‘Nightmares from the Black Hill’ – Guy N. Smith (Black Hill Books)


Guy N. Smith’s long horror writing career encompassed 70 best-selling novels. His short story ‘The Searchers’ was the first to be published in the London Mystery Magazine in March 1972. This was followed in June of that year by ‘The Mummy’ in Vol. 22 No. 93. The mummy theme continued in an article in Country Life magazine, followed by a short television programme. Over a decade later the idea spawned his novel ‘Accursed’. Guy’s early horror stories in London Mystery are eagerly sought by his current fans but, unfortunately, many of them are difficult, sometimes impossible, to locate. Hence he decided to publish the complete range in the volume.

The problem with having a tiny flat and loads of books is that you can finish a book, put it down and then several weeks later, find it at the bottom of another pile of books that has somehow appeared there. Ok, I’d purposefully created that pile (of books that I want to get to in the near future) but you know what I mean… 😉  The other problem… There is another problem 😉 Once you’ve already reviewed two Guy N. Smith short story collections 'Tales from the Graveyard' and 'From the Dark Hours'), you can find yourself in the position of not really having anything new to say once you’ve read a third collection. Two reasons why this post has been a little short in coming but here we are now and…

Well, I still had a lot of fun making my way through another collection, of horror and mystery tales, that have been collected here so that the likes of me don’t have to go searching old copies of the ‘London Mystery Magazine’ (I might still keep half an eye open for old copies but it’s not an urgent thing now). As with ‘Tales from the Graveyard’, I am very appreciative that it’s all in one book. And there are some tales worth reading here as well. I’m always a little hesitant to point out my highlights, as they may end up not being yours, but in this collection, Guy N. Smith remains the kind of writer with an eye for a cool concept and the ability to execute it over a small number of pages. Some stories didn’t quite hit the target for me but again, what didn’t work for me may well work for you. There’s something here for everyone, I think. Personal highlights for me were ‘The Searchers’ (you could see the ending coming but it’s handled very well), ‘It’ (because puppets freak me right out, bloody hell…), ‘Aunt Mary and the Cats’ (never saw that ending coming and again, bloody hell…) and ‘The Splodge’ (not as cute as it sounds).

Is it a collection for newcomers though…? While there’s some good stuff here, my preference is for Guy N. Smith’s longer works (for me, it’s the room that he has to do more with the subject matter) so to be honest, I’d point someone in the direction of ‘The Crabs’ or ‘The Thirst’ books (or ‘Entombed’, that was a good one) and let them find their way from there. ‘Nightmares from the Black Hill’ isn’t a bad book to pick up though if you want to find out what Smith was all about with his short story writing. I’m glad that I gave it a shot.

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