Hunting By The River by Daniel Carpenter

I would like to thank the author and Black Shuck Books for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Black Shuck Books

Published – 25/4

Price – £11.99 paperback

“It feels like this whole place is infected, like someone buried something here and its roots were rotten and dead, and it’s coming up, and it’s growing. Soon enough it’ll sprout, and then we’ll be breathing it in.”

A builder unearths a hand, buried on a building site; a woman with a unique way of speaking to the dead comes across her toughest client to date; a young man returns to his hometown, desperately searching for his missing sister.

In his debut collection, Daniel Carpenter explores places and the people who get lost in them. From Manchester to London, as well as the uncanny fringes of England, these are stories that span the breadth of the Weird.

Often a sense of disquiet is scarier than horror. That feeling that what you’re seeing is not quite right. A danger lurking near you; an encounter with a person who doesn’t make you feel comfortable and if that happens in plain daylight on your normal routes around the city you can feel like you’re gone through the looking glass. In Daniel Carpenter’s delightfully disturbing Hunting By the River we are given a great collection of horror and weird fiction tales that may make you look at the world (and in particular cities) around you more carefully and with a little more trepidation.

In this collection we have

Roots – a builder digging on a site finds what appears to be a child’s hand in the dirt. This story explores how so many cities are now building and finding the remnants of the dead in graveyards (like the recent Crossrail) but Carpenter adds a more sinister element that this is something else going on. Ideas of a cover-up; how people may disappear if thy know too much and ultimately is this a new way for cities to grow using the dead in some way. Its macabre and worrying without ever being too explicit and its short fiction with a sense of hidden depth that really strikes you.

What They Say About Cat Killers – A council estate is worried by the seemingly random but brutal murder of a cat. Our narrator is getting gradually worried what this means for the place that has been his and his father’s home for so many years. It’s a powerful dark tale of people stuck in one place and yet also aware that the developers are circling and the community they have only known will be going. It also shows hidden darker side to some characters we meet that reminds us in any place we may find horrors just a door or so away from us.

Hunting by the River - This is a marvellous epic tale in short story form. It starts with our main character Lee arriving in Manchester with a touch of nostalgic joy and then Carpenter pulls the rug by our lead finding that his sister has again gone from her parent’s home. What sounds though like an urban drama then weaves in a tale of magic and danger.  Kirsty, we find can possess other people; is obsessed with magic and there is a sense she is up to something. This tale explores how residents of cities can feel alienated by renovation as you find your home changed into trendy bars and business districts that push people outwards. It bristles with escalation, rituals and ends in a disturbing scene of powerful magical destruction that intrigues me as to what would happen next. One of my favourites in this collection.

Flotsam – cosmic horror on the seaside almost told in the form of a more dusty factual report which makes it creepier. The residents of a small town find a huge indescribable monster after a strange storm. They are persuaded to try eating it and things go south and horrible pretty damn quick. It’s a deliciously warping tale of old ladies who smile too much and strange occurrences before and after the event. The lack of any key explanation leads lots to the reader to unpick but its like normal life being squeezed by something beyond our comprehension. Really powerfully delivered.

Stink Pit – a fascinating eerie tale of some young hunt saboteurs who meet a man known only as Oppo. He teaches them new skills and has key contacts but is he too good to be true. A tale that feeds into the idea of activist groups being infiltrated gets crossed with a disturbing type of folk horror that puts our lead characters on the run from something that’s hard to describe or hide from. I loved the way reality is played with and we jump aback and firth in time to understand how things went wrong and jumps to a final terrifying scene of what is to come.

Habitual – I’ve read this tale before in another collection and it’s a brilliant tale of people being alienated; sucked into strange residential jobs for the powerful and sense of being trapped. Again a urban environment becomes something much weirder and more dangerous.

All Honours That Are Due – this is a captivating dark tale that simply starts with a woman voting for the first time and hearing a strange comment from the booth next to her. We get to see a young mother trying to eke out a living for her daughter and her drunk mother. Then the daughter goes missing. As well as capturing the torment of such an event Carpenter adds in a folk horror dimension that makes things even more sinister. A horrible sense of deliberate action creeps into the tale and this feels haunting and truly scary all the way to the end.

A Visitor’s Guide to Penge Magic (Annotated) – Carpenter is inventive here with three tales all weaved into one book where various people respond to the comments of another. Our modern-day cynical character is scathing about the idea of weird magical events in Penge but we start to notice history repeating itself and a sense of reality shifting around the unwary. Very skilfully told and leaves itself open as to what happens next.

They have Gone To The City – Another tale I’ve enjoyed elsewhere but it’s a tale of grief, growing up and seeing your past is no longer around you. A night in a music club stirs up memories and also a sinister figure that could offer either hope or something more scary. The tale lets the reader decide. I really enjoyed this one.

Gods & Kings – a tale of someone finding an old friend from university has turned into a full-on right wing hard core protestor. Hospital protests where our narrator works and a sense of escalating danger but the plotters have decided magic will be their solution and perhaps a reminder using things to hurt others can always pull back and hurt themselves. Disturbing but I don’t feel entirely sorry for what happens to them!

Stabbed in the Neck by Dot Cotton – I’ll leave you to find out why the story has that title but here a block of flats is itself the character as it remembers its former life as a factory and gazes through the flats for someone to meet its own criteria. Multiple strange things going on at once to unnerve us and a sense that something nasty is minutes away. Very impressively constructed and told!

A Moment Could Last Them Forever – The final tale in the collection has an unusual psychic who meets an unusual elderly client. Her usual magical skills are not quite working and she is struggling to find out why. Two magical beings seem to be running up against each other. It is strange and there is a sense of unease throughout but I can’t quite put my finger on why which makes it for me an even more troubling experience – which I really liked!

Haunting by the River is filled of moments of the uncanny and strange. Some end horribly; some may do and other just feel like brushes with something very inhuman that change people forever. Not every story needs an explanation and a resolution – the lack of them can be more horrific sometimes. They’re powerfully absorbing tales that really capture the sense of the places Carpenter sets the stories in and makes the reader sees them with slightly more alert eyes from now on. Highly recommended!