Shaun Hutson, Heathen

Shaun Hutson, Heathen - Synopsis:

"Donna Ward was shattered when her husband was killed in a car crash, devastated to learn that another woman had been with him, and disbelieving when the police informed her that the crash had been no accident. How could her beloved Chris, a best-selling author, have any enemies. How long had he had a mistress? And who are the mysterious men in the photographs she finds? Suddenly Donna has to face up to the fact that she knows less about her husband than she thought. But as she searches for the missing answers to her questions, Donna moves ever closer to danger, for she herself is being stalked by people who have killed before and will do so again. She will come face to face with those who call themselves the Sons of Midnight".

First published in 1992, Heathen was Hutson's twenty-eighth full length novel (including the ones under his various pseudonyms). He had already established himself as one of the most prominent authors in the splatterpunk genre. He had some awesome novels under his belt by this time and was well-respected in the whole horror genre. Unfortunately, he then wrote this extremely poor novel. The plot is laughable, the characterization poor, the suspense is tedious and annoying, the storyline is dull and the ending is terribly obvious. Yeah, the novel is packed with action and violence like you would expect from a Hutson novel, but it's lacking that little spark of disturbing energy that he usually injects into his descriptive nature. It seems that he lost his passion for the genre with this novel, and has just churned out another one to keep the publishers happy. Luckily, a year later Hutson released the awesome 'Deadhead' that proved to the world that he was still one of the best splatterpunk writers to date.

If you fancy reading a Hutson novel, please give Heathen a wide birth and instead go for Assassin, Deadhead, Erebus or Slugs...to name but a few. This is the poorest offering I have read from our Hutson. The book runs for 406 pages.