the questions that it raises, inviting the reader to really get involved with the text and draw their own conclusions as to where the story has taken them.

Wherever it takes you... If you're anything like me, 'Night of the Mannequins' will play you like a fiddle; unsettling you while holding your full attention up to (and including) those moments where it all kicks off and the horror happens. And all the while, there's an underlying sense of tragedy waiting to happen, the kind you only get with a group of teenage best friends where you just know that more than one of them will die horribly before the end of the book.

That's about that from me, other than to say that you really should be reading 'Night of the Mannequins' if you haven't already.. Seriously, go and do it.

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