The Bureau of Them, by Cate Gardner (Spectral Press) | review

Glynn has been dead for thirteen months, twelve days, seven hours and some minutes, and Katy can’t stop missing him, can’t move on with her life. She doesn’t want to. He walked out in front of a coach, so there’s no doubt about his passing, but she thinks she sees him watching her, and these brief glimpses lead her to an abandoned office building, where dust and shadows move with uncanny life. Glynn has become part of this office of lost souls, the bureau of them, and they are looking for new recruits! As in previous books like In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair and Nowhere Hall Cate Gardner creates an eerie atmosphere that serves the story well, and Katy’s grief is painful to watch. For me it was a bit disappointing that there wasn’t more bureaucracy in the novella, the title conjuring up visions of weird, secret officialdom working behind the scenes of reality, and that isn’t really what it’s about, the office here being more of a base than where the work is done. (I’m trying to avoid giving too much away.) The novella’s spell is broken a bit by a couple of jarring production problems: “may” being used instead of “might” all the way through, and (in the ebook at least) unspaced hyphens being used in place of dashes, which leaves the reader trying to make sense of odd hyphenates (e.g. “Sounds echoed from within the cinema-tinny”). Definitely worth reading, though. No other writer I’ve read is producing books that remind me so very much of my own bad dreams. If Cate Gardner’s next book is about being lost in a spooky school without a timetable you’ll know she’s stolen my dream journal. Stephen Theaker ***

Spectral Press #2: The Abolisher of Roses, by Gary Fry – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Like so many of us, Peter encourages his wife’s hobbies only up to the point that they begin to encroach upon his own free time. As a hard-working self-made carpet mogul with a frisky mistress down in Sheffield, he has much better things to do than accompany Patricia to the opening of a new project, a woodland art trail. But his copy of the route map takes him to an exhibit created uniquely for his edification. He’s been scornful of art, denied its power to change a man. He’s about to learn how wrong he was.

This second chapbook from Spectral Press lives up to the standard set by the first, What They Hear in the Dark by Gary McMahon. Its flaw is that the characters don’t talk like real people; as in Gary Fry’s first novel, The House of Canted Steps, the protagonist talks and thinks rather more like a psychologist than the regular fellow he’s intended to be, and for such a douchebag lets his wife talk at him for an awfully long time without interrupting her.

Spectral Press #1: What They Hear in the Dark, by Gary McMahon – reviewed

Becky and Rob have moved into a creepy new home following a family tragedy, one gradually revealed to the reader. The space between them, of things that can’t be said, is mirrored by the space beneath their stairs, a place where nothing can be said. There, Becky feels the presence of someone they both love and miss; Rob feels something more malicious.

This is the first in a series of chapbooks from Spectral Press, sold on a subscription basis, and given that Gary McMahon seems to be an author with a bright future – a bright future of spreading misery and darkness! – this is a very collectable little item.