Publisher - Titan

Published - Out Now

Price - £4.28 Kindle eBook £8.99 paperback

Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common.

But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and were left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road. Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl―and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be.

Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin’s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.

Haunted roads do have a history. The infamous ghost hitch-hiker; the bargaining with the devil at a crossroads and roads are the scene of many accidents. By definition many roads are going to and from places and so perhaps the fear is you’re on them alone and if something does go wrong there is not really any imminent help unless you’re lucky? In Christopher Golden’s fast paced ride into the night that is Road of Bones we get two ambitious film-makers following their dreams on the coldest road in Siberia and have a horrific case of bad timing that could spell death for them all.

Tieg and aspiring TV producer and and his best friend Prentiss a cameraman are chasing a dream to make a supernatural documentary series that explores the notorious ‘Road of Bones’ the endless motorway that Stalin built using prisoners many of whom died in their construction as this part of the world get to minus 70C in winter. The place has had a reputation for a long time. They meet their tour guide Kaskil; ick up a driver in distress after a car breakdown named Nari and then drive to Kaskil’s community before starting to film their pilot to help pick up investors. But Kaskil finds his home empty; as are the other houses and very soon something from the Siberian forest shows its face and teeth. Tieg and Prentiss soon have to try to drive through the deadly Siberian night and cold but that may be the leats of things they have to worry about.

I’ll be circumspect as to what scares our two would be media stars as that is part of the fun of this very good horror tale. Golden sets up these two friends; we get to understand their pasts; their fears, their brotherly relationship and that while they all dream of the big bucks they’re probably quite decent people if typical tourists who just speak English and don’t know much about where they’re travelling. The skill Golden deploys is that all this set up does a 90 degree turn into folk horror.

There is little warning of what is coming; there is then little explanation for why it is happening we just have two people plunged into a nightmare they have only one job - to now try and stay alive and ideally keep the rest of the party they meet too in the process. Characters are coming and going; the pace suitably for a tale on a road is fast and the danger feels ancient and unexplainable. All helped by the reputation of this cold desolate place where as soon as you leave your car you’re starting to ice over. Things go wrong, then more wrong and then guess what…yep. This is a cold chiller of a horror tale where bad things happen to good people simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A sense of desperation grows as the route for escape narrows and narrows and this is all about the chase.

If you’re looking for some wintry horror at this time of year this story is perfect for a long winter night and you’ll want extra blankets around you in the process. Its very very good and highly recommended!