‘Caracal’ – Guy N. Smith (New English Library)

I’ve been looking around the flat, the last couple of days, and it turns out that I don’t just have the TBR piles, I also have an HBR (‘Has Been Read’ of course) pile that I’m going to be dipping into while I tackle a couple of longer books that I really should have read by now. And it wouldn’t be an HBR pile without a Guy N. Smith book in it… 😉 In what will be a shorter post than normal today, lets take a look at ‘Caracal’…

When Bilal signs various official documents in order to get to Britain, he doesn't realise that he's being manipulated for cheap labour and will soon become an illegal immigrant on the run from the authorities. He also fails to realise that his pet caracal - a wild cat that is often domesticated back home - will return to its natural wild state if and when it doesn't receive the necessary training. And in the Welsh border hills there's plenty of space for it to hide. After it mauls a few sheep and pheasants, the hunt is on before it graduates to human meat…

You know by now that I’m more likely to enjoy a Guy N. Smith read than not; his books are just what I need in times that vary between ‘intense’ and ‘bloody stressful’. Today is merely ‘intense’, thanks for asking though 😊 ‘Caracal’ was no exception, and I’ll get onto the ‘why’ of that in a bit. I couldn’t help feeling that the story was a little too familiar though and then I realised that was because I’d read ‘Snakes’ fairly recently. So, not ‘Caracal’s’ fault then, if you’ve read another similar book recently then you can’t blame a book for that, but ‘Caracal’ does follow very similar lines. Wild(ish) animal escapes and tears up anything in it’s path while the hapless authorities try and corner it.

The good news is that Guy N. Smith has form for turning out very readable ‘animal horror’ and he brings that experience to bear here, the result being a book that I couldn’t put down until I was done. I know, I say that about most of Guy N. Smith’s books but although ‘Caracal’ doesn’t quite have the vicious energy of ‘Snakes’ (it really felt like the snakes were out for revenge, the Caracal is just a wild animal trying to survive in a strange land), it still has plenty to spare and does its job very well.

Again, it’s a familiar path being trodden here but if something isn’t broken… Guy N. Smith is great at signposting characters whom you just know are going to be savaged but then dragging things out enough that you think ‘maybe, not?’ and then… It’s all claws, teeth and blood and those moments that we all read Guy N. Smith for, bloody death for characters who just got what was coming. Apart from the little boy that is, poor little kid didn’t deserve that (and bear in mind that a child does die here, if you’re thinking of picking this book up). Lester Hoyle though… No sympathy for him I’m afraid.

‘Caracal’ is a very straightforward read then but what it does is done very well and it’s no chore to stick with it and see who makes it out alive at the end. A very entertaining read.