| Publisher | Michael Joseph |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 29 September 2022 |
| ISBN-10 | 0241582636 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0241582633 |
| Format | hardcover |
| Pages | 352 |
| Price | £ 16.99 |
A Sliver of Darkness
by
Eleven short stories, all with a macabre twist, some obvious, some harder to anticipate.
Review
One thing I like about short stories is the freedom they give authors to jump straight into the narrative without spending time on scene-setting or backstory and in this collection of 11 macabre tales, CJ Tudor makes good use of that freedom.
The opening story, End of the Line, jumps straight in with an immediately engaging story of a 75-year-old woman who has spent the last 50 years on a luxury cruise ship. The only drawbacks are that any questioning of the ship’s routine is strongly discouraged and that for all passengers there is a compulsory retirement age of 75. When Leila has to face up to her own imminent retirement from the liner, she can’t help asking questions, especially when a crew member is found dead in one of the swimming pools. I enjoyed the hints here of a world that has somehow gone to hell in a handcart, leaving the privileged few to sail the seas, staying safe, provided they are willing to accept that all good things must come to an end and that a watery grave awaits them all.
The Block will resonate with anyone who has lived with the sight of a towering grey urban monstrosity in their local town and wondered what’s gone on behind the decaying frontage and boarded-up windows. A gang of teenagers decide to find out what it’s like inside one such block, with terrifying consequences. There’s bags of atmosphere here, redolent with the earthy smells of mould – and worse – that reminded me of my own young days exploring old air raid shelters and derelict railway stations, but fortunately I was never chased out by anything worse than my own imagination, unlike the horrors that went after these kids.
Runaway Blues is a classic tale of misdirection, as a couple intent on learning more about the latest jazz sensation in the Blue Flamingo club, their favourite Friday night haunt, decide to sneak into his dressing room to peak into the hat box that accompanies him everywhere. The story veers in an unexpected direction when they learn about the young man’s girlfriend and I ended up having to read the closing pages twice as I struggled at first to make sense of the sinister ending.
In The Completion, an estate agent makes the bargain of a lifetime and The Lion at the Gate features some rather startling graffiti. One of my favourites was Gloria, featuring a woman who makes a living cleaning up the crimes of others. She’s as hard-nosed as they come, but even she’s more than a little rattled by an encounter with a young girl in a motorway service station who asks her questions about things she couldn’t possibly have known. To her own surprise, Gloria even ends up acting almost altruistically, although for how long is anyone’s guess.
I’m Not Ted shows the possible consequences of giving in to temptation. The Final Course is a story set a world where people are struggling to survive when darkness contains monsters that don’t have the grace to just stay under the bed. A reunion of old friends at a country house seems to offer sanctuary, but no one expects the darkness to hide in plain sight. The Copy Shop holds the promise of not just invisible mending, but the ability to get back an article in an even better state than it was before, and this doesn’t just apply to a broken vase or an old cat. I liked the light-hearted tone to this one. And it was a very tempting idea!
A holiday village with a difference in Dust is another story I had to read twice just to make sure I’d picked up the nuances, and again that extra effort was worth it. Butterfly Island is another post-apocalyptic tale where even after an unspecified catastrophe, a deserted tropical island is determined to guard its secrets.
A Sliver of Darkness packs in oodles of moral ambiguity and in many cases I was left wanting more, even through the stories didn’t need fleshing out any further to make their point. It was simply that I wanted to see more of characters like Gloria and to learn more about the bleak future worlds with their hints of cataclysm and desperation. The twists were subtle and often unexpected, providing plenty of full body shivers. CJ Tudor pulls off creepy without careering down a slippery slope into out and out horror and the shocks are all the more powerful when they do come.
The opening story, End of the Line, jumps straight in with an immediately engaging story of a 75-year-old woman who has spent the last 50 years on a luxury cruise ship. The only drawbacks are that any questioning of the ship’s routine is strongly discouraged and that for all passengers there is a compulsory retirement age of 75. When Leila has to face up to her own imminent retirement from the liner, she can’t help asking questions, especially when a crew member is found dead in one of the swimming pools. I enjoyed the hints here of a world that has somehow gone to hell in a handcart, leaving the privileged few to sail the seas, staying safe, provided they are willing to accept that all good things must come to an end and that a watery grave awaits them all.
The Block will resonate with anyone who has lived with the sight of a towering grey urban monstrosity in their local town and wondered what’s gone on behind the decaying frontage and boarded-up windows. A gang of teenagers decide to find out what it’s like inside one such block, with terrifying consequences. There’s bags of atmosphere here, redolent with the earthy smells of mould – and worse – that reminded me of my own young days exploring old air raid shelters and derelict railway stations, but fortunately I was never chased out by anything worse than my own imagination, unlike the horrors that went after these kids.
Runaway Blues is a classic tale of misdirection, as a couple intent on learning more about the latest jazz sensation in the Blue Flamingo club, their favourite Friday night haunt, decide to sneak into his dressing room to peak into the hat box that accompanies him everywhere. The story veers in an unexpected direction when they learn about the young man’s girlfriend and I ended up having to read the closing pages twice as I struggled at first to make sense of the sinister ending.
In The Completion, an estate agent makes the bargain of a lifetime and The Lion at the Gate features some rather startling graffiti. One of my favourites was Gloria, featuring a woman who makes a living cleaning up the crimes of others. She’s as hard-nosed as they come, but even she’s more than a little rattled by an encounter with a young girl in a motorway service station who asks her questions about things she couldn’t possibly have known. To her own surprise, Gloria even ends up acting almost altruistically, although for how long is anyone’s guess.
I’m Not Ted shows the possible consequences of giving in to temptation. The Final Course is a story set a world where people are struggling to survive when darkness contains monsters that don’t have the grace to just stay under the bed. A reunion of old friends at a country house seems to offer sanctuary, but no one expects the darkness to hide in plain sight. The Copy Shop holds the promise of not just invisible mending, but the ability to get back an article in an even better state than it was before, and this doesn’t just apply to a broken vase or an old cat. I liked the light-hearted tone to this one. And it was a very tempting idea!
A holiday village with a difference in Dust is another story I had to read twice just to make sure I’d picked up the nuances, and again that extra effort was worth it. Butterfly Island is another post-apocalyptic tale where even after an unspecified catastrophe, a deserted tropical island is determined to guard its secrets.
A Sliver of Darkness packs in oodles of moral ambiguity and in many cases I was left wanting more, even through the stories didn’t need fleshing out any further to make their point. It was simply that I wanted to see more of characters like Gloria and to learn more about the bleak future worlds with their hints of cataclysm and desperation. The twists were subtle and often unexpected, providing plenty of full body shivers. CJ Tudor pulls off creepy without careering down a slippery slope into out and out horror and the shocks are all the more powerful when they do come.
Reviewed 17 December 2022 by Linda Wilson
