Prince of Nightmares by John McNee

Victor goes to spend a few nights in the most haunted hotel in the world. What could go wrong?

That’s a very brief synopsis as I don’t really like going into details on a plot for fear of inadvertently giving away a spoiler. Even books that have ‘you won’t see the twist coming!’ give me cold sweats, because yes, yes I will see the twist because you’ve just told me to look out for it.

I digress.

This is a really entertaining solid slice of horror. The first half builds up an atmosphere that is heavy on dread as McNee introduces us to all the major players – both alive and dead. Then he unleashes the full force of his imagination and things get a whole lot more gory and horrific.

For me, the first half of the book was a lot more effective as I prefer slow creeping horror to full on gore. I feel it doesn’t quite reach the heights of McNee’s short stories (check out Doom Cabaret), and I really wasn’t sure about the relationship between Victor and Gia.

I would still  heartily recommend this to fans of old school horror though and look forward to wherever McNee’s twisted imagination takes him next.