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The Dead Path
A haunting vision in the woods sets off a series of tragic events, leaving Nicholas Close lost amid visions of ghosts trapped in their harrowing, final moments. These uniquely terrifying apparitions lead him on a thrilling and suspenseful ride to confront a wicked soul, and will leave an indelible mark on lovers of high-quality suspense and horror alike.
Nicholas Close has always had an uncanny intuition, but after the death of his wife he becomes haunted, literally, by ghosts doomed to repeat their final violent moments in a chilling and endless loop. Torn by guilt and fearing for his sanity, Nicholas returns to his childhood home and is soon entangled in a disturbing series of disappearances and murders—both as a suspect and as the next victim of the malignant evil lurking in the heart of the woods.
Stephen M. Irwin is the kind of debut author that readers love to discover—and rave about to all their friends. His electric use of language, stunning imagery, and suspenseful pacing are all on full display here. The Dead Path is a tour de force of wild imagination, taut suspense, and the creepiest, scariest setting since the sewers in Stephen King’s It.
Nicholas Close has always had an uncanny intuition, but after the death of his wife he becomes haunted, literally, by ghosts doomed to repeat their final violent moments in a chilling and endless loop. Torn by guilt and fearing for his sanity, Nicholas returns to his childhood home and is soon entangled in a disturbing series of disappearances and murders—both as a suspect and as the next victim of the malignant evil lurking in the heart of the woods.
Stephen M. Irwin is the kind of debut author that readers love to discover—and rave about to all their friends. His electric use of language, stunning imagery, and suspenseful pacing are all on full display here. The Dead Path is a tour de force of wild imagination, taut suspense, and the creepiest, scariest setting since the sewers in Stephen King’s It.
374 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
100 people are currently reading
5359 people want to read
About the author
Stephen M. Irwin
11 books163 followersStephen has a background in film and documentary production, and continues to develop stories and screenplays for film and television producers. Stephen's short films and short stories have won awards and competitions around the world. He is the author of thrillers The Dead Path and The Broken Ones. He lives in Brisbane with his wife, two young children, and black cat. He regularly checks his driveway to see if anyone nice has left a '65 Fastback Mustang there. No luck so far.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 366 reviews
February 6, 2017
This book was unexpectedly awesome! Can't remember ever reading a book that made me shiver in revulsion (in a good way) so much. Setting is great, characters are real, the scary stuff is hella scary and the ending is well done. What more can you ask for in a horror book?
November 9, 2020
This is the creepiest book that I own. I bought it when Borders went out of business in 2011 and had been wanting to read it for quite some time. I finally read the book in 2014 and again six years later for Fall Reading Challenges in Dare to Dream Group.
I did not realize when I bought the book that the dust jacket glows in the dark, but I found out quick enough. I have some books in the living room and some books in the bedroom. Since I moved into my new place in 2013, I have kept this book in the living room so that I can sleep better at night without the title words THE DEAD PATH glowing in the dark. The reader may find it hard to sleep if this book is kept beside the bed, gathering the glow of light bulbs and illuminating the night.
I really enjoyed reading THE DEAD PATH. A very dark book. Not recommended for those with a fear of Spiders! There are Spiders throughout this book. For those who dare to take the path into the woods, a wonderful, unforgettable experience awaits. I re-read in 2020 as a story that is truly "unsettling". As I re-read, another novel I've read twice repeatedly came to mind The Trees - like THE DEAD PATH, I re-read The Trees in 2020, both feature a unique book cover and a haunting woods setting.
Descriptively captivating with legend, creepy, disturbing and horrific. This is the perfect story to read for the Fall/Autumn Season. Highly recommended if you can tolerate the gut-wrenching chill the words instill.
I intend to read the author's send book, The Broken Ones in the near future.
Favorite Passages:
Up the aisle, a flight attendant checked on her wards, walking between passengers as silently as a benevolent spirit.
________
The bones of a city don't change. Perhaps its skin grows tight or flaccid as suburbs grow fashionable or become declasse; crow's feet spread from the pockets - new streets, new arteries into fresh corpulence. But the skeleton of its founding roads, the blood of its river, the skull of the low mountain that looms over it with its thorny crown of television towers like its own blinking Calvary . . . these things hadn't changed.
________
Time had frozen here.
________
Apart from the silvery whisper of the chill air in the leaves, the night was silent.
Nicholas realized he was avoiding looking at the tree line. He dragged his eyes from the bright crowns of the trees down to the dark trunks. They stood like a row of black teeth, endlessly huge, stretching left and right into the night. The maw of some undersea thing, some behemoth, sentient and unquiet. Waking as it scented prey.
Something's coming.
The woods were alive. His heart hammered behind his sternum. Something inside the trees had sensed him, tasted him on the cold air.
Recognized him.
It was coming.
Go! he yelled in his head. Run!
But his body was frozen. His feet would not move. His fingers hung cold as icicles. His eyes were locked on the darkly grinning trees, waiting for them to open and for whatever they held to reach from their damp innards and take him and consume him and leave him slit and empty and drained as Tristram's little body had been so many years ago. And part of him welcomed that fate.
________
He thought about mentioning the Carmichael Road woods, asking his mother how they could still be there, asking if she thought, too, that they lurked with the menace of a group of shadowed men on an otherwise empty street, men whose silhouettes were drawn taut with latent trouble.
________
Thin-limbed and long and pale. Harried into long strides by silent things in dark corners. Bright-eyed with something that could be fever or genius or madness.
________
It began with a dwindling of phone calls, ratcheted to a sharp decline in dinner invitations, and climaxed complete as a solid, glacial wall of quiet.
Nicholas had tried to keep working. But it was hard to be productive and persuasive when one kept seeing things that, logically, shouldn't be there.
_________
Rain. Faces. The dead. Trees.
_________
It was the afternoon of a very bad day.
_________
The dead bird had no feet.
_________
He described how the bird's head was gone and replaced with a hand-made sphere of woven twigs, the poor creature's legs as horns, and the strange symbol painted there in what had to be blood.
_________
As he approached the kitchen, the sound of thick bubbling made him wonder whether he'd round the corner and see his mother in a hooded cloak, sprinkling dried dead things into a soot-stained cauldron.
_________
Katharine sat watching a skin harden over the porridge in her bowl. It was, she decided, the exact color of the poo that had come out of her children when they were breastfeeding - a wheaty shit with the sweet smell of just-turned milk. She dropped her spoon with a deliberate clatter.
You bring these creatures into the world. You guide their little, darting dumb heads onto your swollen-then-aching-then-numb nipples, you change ten thousand nappies . . . but what does that guarantee? That they will love you? That they will talk with you? That they will be good?
No. No. No.
Her anger stayed on a slow simmer and fed itself.
_________
Suzette waved down a young waiter with a very nice bum and ordered her third long black with hot skim milk on the side.
_________
Dying, he thought, remained as popular a pastime as ever.
_________
"Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord!" she cried. Her voice echoed loudly in the transepts and hung unpleasantly on the air.
. . .
"Blood alone pleases the Lord!" She spat the last word like a curse.
Reverend Hird shot a nod to his young understudy, who hurried down to Mrs. Boye. Fast as a snake, the old woman slapped the young reverend hard on his face.
"Fisher of men!" she cried. "What do fishermen do with the fish? Haul them from their water, drown them in air, and then gut them! Eat them! Or toss them back dead and empty! Fisher of men!" This time she did spit, a huge mouthful of foamy saliva that arced through the air to land on Christ's shin.
Nicholas stared, stunned.
Firm hands took hold of Mrs. Boye. She fought for a while, then settled in a grump. Hird nodded to the organist, who started a lively rendition of "To Jesus' Heart All Burning."
And so the funeral finished early.
________
A butcher bird. Gray wings, white belly, loose feathers over a swollen body. Legs snipped neatly off. Head gone, replaced with a sphere of woven twigs that was greening with mold encouraged by the recent rains. Hints of rust red peeked from under the ill green. The small bird's death-curled claws were stuck in like horns.
________
Two hot skewers drove into the flesh of Nicholas's exposed thigh, and fire swept up to his skull. The world shrank and fell away into oblivion.
He dreamed he was a bird.
His legs were numb because they were gone. His head was gone too, painless and vanished. In its place, stuck into his open throat by a stick that would gag him were he alive, was a woven ball of twigs: his new head, staring dumb at the sky. His severed shinbones were stuck into it, making lifeless, raw horns of his curled, dead feet. But his body - dead, too, and swelling with rot - still had feeling. It was sodden wet and awfully cold. Ants were crawling over it, exploring for places to nest and feed. He was quite content to lie there and decay, until his body felt something poking into its side. Without eyes, he couldn't see, but he knew it was a boy holding a stick, poking him, disturbing his death, seeking to drag him out onto a path. He was the bird, but he was also the boy.
________
She had passed out. Her breaths came slow and deep. He gently parted the hair of her scalp and found a patch of blood. A clump of her hair had been torn out by the roots.
________
Over the flames hunched an old woman. Her withered lips moved, but her words were soft; intended perhaps, for the flames, or for something unseen already listening for her offer. Her hands, more like bone than flesh, moved quickly. In the uncomforting flicker of the hungry flames: a flash of silver, a splash of dark liquid, the ash of something crumpled through deft fingers. Then a final item, and the old woman's hands slowed and moved with care. Tweezered in her skeletal fingers, a few long hairs joined by a small patch of blood-crusted skin. In went the hair and skin.
________
Close was pale and odd-looking. Not unhandsome, but held together inside by wires stretched too tight.
________
"This might sound odd, Mr. Close," said Laine. "But I need to ask you about a dead bird."
________
"However, I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?"
________
"When we got there, the men of the village were holding down a screaming old man and pulling out his teeth with pliers. So much blood. He was a tantric, the old man. A mystic."
________
He dropped the necklace onto her light brown palm. As its touch left his skin, the world suddenly lurched and he staggered. He heard a rustling in his ear, a high-pitched squeal like a million cicadas trying to burrow into his skull. The bay and the nurse swam out of focus.
________
Vee was near the sink, buttering bread and farting like a Clydesdale, and so didn't see or hear Hannah float past.
________
Small but sharply cut gullies wound between massive trunks. Rises were steep, made slippery by the dense carpet of wet leaves. Hannah's footfalls disturbed beetles, uncovered swollen white grubs, and sent crawling things to scatter for new, damp dark.
_________
Small, shifting gems of darkening blue winked through the high, wind-harried leaves. Evening's fast fingers were drawing velvet across the sky.
________
She pulled the tasteless web between her teeth and ground, pulling her jaw down in a grimace - it felt as if she was eating the very skin off her face. But the silk over her eyelids shifted. She opened her mouth and gagged, her stomach heaved and finally let go, and a warm gush of acidic mush jetted out. She spat and sniffed up snot. Her eyes opened a crack.
________
Her shriek brought back to Nicholas a memory two decades old. He'd been employed to lay out a brochure for an abattoir in Kent. The manager had given him a courtesy tour, and he'd been shown the killing floor.
_________
I thought you just liked gardening, he'd said. That was . . . what? Hemlock and mandrake and double-double-toil-and-trouble shit?
"Fire burn and cauldron bubble," said Suzette.
__________
He could hear Hannah's shriek, but it sounded dreamlike, a thousand miles distant.
The world looked far away, even the moonlit cage of bone and branches before him seemed small and distant, as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
_________
_________
. . . there was another, fragmented memory. It hardly deserved to be called that: it was more a wisp, a faint scent on the fickle air of recollection. A dream.
It was of moving. Of being carried through the woods. The air had smelled wet and thick and vivid with greenery. And a voice was speaking to him, not in words, but in a vibration that carried through his body and into his mind. What it said was unclear, but it was as primal and lustful as the thunder of the ocean, and also deathly sad and doomed. A dream.
I did not realize when I bought the book that the dust jacket glows in the dark, but I found out quick enough. I have some books in the living room and some books in the bedroom. Since I moved into my new place in 2013, I have kept this book in the living room so that I can sleep better at night without the title words THE DEAD PATH glowing in the dark. The reader may find it hard to sleep if this book is kept beside the bed, gathering the glow of light bulbs and illuminating the night.
I really enjoyed reading THE DEAD PATH. A very dark book. Not recommended for those with a fear of Spiders! There are Spiders throughout this book. For those who dare to take the path into the woods, a wonderful, unforgettable experience awaits. I re-read in 2020 as a story that is truly "unsettling". As I re-read, another novel I've read twice repeatedly came to mind The Trees - like THE DEAD PATH, I re-read The Trees in 2020, both feature a unique book cover and a haunting woods setting.
Descriptively captivating with legend, creepy, disturbing and horrific. This is the perfect story to read for the Fall/Autumn Season. Highly recommended if you can tolerate the gut-wrenching chill the words instill.
I intend to read the author's send book, The Broken Ones in the near future.
Favorite Passages:
Up the aisle, a flight attendant checked on her wards, walking between passengers as silently as a benevolent spirit.
________
The bones of a city don't change. Perhaps its skin grows tight or flaccid as suburbs grow fashionable or become declasse; crow's feet spread from the pockets - new streets, new arteries into fresh corpulence. But the skeleton of its founding roads, the blood of its river, the skull of the low mountain that looms over it with its thorny crown of television towers like its own blinking Calvary . . . these things hadn't changed.
________
Time had frozen here.
________
Apart from the silvery whisper of the chill air in the leaves, the night was silent.
Nicholas realized he was avoiding looking at the tree line. He dragged his eyes from the bright crowns of the trees down to the dark trunks. They stood like a row of black teeth, endlessly huge, stretching left and right into the night. The maw of some undersea thing, some behemoth, sentient and unquiet. Waking as it scented prey.
Something's coming.
The woods were alive. His heart hammered behind his sternum. Something inside the trees had sensed him, tasted him on the cold air.
Recognized him.
It was coming.
Go! he yelled in his head. Run!
But his body was frozen. His feet would not move. His fingers hung cold as icicles. His eyes were locked on the darkly grinning trees, waiting for them to open and for whatever they held to reach from their damp innards and take him and consume him and leave him slit and empty and drained as Tristram's little body had been so many years ago. And part of him welcomed that fate.
________
He thought about mentioning the Carmichael Road woods, asking his mother how they could still be there, asking if she thought, too, that they lurked with the menace of a group of shadowed men on an otherwise empty street, men whose silhouettes were drawn taut with latent trouble.
________
Thin-limbed and long and pale. Harried into long strides by silent things in dark corners. Bright-eyed with something that could be fever or genius or madness.
________
It began with a dwindling of phone calls, ratcheted to a sharp decline in dinner invitations, and climaxed complete as a solid, glacial wall of quiet.
Nicholas had tried to keep working. But it was hard to be productive and persuasive when one kept seeing things that, logically, shouldn't be there.
_________
Rain. Faces. The dead. Trees.
_________
It was the afternoon of a very bad day.
_________
The dead bird had no feet.
_________
He described how the bird's head was gone and replaced with a hand-made sphere of woven twigs, the poor creature's legs as horns, and the strange symbol painted there in what had to be blood.
_________
As he approached the kitchen, the sound of thick bubbling made him wonder whether he'd round the corner and see his mother in a hooded cloak, sprinkling dried dead things into a soot-stained cauldron.
_________
Katharine sat watching a skin harden over the porridge in her bowl. It was, she decided, the exact color of the poo that had come out of her children when they were breastfeeding - a wheaty shit with the sweet smell of just-turned milk. She dropped her spoon with a deliberate clatter.
You bring these creatures into the world. You guide their little, darting dumb heads onto your swollen-then-aching-then-numb nipples, you change ten thousand nappies . . . but what does that guarantee? That they will love you? That they will talk with you? That they will be good?
No. No. No.
Her anger stayed on a slow simmer and fed itself.
_________
Suzette waved down a young waiter with a very nice bum and ordered her third long black with hot skim milk on the side.
_________
Dying, he thought, remained as popular a pastime as ever.
_________
"Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord!" she cried. Her voice echoed loudly in the transepts and hung unpleasantly on the air.
. . .
"Blood alone pleases the Lord!" She spat the last word like a curse.
Reverend Hird shot a nod to his young understudy, who hurried down to Mrs. Boye. Fast as a snake, the old woman slapped the young reverend hard on his face.
"Fisher of men!" she cried. "What do fishermen do with the fish? Haul them from their water, drown them in air, and then gut them! Eat them! Or toss them back dead and empty! Fisher of men!" This time she did spit, a huge mouthful of foamy saliva that arced through the air to land on Christ's shin.
Nicholas stared, stunned.
Firm hands took hold of Mrs. Boye. She fought for a while, then settled in a grump. Hird nodded to the organist, who started a lively rendition of "To Jesus' Heart All Burning."
And so the funeral finished early.
________
A butcher bird. Gray wings, white belly, loose feathers over a swollen body. Legs snipped neatly off. Head gone, replaced with a sphere of woven twigs that was greening with mold encouraged by the recent rains. Hints of rust red peeked from under the ill green. The small bird's death-curled claws were stuck in like horns.
________
Two hot skewers drove into the flesh of Nicholas's exposed thigh, and fire swept up to his skull. The world shrank and fell away into oblivion.
He dreamed he was a bird.
His legs were numb because they were gone. His head was gone too, painless and vanished. In its place, stuck into his open throat by a stick that would gag him were he alive, was a woven ball of twigs: his new head, staring dumb at the sky. His severed shinbones were stuck into it, making lifeless, raw horns of his curled, dead feet. But his body - dead, too, and swelling with rot - still had feeling. It was sodden wet and awfully cold. Ants were crawling over it, exploring for places to nest and feed. He was quite content to lie there and decay, until his body felt something poking into its side. Without eyes, he couldn't see, but he knew it was a boy holding a stick, poking him, disturbing his death, seeking to drag him out onto a path. He was the bird, but he was also the boy.
________
She had passed out. Her breaths came slow and deep. He gently parted the hair of her scalp and found a patch of blood. A clump of her hair had been torn out by the roots.
________
Over the flames hunched an old woman. Her withered lips moved, but her words were soft; intended perhaps, for the flames, or for something unseen already listening for her offer. Her hands, more like bone than flesh, moved quickly. In the uncomforting flicker of the hungry flames: a flash of silver, a splash of dark liquid, the ash of something crumpled through deft fingers. Then a final item, and the old woman's hands slowed and moved with care. Tweezered in her skeletal fingers, a few long hairs joined by a small patch of blood-crusted skin. In went the hair and skin.
________
Close was pale and odd-looking. Not unhandsome, but held together inside by wires stretched too tight.
________
"This might sound odd, Mr. Close," said Laine. "But I need to ask you about a dead bird."
________
"However, I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?"
________
"When we got there, the men of the village were holding down a screaming old man and pulling out his teeth with pliers. So much blood. He was a tantric, the old man. A mystic."
________
He dropped the necklace onto her light brown palm. As its touch left his skin, the world suddenly lurched and he staggered. He heard a rustling in his ear, a high-pitched squeal like a million cicadas trying to burrow into his skull. The bay and the nurse swam out of focus.
________
Vee was near the sink, buttering bread and farting like a Clydesdale, and so didn't see or hear Hannah float past.
________
Small but sharply cut gullies wound between massive trunks. Rises were steep, made slippery by the dense carpet of wet leaves. Hannah's footfalls disturbed beetles, uncovered swollen white grubs, and sent crawling things to scatter for new, damp dark.
_________
Small, shifting gems of darkening blue winked through the high, wind-harried leaves. Evening's fast fingers were drawing velvet across the sky.
________
She pulled the tasteless web between her teeth and ground, pulling her jaw down in a grimace - it felt as if she was eating the very skin off her face. But the silk over her eyelids shifted. She opened her mouth and gagged, her stomach heaved and finally let go, and a warm gush of acidic mush jetted out. She spat and sniffed up snot. Her eyes opened a crack.
________
Her shriek brought back to Nicholas a memory two decades old. He'd been employed to lay out a brochure for an abattoir in Kent. The manager had given him a courtesy tour, and he'd been shown the killing floor.
_________
I thought you just liked gardening, he'd said. That was . . . what? Hemlock and mandrake and double-double-toil-and-trouble shit?
"Fire burn and cauldron bubble," said Suzette.
__________
He could hear Hannah's shriek, but it sounded dreamlike, a thousand miles distant.
The world looked far away, even the moonlit cage of bone and branches before him seemed small and distant, as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
_________
_________
. . . there was another, fragmented memory. It hardly deserved to be called that: it was more a wisp, a faint scent on the fickle air of recollection. A dream.
It was of moving. Of being carried through the woods. The air had smelled wet and thick and vivid with greenery. And a voice was speaking to him, not in words, but in a vibration that carried through his body and into his mind. What it said was unclear, but it was as primal and lustful as the thunder of the ocean, and also deathly sad and doomed. A dream.
January 8, 2012
I can’t say The Dead Path didn’t get its hooks into me: I finished the final hundred pages at a single sitting, anxious for one of its characters, in particular, to escape the morass. There are some clever aspects to how it works an old religion into a modern tale; Irwin’ prose is reliably serviceable and occasionally better than that.
But the aspects that annoyed me outweighed those that intrigued me. Even as worry for a character quickened my pulse, I felt manipulated by the specifics of the threat. The main protagonist, Nicholas Close, repeatedly makes choices of such tooth-gnashing stupidity that it was difficult to maintain sympathy for him. The reader learns early on that Close sees ghosts. People-who-see-the-dead is such a well-explored device that there are “I see dead pixels” t-shirts parodying it, Irwin approaches it with a heavy-handed thoroughness, as if it were so fresh that it demanded a great deal of exposition.
The recurring motif of large quantities of large spiders at first just seemed lazy -- an automatic gross-out for many people, with no subtlety -- but eventually I got desensitized to it. Meanwhile, the repeated juxtaposition of arachnoid imagery with aged female sexuality suggests that they’re intended to be viewed as parallel scopes of horror, which I find unpleasantly close to misogyny.
But the aspects that annoyed me outweighed those that intrigued me. Even as worry for a character quickened my pulse, I felt manipulated by the specifics of the threat. The main protagonist, Nicholas Close, repeatedly makes choices of such tooth-gnashing stupidity that it was difficult to maintain sympathy for him. The reader learns early on that Close sees ghosts. People-who-see-the-dead is such a well-explored device that there are “I see dead pixels” t-shirts parodying it, Irwin approaches it with a heavy-handed thoroughness, as if it were so fresh that it demanded a great deal of exposition.
The recurring motif of large quantities of large spiders at first just seemed lazy -- an automatic gross-out for many people, with no subtlety -- but eventually I got desensitized to it. Meanwhile, the repeated juxtaposition of arachnoid imagery with aged female sexuality suggests that they’re intended to be viewed as parallel scopes of horror, which I find unpleasantly close to misogyny.
July 26, 2024
Very strong and creepy AF novel by Irwin, his first, that outside of a few problems might have been 5 stars. Our protagonist, Nicholas Close, starts the novel in London, where he moved from Australia almost 2 decades ago. He wanted to be an artist of some sort, but found his 'calling' if you will seeking out antiques to adorn an Irish Pub franchise; basically, he heads out in his van and finds stuff squirrelled away in attics, basements and so forth by pensioners and others (he always had a knack for finding things). He and his new wife begin the novel refurbishing a flat they bought; when he heads out on his bike to get some more sandpaper, he wrecks. By the time he gets home, his wife is dead (she fell off a ladder and broke her neck trying to answer the phone).
After a bad fall down the stairs a bit later, Nicholas starts seeing ghosts of those who died, and this being London, they are everywhere! In the flat, he sees his wife die over and over like a replay, and that goes for all the ghosts he sees. Demoralized and scared, he returns to Australia to his mother's house, but to say they are estranged would be an understatement. Meanwhile, in the opening few chapters, Irwin takes us on a series of flashbacks to Nicholas' childhood, where one day he and his best buddy find something in a nearby woods and his buddy turns up dead a few days later...
Irwin did an excellent job with the creep factor here and right from the get go. I do not want to write anymore about the plot to avoid spoilers, but can say he weaved together ghosts with folk horror very adroitly. Coming home to Australia, a suburb outside Brisbane, rapidly seems to have been a bad move. Something is clearly fucked up about the town but what exactly is part of the mystery. 4.5 creepy AF stars!!
After a bad fall down the stairs a bit later, Nicholas starts seeing ghosts of those who died, and this being London, they are everywhere! In the flat, he sees his wife die over and over like a replay, and that goes for all the ghosts he sees. Demoralized and scared, he returns to Australia to his mother's house, but to say they are estranged would be an understatement. Meanwhile, in the opening few chapters, Irwin takes us on a series of flashbacks to Nicholas' childhood, where one day he and his best buddy find something in a nearby woods and his buddy turns up dead a few days later...
Irwin did an excellent job with the creep factor here and right from the get go. I do not want to write anymore about the plot to avoid spoilers, but can say he weaved together ghosts with folk horror very adroitly. Coming home to Australia, a suburb outside Brisbane, rapidly seems to have been a bad move. Something is clearly fucked up about the town but what exactly is part of the mystery. 4.5 creepy AF stars!!
February 21, 2012
The blurbs and recommendations that brought this book to my attention really had me psyched to read it. The cover art is suitably creepy and the fact that this is a debut author from Down Under intrigued me. The Aussies have been doing some pretty memorable things with cinematic horror of late -- let's see what's happening on the page, shall we?
This book starts out so very strong. Irwin can write, make no mistake. There is a fluidity and nimbleness to his prose – a real juiciness - that will make most literary critics swoon and forgive Irwin’s choice of supernatural subject matter. I loved the writing, but I need more than just the writing if I’m going to fall into a full about-face swoon myself. So yes, back to the beginning and all that burgeoning potential that had me slavering for more.
The opening chapters to this book are some of the strongest I’ve read in a long time. The set up is quick and ruthless, yet subtle and quiet at the same time if that makes any sense at all. There’s something very 60’s British horror about it: man experiences tragedy, returns home to escape painful reminders, back into the memories of a childhood tragedy that has haunted him all his life. Oh yeah, and he can see dead people. But not just ghosts in the traditional sense – Nicholas Close bears witness to ghosts locked into the loop of the exact machinations of their particular method of demise. Trust me, this is more horrible and fantastic than I can describe in my review and probably turned out to be my favorite element of the entire novel.
Furthermore, Irwin creates a dense atmosphere that’s ripe with creep – small town, small shops, weird locals, and an overgrown wood nestled in the middle of it all. There is a presence that stalks the wood, a force that keeps development out yet invites the young and vulnerable in. When Nicholas was 10 he loses his best friend in these woods to violence, and now these many years later he must uncover and confront whatever malevolent forces have haunted this town for over a century.
Great setup ... I just felt it lost something major in the execution. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few AMAZING scenes that did creep me out – if you suffer from arachnophobia in the least this book will likely send you to the nuthouse. But by the time we begin to unravel “the mystery”, I started to feel a little let down, and frankly a little bored. . Plus, I never really warmed up to any of the characters – they felt cold, and acted cold to one another even as they run to the other’s rescue. The climax was just too "Hollywood" which I felt betrayed the book’s earlier setup and the promise it makes to the reader.
There are scenes in this book rendered so effectively I could easily give them 5 stars; unfortunately by the book’s end, those scenes became outnumbered by a slide into mediocrity. I am left underwhelmed and saddened by my disappointment. I was so ready to rave.
This book starts out so very strong. Irwin can write, make no mistake. There is a fluidity and nimbleness to his prose – a real juiciness - that will make most literary critics swoon and forgive Irwin’s choice of supernatural subject matter. I loved the writing, but I need more than just the writing if I’m going to fall into a full about-face swoon myself. So yes, back to the beginning and all that burgeoning potential that had me slavering for more.
The opening chapters to this book are some of the strongest I’ve read in a long time. The set up is quick and ruthless, yet subtle and quiet at the same time if that makes any sense at all. There’s something very 60’s British horror about it: man experiences tragedy, returns home to escape painful reminders, back into the memories of a childhood tragedy that has haunted him all his life. Oh yeah, and he can see dead people. But not just ghosts in the traditional sense – Nicholas Close bears witness to ghosts locked into the loop of the exact machinations of their particular method of demise. Trust me, this is more horrible and fantastic than I can describe in my review and probably turned out to be my favorite element of the entire novel.
Furthermore, Irwin creates a dense atmosphere that’s ripe with creep – small town, small shops, weird locals, and an overgrown wood nestled in the middle of it all. There is a presence that stalks the wood, a force that keeps development out yet invites the young and vulnerable in. When Nicholas was 10 he loses his best friend in these woods to violence, and now these many years later he must uncover and confront whatever malevolent forces have haunted this town for over a century.
Great setup ... I just felt it lost something major in the execution. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few AMAZING scenes that did creep me out – if you suffer from arachnophobia in the least this book will likely send you to the nuthouse. But by the time we begin to unravel “the mystery”, I started to feel a little let down, and frankly a little bored. . Plus, I never really warmed up to any of the characters – they felt cold, and acted cold to one another even as they run to the other’s rescue. The climax was just too "Hollywood" which I felt betrayed the book’s earlier setup and the promise it makes to the reader.
There are scenes in this book rendered so effectively I could easily give them 5 stars; unfortunately by the book’s end, those scenes became outnumbered by a slide into mediocrity. I am left underwhelmed and saddened by my disappointment. I was so ready to rave.
October 1, 2014
This book deserves to be better known. It has received strong reviews, but I've heard nothing of it until coming across it on a library shelf. It's Irwin's debut and a most auspicious debut at that. Genuine work of literary horror. If you like witch stories, if woods frighten you (as they ought to, really, woods are freaking terrifying) this story will profoundly unsettle you. Irwin has done a great job here of putting insidiousness into words, it's a creepy creepy tale that's very well written. Recommended.
December 14, 2011
"The Dead Path" is a wonderfully creepy bit of horror given us by a new author - if this is his debut, I think we have some wonderful stories to look forward to in the future!
Nicholas Close has a wonderful life with a beautiful woman in a new flat that they are busily redecorating. Then on rainy night he goes out to go to the market and finds his car "parked in" and decides to take the motorcycle instead. Taking a curve too fast, he is distracted by what appears to be a strange face in the woods and ends up in an accident. He isn't terribly hurt - just a head bump, which causes him a headache for several days - but will be delayed - when he tries to call his wife, though, there is no answer. Upon returning home, he finds her dead - she has slipped off the ladder, fallen and broken her neck.
Several days later, Nicholas falls and hits his head - which gets rid of the ongoing headache, but suddenly he sees ghosts. Every person who ever died too young, in whatever manner, has left a ghost showing the last bits of their life leading up to their death and Nicholas cannot "shut off" this "gift." Feeling as though he is going mad, between the ghosts and the grief over his wife's death, he returns to his childhood home ... only to find himself in the midst of a series of disturbing disappearances and murders, all of which seem to link to him (as either suspect or target) as well as to a malignant evil that seems to exist in a patch of woods that exists in his hometown - and that has never been developed. In fact, every time it seems to be close to development, a rash of murders and disappearances hits the development company, shutting down the proposed development.
The wonderful thing about this book - for me, at least - outside of the terrifically creepy atmosphere is that it is true horror. It does NOT have a happy ending. Some people might be troubled by that. I don't know. I like it. One thing that bothers me is that the Green Man is shown is such a negative light through most of the book - the Green Man is one of the deities of Paganism and Wicca and is simply the Lord of the Woods - the male deity responsible for the wild places. As such he isn't good or bad, he just is. It is the works in his name that are the problem and I do wish it had been emphasized a bit more that it was the spells, not the Green Man, that was causing the problem (this minor spoiler disguised in such as way as to be more confusing than helpful - you're welcome).
At any rate - anyone interested in Paranormal and/or Horror, you will LOVE this book - get it NOW!!!
Nicholas Close has a wonderful life with a beautiful woman in a new flat that they are busily redecorating. Then on rainy night he goes out to go to the market and finds his car "parked in" and decides to take the motorcycle instead. Taking a curve too fast, he is distracted by what appears to be a strange face in the woods and ends up in an accident. He isn't terribly hurt - just a head bump, which causes him a headache for several days - but will be delayed - when he tries to call his wife, though, there is no answer. Upon returning home, he finds her dead - she has slipped off the ladder, fallen and broken her neck.
Several days later, Nicholas falls and hits his head - which gets rid of the ongoing headache, but suddenly he sees ghosts. Every person who ever died too young, in whatever manner, has left a ghost showing the last bits of their life leading up to their death and Nicholas cannot "shut off" this "gift." Feeling as though he is going mad, between the ghosts and the grief over his wife's death, he returns to his childhood home ... only to find himself in the midst of a series of disturbing disappearances and murders, all of which seem to link to him (as either suspect or target) as well as to a malignant evil that seems to exist in a patch of woods that exists in his hometown - and that has never been developed. In fact, every time it seems to be close to development, a rash of murders and disappearances hits the development company, shutting down the proposed development.
The wonderful thing about this book - for me, at least - outside of the terrifically creepy atmosphere is that it is true horror. It does NOT have a happy ending. Some people might be troubled by that. I don't know. I like it. One thing that bothers me is that the Green Man is shown is such a negative light through most of the book - the Green Man is one of the deities of Paganism and Wicca and is simply the Lord of the Woods - the male deity responsible for the wild places. As such he isn't good or bad, he just is. It is the works in his name that are the problem and I do wish it had been emphasized a bit more that it was the spells, not the Green Man, that was causing the problem (this minor spoiler disguised in such as way as to be more confusing than helpful - you're welcome).
At any rate - anyone interested in Paranormal and/or Horror, you will LOVE this book - get it NOW!!!
September 19, 2013
So...this book was just okay. I debated between 2 and 3 stars. It was a page turner and it had some creative moments (although the whole "I'm seeing the dead" instantly made me think of Sixth Sense). I would put it as equivalent to a Steven King book..except (and they are a few big exceptions).
The language was too overdone. Irwin was trying so hard to be "poetic" or literary or something, but his book is really just a thriller. I know, I know I like to throw around the phrase "masturbatory language" but really: "Nicholas got inside and twisted the car alive. The bones of a city don't change. Perhaps its skin grows tight or flaccid as suburbs grow fashionable of become declassee; crow's feet spread from pockets--new streets, new arteries into fresh corpulence. But the skeleton of its founding roads, the blood of its river, the skull of the low mountain that looms over it with its thorny crown of television towers like its own blinking Calvary...these things hadn't changed." Blechh. It's not good writing, it's Irwin trying to be cute and clever. This was all over the place. Irwin just likes to over-describe: "Above the surf-like rataplan on the roof, Nicholas could hear the house ticking around them as it cooled. He felt his mother's eyes crawling over his face." Stephen King at least has the decency to simply tell a story; he doesn't try to go all "literary" and annoy the reader.
On the other hand, Irwin's story is an attempt at something beyond just good and evil. One reason I stopped reading Stephen King about the age of 16 is that his books are such blatant religious allegories. They might be creative and compelling but they always boil down to good vs. evil. Irwin here attempts to move beyond this. The main character is a witch (in the traditional sense) and she is clearly evil; however, she sponsors a church and she believes that she is protecting the woods and working for the Green Man (who in the end is not really evil, just a force of nature and might in fact be the same as the Christian God). And so, credit to Irwin for the shades of grey (although..if I may throw out a bad pun, the sex scenes were less than satisfying).
Unfortunately, the ending was just poorly constructed. Again, Irwin is striving for middle ground and ambiguity; clearly he represents the Green Man in the end as a God but we are left to determine on our own whether he is good or evil or just is. My beef is not with that; I found it unbelievable that Rowena is his faithful servant who believes that she has been protecting the forest for him for years, but he quickly and eagerly switches sides as soon as Nicholas cuts his arm and asks? Or maybe then, she is not his servant but the Green Man (in fact) is just compelled to behave according to what the spells dictate (just like Nicholas when he is about to attack Hannah)? But then, who really holds any power? See..it is a circular problem, either Rowena is worshiping Green Man and helping him and occasionally he gives her a bone (like granting her wish to send Nicholas home) OR he is a servant of the spells in which case she didn't really need to protect his woods for years, she could have just lived her life as she wanted. Overall it just felt inconsistent and nonsensical. I was also very annoyed with the "gotcha" last line..are we to believe that Green Man has chosen his next servant? If so, then why oh why do they want Nicholas so badly? It just felt poorly constructed.
Overall it was quick and easy and slightly entertaining, but I don't really have a strong recommendations.
The language was too overdone. Irwin was trying so hard to be "poetic" or literary or something, but his book is really just a thriller. I know, I know I like to throw around the phrase "masturbatory language" but really: "Nicholas got inside and twisted the car alive. The bones of a city don't change. Perhaps its skin grows tight or flaccid as suburbs grow fashionable of become declassee; crow's feet spread from pockets--new streets, new arteries into fresh corpulence. But the skeleton of its founding roads, the blood of its river, the skull of the low mountain that looms over it with its thorny crown of television towers like its own blinking Calvary...these things hadn't changed." Blechh. It's not good writing, it's Irwin trying to be cute and clever. This was all over the place. Irwin just likes to over-describe: "Above the surf-like rataplan on the roof, Nicholas could hear the house ticking around them as it cooled. He felt his mother's eyes crawling over his face." Stephen King at least has the decency to simply tell a story; he doesn't try to go all "literary" and annoy the reader.
On the other hand, Irwin's story is an attempt at something beyond just good and evil. One reason I stopped reading Stephen King about the age of 16 is that his books are such blatant religious allegories. They might be creative and compelling but they always boil down to good vs. evil. Irwin here attempts to move beyond this. The main character is a witch (in the traditional sense) and she is clearly evil; however, she sponsors a church and she believes that she is protecting the woods and working for the Green Man (who in the end is not really evil, just a force of nature and might in fact be the same as the Christian God). And so, credit to Irwin for the shades of grey (although..if I may throw out a bad pun, the sex scenes were less than satisfying).
Unfortunately, the ending was just poorly constructed. Again, Irwin is striving for middle ground and ambiguity; clearly he represents the Green Man in the end as a God but we are left to determine on our own whether he is good or evil or just is. My beef is not with that; I found it unbelievable that Rowena is his faithful servant who believes that she has been protecting the forest for him for years, but he quickly and eagerly switches sides as soon as Nicholas cuts his arm and asks? Or maybe then, she is not his servant but the Green Man (in fact) is just compelled to behave according to what the spells dictate (just like Nicholas when he is about to attack Hannah)? But then, who really holds any power? See..it is a circular problem, either Rowena is worshiping Green Man and helping him and occasionally he gives her a bone (like granting her wish to send Nicholas home) OR he is a servant of the spells in which case she didn't really need to protect his woods for years, she could have just lived her life as she wanted. Overall it just felt inconsistent and nonsensical. I was also very annoyed with the "gotcha" last line..are we to believe that Green Man has chosen his next servant? If so, then why oh why do they want Nicholas so badly? It just felt poorly constructed.
Overall it was quick and easy and slightly entertaining, but I don't really have a strong recommendations.
November 2, 2010
Intelligently written paranormal suspense. The Dead Path is a haunting tale of tragedy, loss and all consuming evil. Filled with deftly written prose that will march you steadily along the path of madness into a world of horror that is at once believable and terrifying. Irwin's imagery is vivid and visceral. This is an author not afraid to thrust the reader into a living nightmare. Nicholas Close is a realistic character facing the guilt and sorrow of his wife's recent death, the terror of his new ability to see the dead, and the pull to set his feet on the path to the woods where his lost his childhood innocence and first learned the meaning of true fear. The Dead Path is a beautifully written novel with an intriguing series of grisly murders, a realistic combination of magic and ghostly visions, and a place of darkness that will leave you looking over your shoulder when next you venture into the woods.
I highly recommend The Dead Path to readers of ghost stories, horror, mystery thrillers, urban fantasy, and especially to fans of haunting paranormal suspense.
Don't miss our interview with Stephen M. Irwin, author of The Dead Path, Wednesday November 3rd here at From the Shadows. Visit the interview and enter The Dead Path International Giveaway. One lucky winner will receive a hardcover copy of The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin!
Source: This book was provided by the author or publisher for honest review.
** This review originally posted on my blog: www.FromTheShadows.info **
I highly recommend The Dead Path to readers of ghost stories, horror, mystery thrillers, urban fantasy, and especially to fans of haunting paranormal suspense.
Don't miss our interview with Stephen M. Irwin, author of The Dead Path, Wednesday November 3rd here at From the Shadows. Visit the interview and enter The Dead Path International Giveaway. One lucky winner will receive a hardcover copy of The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin!
Source: This book was provided by the author or publisher for honest review.
** This review originally posted on my blog: www.FromTheShadows.info **
June 25, 2018
Why am I giving this 2 stars? I don't know, I didn't even finish it. I wanted so much to like this book, maybe because I was written by an Australian author, (there are so few Aussie horror authors), maybe because there were some genuinely creepy moments, (it's Australian so there's spiders people...), but the main character was such a...DITHERER. If you're not Australian you probably won't understand this word, but suffice to say he was so indecisive, and the main female character had NO personality, all business and fitted perfectly into the sister-looking-out-for-her-brother mold. Then there was the weird semi-rapey scene in the forest and I totally lost it with this book. I will give something else by Stephen Irwin a go, but let's hope it's better than this.
September 3, 2018
A little slow to get started, then the story moves along pretty well. Ghosts, a witch, lots of spiders... the book was actually a bit better than I expected.
September 28, 2023
I remember on my way to elementary school passing by a dark forest. From its stygian bowels, the white tops of old Muslim tombstones shone. Every time, we would come back from the afternoon shift, during the evening, we would speed up the pace as we passed by it, even though we were in a group, as if something was going to come out of it and swallow us up, drag us to depths of hell.
Of course, it was all in our children's imagination. During the war, that forest was cut down and only rotten stumps and white tombstones overgrown with moss remind me of those days, but frankly, even today, when I pass by a forest as the wind sways the crowns, creeps crawl down my spine.
I believe Stephen M. Irwin also walked past the dark forest on the way to his school, like my buddies and me, because the beginning of the end for Nicolas Close, the main character in Irwin's The Dead Path, begins in the dark forest. It was here that ten-year-old Nicolas found a bizarre talisman, which would later cost his friend's life.
Years later, the death of his friend continues to haunt Nicolas, who now lives in America. A new tragic event in his life, a car accident, and the bizarre death of his wife leave him with a new gift. He sees people’s last moments, the moments of their death in infinite repetition which brings him to the brink of madness so he decides to return to his native land. There is that dark forest and past waiting for him that requires answers, and once Pandora's box is opened, there is no going back for Nicolas because what he finds out will shake him to the core.
The Dead Path is one damn good horror novel, which begins as a ghost story and then unexpectedly turns into something else entirely. Very well written, and creepy so much so that the hairs on your neck rise as you read it. The combination of ghosts and ancient dark forces check all the right stuff when it comes to Stephen M. Irwin and his The Dead Path.
Of course, it was all in our children's imagination. During the war, that forest was cut down and only rotten stumps and white tombstones overgrown with moss remind me of those days, but frankly, even today, when I pass by a forest as the wind sways the crowns, creeps crawl down my spine.
I believe Stephen M. Irwin also walked past the dark forest on the way to his school, like my buddies and me, because the beginning of the end for Nicolas Close, the main character in Irwin's The Dead Path, begins in the dark forest. It was here that ten-year-old Nicolas found a bizarre talisman, which would later cost his friend's life.
Years later, the death of his friend continues to haunt Nicolas, who now lives in America. A new tragic event in his life, a car accident, and the bizarre death of his wife leave him with a new gift. He sees people’s last moments, the moments of their death in infinite repetition which brings him to the brink of madness so he decides to return to his native land. There is that dark forest and past waiting for him that requires answers, and once Pandora's box is opened, there is no going back for Nicolas because what he finds out will shake him to the core.
The Dead Path is one damn good horror novel, which begins as a ghost story and then unexpectedly turns into something else entirely. Very well written, and creepy so much so that the hairs on your neck rise as you read it. The combination of ghosts and ancient dark forces check all the right stuff when it comes to Stephen M. Irwin and his The Dead Path.
April 5, 2011
The lettering on the dust jacket glows in the dark. That's something I haven't seen before. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing I found about this book that surprised me. Seriously, it felt as if the author tried to cram every horror convention into this novel: witches, giant insects, ghosts, people who see ghosts, child killers, scary woods, evil as old as time, old person who dies from fright, evil being disguised as person who should be dead, etc., etc. And the characters' motives never seemed quite believable (or stable). Then again, I'm jaded and well...books just don't scare me, so getting an overdose of things meant to scare me just works in the opposite manner.
Fortunately, even though the story itself felt as if Irwin was writing in a genre in which he was either not well read or too eager to encapsulate into one book, his writing was competent and enjoyable. He can definitely turn a poetic phrase and his description really helps set the tone. I'd be interested in reading something from him that was less genre. If horror/dark fiction is your sole cup of tea, you might like this novel.
Fortunately, even though the story itself felt as if Irwin was writing in a genre in which he was either not well read or too eager to encapsulate into one book, his writing was competent and enjoyable. He can definitely turn a poetic phrase and his description really helps set the tone. I'd be interested in reading something from him that was less genre. If horror/dark fiction is your sole cup of tea, you might like this novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2017
This was an enjoyable, creepy, atmospheric, page-turning modern horror story from an author whose work I have enjoyed before (I liked his _The Broken Ones_ quite a bit). Just as in that book, ghosts exist and can be seen, though instead of every person in the world each seeing one particular ghost, their ghost, there is one person who can see every ghost, a young man by the name of Nicholas Close. Developing this ability/curse while living in London, he can see in a weird, never ending time loop the moments before death and then the death of anyone who died on a particular spot. Only he can see the ghosts, they appear to sense him, looking at him for…something…but otherwise Nicolas can’t interact with them, only watching their deaths (always horrid) repeat again, again, and again.
Early on in the book we find that Nicholas’ wife Cate dies in a horrible accident while they were renovating their new home in London. Nicholas had driven to the store one night, wrecked when he thought he saw a spectral face in the woods of a park along the way (not a ghostly loop of someone’s death but something else entirely), and Cate died tried to reach the phone to answer Nicholas’ call to let her know he had been in an accident.
Seeing her ghost replay Cate’s death over and over at the scene of her death (in their bathroom after falling from a ladder), being frozen out of what turned out to be mostly her circle of friends after her death, Cate’s family wanting nothing to do with him, and not liking his job anymore, Nicholas moves back to the suburb of Tallong, in the vicinity of Brisbane, Australia to live with his mother.
Home doesn’t have the same misery that London held for Nicholas, but it has old, familiar ones; Nicholas’ father, who had left them as a child, had died in an accident years ago though many of his things are still in his mom’s house, Nicholas and his mom did better on the phone when they were thousands of miles apart (she isn’t quite ready to have him back so close), and so much of their neighborhood was much the same. A few of the local shops were different, there were a few more houses, and the same creepy, dark, heavily overgrown, spider-infested woods that should have long ago been made into more suburbs was still there, a dark, foreboding place that the locals instinctively knew to avoid despite it being in the heart of a thriving suburban community.
These woods were also the same woods where Nicholas’ childhood best friend Tristram Boye was murdered in 1982 (the book is otherwise set in 2007), a fate that Nicholas himself very narrowly avoided as he was with Tristram when his friend was abducted. Though the killer turned himself in, there had always been doubt that the man who presented himself as the murderer was the right person (he had seemed bewildered and unable to commit such an act).
To get much more into the plot would be to reveal too much I think, but I will say Nicholas gets answers about his friend’s death, finds out that there is something dark and sinister (and not a ghost, or at least, not only ghosts) at the center of those strange woods everyone avoids that keeps the forest from being developed (though this is known to extremely few people and they only have at best part of the puzzle), that something in that dark, sinister forest occasionally requires a sacrifice, and Nicholas ends up involving other people in his quest for answers and to later fight the thing, including his sister Suzette (who dabbles in herbalism and magic), his mom (however reluctantly, with indications later on that some of the estrangement between her and her husband had to do with this forest), and a local Christian priest of Asiatic Indian descent, Pritam Anand as well as two other persons the reader meets later on in the book. Also, if you have a fear of spiders, do not read the book. The descriptions of the horrible, horrible, very horrible spiders were viscerally creepy (and they weren’t even the main villain!).
The good; the pacing was excellent, as at no point in the book did things really slow down. At the same time I loved the slow unveiling of not only what the horror in those dark woods in the heart of suburbia was, but just how far back that evil went. As in _The Broken Ones_, the description of weather, scenery, buildings, the forest, and the overall setting was excellent; when I first really got into the book and was absorbed by the vivid descriptions of unending rain, I was surprised when I put the book down that it in fact wasn’t raining where I lived! There were also several very strong female characters of varying ages, ranging from childhood to elderly and I thought this was wonderful.
The bad; on occasion, some of the secondary characters came off a tad bit underused, particularly when at times they figured so prominently in the storyline in other parts of the novel. As other critics have noted, some of the finale of the story falls a little short of what it seemed to be building to, though again this is where it deals with the secondary characters, not Nicholas or the main evil. Sometimes the importance of various secondary characters switched a lot, with two major secondary characters at the end not even known to the reader for the first third or more of the book, though I think they were well written and properly introduced characters. Not a criticism per se but it was a bit violent and though not grotesque in those scenes, children do die in the book.
All in all a good story and one I am glad I read.
Early on in the book we find that Nicholas’ wife Cate dies in a horrible accident while they were renovating their new home in London. Nicholas had driven to the store one night, wrecked when he thought he saw a spectral face in the woods of a park along the way (not a ghostly loop of someone’s death but something else entirely), and Cate died tried to reach the phone to answer Nicholas’ call to let her know he had been in an accident.
Seeing her ghost replay Cate’s death over and over at the scene of her death (in their bathroom after falling from a ladder), being frozen out of what turned out to be mostly her circle of friends after her death, Cate’s family wanting nothing to do with him, and not liking his job anymore, Nicholas moves back to the suburb of Tallong, in the vicinity of Brisbane, Australia to live with his mother.
Home doesn’t have the same misery that London held for Nicholas, but it has old, familiar ones; Nicholas’ father, who had left them as a child, had died in an accident years ago though many of his things are still in his mom’s house, Nicholas and his mom did better on the phone when they were thousands of miles apart (she isn’t quite ready to have him back so close), and so much of their neighborhood was much the same. A few of the local shops were different, there were a few more houses, and the same creepy, dark, heavily overgrown, spider-infested woods that should have long ago been made into more suburbs was still there, a dark, foreboding place that the locals instinctively knew to avoid despite it being in the heart of a thriving suburban community.
These woods were also the same woods where Nicholas’ childhood best friend Tristram Boye was murdered in 1982 (the book is otherwise set in 2007), a fate that Nicholas himself very narrowly avoided as he was with Tristram when his friend was abducted. Though the killer turned himself in, there had always been doubt that the man who presented himself as the murderer was the right person (he had seemed bewildered and unable to commit such an act).
To get much more into the plot would be to reveal too much I think, but I will say Nicholas gets answers about his friend’s death, finds out that there is something dark and sinister (and not a ghost, or at least, not only ghosts) at the center of those strange woods everyone avoids that keeps the forest from being developed (though this is known to extremely few people and they only have at best part of the puzzle), that something in that dark, sinister forest occasionally requires a sacrifice, and Nicholas ends up involving other people in his quest for answers and to later fight the thing, including his sister Suzette (who dabbles in herbalism and magic), his mom (however reluctantly, with indications later on that some of the estrangement between her and her husband had to do with this forest), and a local Christian priest of Asiatic Indian descent, Pritam Anand as well as two other persons the reader meets later on in the book. Also, if you have a fear of spiders, do not read the book. The descriptions of the horrible, horrible, very horrible spiders were viscerally creepy (and they weren’t even the main villain!).
The good; the pacing was excellent, as at no point in the book did things really slow down. At the same time I loved the slow unveiling of not only what the horror in those dark woods in the heart of suburbia was, but just how far back that evil went. As in _The Broken Ones_, the description of weather, scenery, buildings, the forest, and the overall setting was excellent; when I first really got into the book and was absorbed by the vivid descriptions of unending rain, I was surprised when I put the book down that it in fact wasn’t raining where I lived! There were also several very strong female characters of varying ages, ranging from childhood to elderly and I thought this was wonderful.
The bad; on occasion, some of the secondary characters came off a tad bit underused, particularly when at times they figured so prominently in the storyline in other parts of the novel. As other critics have noted, some of the finale of the story falls a little short of what it seemed to be building to, though again this is where it deals with the secondary characters, not Nicholas or the main evil. Sometimes the importance of various secondary characters switched a lot, with two major secondary characters at the end not even known to the reader for the first third or more of the book, though I think they were well written and properly introduced characters. Not a criticism per se but it was a bit violent and though not grotesque in those scenes, children do die in the book.
All in all a good story and one I am glad I read.
July 4, 2012
A 25-Year Single Malt of Spooky
Stephen M. Irwin's supernatural thriller debut, THE DEAD PATH, is without a doubt one of the finest things to come out of Australia in the last twenty years. With a slow, considered burn of a beginning, the story twists a few times before it really gets rolling, and you think you are in for a predictable The Sixth Sense kind of "I See Ghosts" tale. But Irwin has loftier things in store for you. The story moves effortlessly into different territories than where you thought you were heading, and it sucks you in so deeply, that when it returns to issues brought up in the early part of the tale, you had completely forgotten about them, and the resulting impact is just what a terrific spookathon requires. The tale twists and turns, moving in directions you don't see coming until they are upon you. And by that point, the new direction is so wonderfully obvious, you question why you didn't see it coming in the first place. Because you are in the hands of a master, that's why.
This novel was also a surprise for me in another way, unrelated to the excellent tapestry of woven plot. The prose is lush, exotic, and so concise, that Irwin can evoke the heebie jeebies as easily as he evokes your misspent childhood with a simple sentence about the weather. I found, for the first time in 15 years, I was savoring the prose of a novel, dipping into it like a fine single malt whisky, letting each sentence roll over my tongue, and feeling the delicious burn of each chapter. I found myself going back and re-reading a sentence to marvel at its construction--at how perfect it was, and yet how simple. Like any master of a craft, Irwin makes it look easy. I made the first third of the book last weeks, because I refused to barrel through it at the pace the plot demanded. I wanted it to last. I hadn't done that with a book since I read John Banville's lavish espionage drama, THE UNTOUCHABLE, over a decade ago. There's a reason why, like Banville, Irwin is an award-winning author. He's just that good. After my fine sips began to come one after the next, with a delicious warm intensity, I started gulping, until I finished the book in a staggering bender of intoxicated reading.
We are living through a new renaissance of supernatural horror thriller fiction at the moment. Stephen M. Irwin is joining the ranks of the other new maestros: Joe Hill, Michael Koryta, and Justin Cronin. As the illustrious Stephen King spends more time tinkering with his magnum opus and knocking baseball novellas out of the park, these four authors are forging ahead with the genre, taking us places we've never been, but where we have been yearning to go. Any one of these authors could carry the legacy of Stephen King, with the fine chilling tales to which we have become accustomed. With Irwin's addition to the new spookmaster's club, readers of the genre are in fine hands.
Stephen M. Irwin's supernatural thriller debut, THE DEAD PATH, is without a doubt one of the finest things to come out of Australia in the last twenty years. With a slow, considered burn of a beginning, the story twists a few times before it really gets rolling, and you think you are in for a predictable The Sixth Sense kind of "I See Ghosts" tale. But Irwin has loftier things in store for you. The story moves effortlessly into different territories than where you thought you were heading, and it sucks you in so deeply, that when it returns to issues brought up in the early part of the tale, you had completely forgotten about them, and the resulting impact is just what a terrific spookathon requires. The tale twists and turns, moving in directions you don't see coming until they are upon you. And by that point, the new direction is so wonderfully obvious, you question why you didn't see it coming in the first place. Because you are in the hands of a master, that's why.
This novel was also a surprise for me in another way, unrelated to the excellent tapestry of woven plot. The prose is lush, exotic, and so concise, that Irwin can evoke the heebie jeebies as easily as he evokes your misspent childhood with a simple sentence about the weather. I found, for the first time in 15 years, I was savoring the prose of a novel, dipping into it like a fine single malt whisky, letting each sentence roll over my tongue, and feeling the delicious burn of each chapter. I found myself going back and re-reading a sentence to marvel at its construction--at how perfect it was, and yet how simple. Like any master of a craft, Irwin makes it look easy. I made the first third of the book last weeks, because I refused to barrel through it at the pace the plot demanded. I wanted it to last. I hadn't done that with a book since I read John Banville's lavish espionage drama, THE UNTOUCHABLE, over a decade ago. There's a reason why, like Banville, Irwin is an award-winning author. He's just that good. After my fine sips began to come one after the next, with a delicious warm intensity, I started gulping, until I finished the book in a staggering bender of intoxicated reading.
We are living through a new renaissance of supernatural horror thriller fiction at the moment. Stephen M. Irwin is joining the ranks of the other new maestros: Joe Hill, Michael Koryta, and Justin Cronin. As the illustrious Stephen King spends more time tinkering with his magnum opus and knocking baseball novellas out of the park, these four authors are forging ahead with the genre, taking us places we've never been, but where we have been yearning to go. Any one of these authors could carry the legacy of Stephen King, with the fine chilling tales to which we have become accustomed. With Irwin's addition to the new spookmaster's club, readers of the genre are in fine hands.
November 25, 2010
Holy spiders, this book was freaky! It took me a little while to get into the author's style, which relies too heavily on metaphors and odd examples, but once I did, I was hooked enough to read it in two sittings. But the ending threw me a little -- I'm not always a fan of the "The End...Or Is It?" style, and this one confused me a little bit. Overall, though, a great read for horror fans, especially ones interested in pagan rituals, creepy woods, ghosts and hauntings, and way-too-sentient spiders.
July 26, 2016
Even though I had suspected the ending earlier on, it did not detract its suspense & shock in any way possible. I loved this book; it managed to intrigue me, sadden me, disturb me, & honestly scare me in more ways than one. I do not usually fall prey to anything categorized with the word "horror" anymore, but this one made me quite nervous on more than one occasion. Absolutely loved the protagonist & the handful of characters I was introduced to, & of course, came to despise the villain as all of the pieces of the puzzle came falling together. Great piece of work.
June 22, 2017
4.5 Stars
The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin is a really fabulous first novel. I loved this story. The writing is great. The characters are fun. The plot is fast and interesting. I really enjoyed it.
The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin is a really fabulous first novel. I loved this story. The writing is great. The characters are fun. The plot is fast and interesting. I really enjoyed it.
April 17, 2015
Plot: after inadvertently causing the death of his wife, Nicholas Close returns home to Australia, and becomes embroiled in the recurring saga of children being lured to their deaths in the mysterious, foreboding woods by his mother's house. On the plus side: the writing is smooth and confident, especially for a first novel, and the story is fast-paced and kept my interest to the end. But, while it wasn't a bad novel--and I would read another book by this author if the story sounded intriguing--on the whole, it left me kind of cold.
For one thing, the story is just too far-fetched. For a while, it straddles the line between "scary" and "just plain weird," and then midway through, it's like the book decided, "What the hell, I'm weird, and I'm just going to admit it," and dove headfirst into the "bizarre" side of the pond. One of the recurring motifs in the plot, spiders, should have been enough to cause this arachonophobic reader instant shudders. Suffice to say that in three decades of reading scary fiction, only one work has actually given me nightmares: M.R. James's short story "The Ash Tree." And what made that one particularly terrifying? Well, it was about a spider...and it relied mostly on the power of suggestion for its effect. Whereas Stephen Irwin, in this novel, doesn't seem to trust the reader to fill in the blanks with their own imagination. Instead, he describes events in meticulous (and repetitive) detail, much to the novel's disadvantage.
Finally, story aside and onto the deeper issues, the book seemed to have an almost retro vibe going with an anti-pagan, anti-feminist and anti-environmentalist slant.
For one thing, the story is just too far-fetched. For a while, it straddles the line between "scary" and "just plain weird," and then midway through, it's like the book decided, "What the hell, I'm weird, and I'm just going to admit it," and dove headfirst into the "bizarre" side of the pond. One of the recurring motifs in the plot, spiders, should have been enough to cause this arachonophobic reader instant shudders. Suffice to say that in three decades of reading scary fiction, only one work has actually given me nightmares: M.R. James's short story "The Ash Tree." And what made that one particularly terrifying? Well, it was about a spider...and it relied mostly on the power of suggestion for its effect. Whereas Stephen Irwin, in this novel, doesn't seem to trust the reader to fill in the blanks with their own imagination. Instead, he describes events in meticulous (and repetitive) detail, much to the novel's disadvantage.
Finally, story aside and onto the deeper issues, the book seemed to have an almost retro vibe going with an anti-pagan, anti-feminist and anti-environmentalist slant.
November 28, 2012
The moral of this story is that even if you worship Pan for hundreds of years, sacrificing several children to him & asking nothing for yourself, he will still throw you over for a younger girl & make her set you on fire. So dark worship is really not worth it.
Nicholas Close sees dead people all over the place, reenacting the circumstances of their deaths over & over. His wife has been killed & this is all a bit much for him to take, so he moves back to his childhood home in Australia, where there's a creepy woods & a newly missing boy. What does this all mean? His sister helpfully explains that although her birthday is October 31st, it's really Nick who is the Halloween child since his birthday is April 30th and the good people Down Under celebrate Halloween on that day since they're in the southern hemisphere. Why he needed this to be explained to him I'm not sure, since he grew up in Australia & presumably celebrated Halloween several times in April before he moved to the UK, but oh well, it's nice to know. Apparently this is why he can see dead people & also why he's caught the eye of the local Green Man worshipper/witch/child killer. There's some lovely detailed writing here; the best example may be that the witch's house was "a cozy mouthful of shadows"; the worst example may be that a lot of folks throw up here & it's described variously as "tangy brine" "salty spit" & "acidic mush." Blech. Other than some fine English language manipulation, there's not a lot here that's scary or sensible. Bummer.
Nicholas Close sees dead people all over the place, reenacting the circumstances of their deaths over & over. His wife has been killed & this is all a bit much for him to take, so he moves back to his childhood home in Australia, where there's a creepy woods & a newly missing boy. What does this all mean? His sister helpfully explains that although her birthday is October 31st, it's really Nick who is the Halloween child since his birthday is April 30th and the good people Down Under celebrate Halloween on that day since they're in the southern hemisphere. Why he needed this to be explained to him I'm not sure, since he grew up in Australia & presumably celebrated Halloween several times in April before he moved to the UK, but oh well, it's nice to know. Apparently this is why he can see dead people & also why he's caught the eye of the local Green Man worshipper/witch/child killer. There's some lovely detailed writing here; the best example may be that the witch's house was "a cozy mouthful of shadows"; the worst example may be that a lot of folks throw up here & it's described variously as "tangy brine" "salty spit" & "acidic mush." Blech. Other than some fine English language manipulation, there's not a lot here that's scary or sensible. Bummer.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 27, 2012
What a fantastic read!
There's a lot going on here; seeing dead people (nastier than you think, in this instance), murdered children, SPIDERS, a man's tragic loss and witchy-pagan happenings in the woods, but the quality of the writing really keeps everything together nicely.
Nicholas Close was a strong, sympathetic character, and Rowena Quill just gave me the heebie-jeebies, evoking for me the witch in the tale of Hansel and Gretel, and brought back the feeling of childhood fear on first encountering such a dark fairy tale.
I was also really impressed that this is a first novel, so if Irwin has any more creepy offerings they will certainly be on my to-read list.
There's a lot going on here; seeing dead people (nastier than you think, in this instance), murdered children, SPIDERS, a man's tragic loss and witchy-pagan happenings in the woods, but the quality of the writing really keeps everything together nicely.
Nicholas Close was a strong, sympathetic character, and Rowena Quill just gave me the heebie-jeebies, evoking for me the witch in the tale of Hansel and Gretel, and brought back the feeling of childhood fear on first encountering such a dark fairy tale.
I was also really impressed that this is a first novel, so if Irwin has any more creepy offerings they will certainly be on my to-read list.
March 25, 2013
In the UK, this was published as 'The Darkening'.
Never having read this author before, I was attracted by the blurb. There's something about a story set in the woods,where trees creak and sway, leaves rustle, small birds and animals scutter around. Your imagination can easily run riot. Stephen Irwin has certainly made the most of the opportunities and had me riveted. It had the elements of fear, the supernatural, strong characters and vivid detail. Then, finally, a great ending. I loved the twists and turns of this story and will certainly read more by this author.
Never having read this author before, I was attracted by the blurb. There's something about a story set in the woods,where trees creak and sway, leaves rustle, small birds and animals scutter around. Your imagination can easily run riot. Stephen Irwin has certainly made the most of the opportunities and had me riveted. It had the elements of fear, the supernatural, strong characters and vivid detail. Then, finally, a great ending. I loved the twists and turns of this story and will certainly read more by this author.
November 18, 2012
Very good, very creepy book that did take awhile to get going. I almost gave up reading during the first 80 or so pages, which were rather dull and overly-filled with flowery writing. But once the story got moving, it quickly became a riveting, page-turning nightmare that I really enjoyed. I don't think I've read a horror novel this scary in quite some time and would strongly recommend it. Looking forward to the author's other books.
November 4, 2022
I have mixed feelings about this book. Overall, I appreciate how creepy of a story it is - not scary per se, but definitely dark and unsettling. And I really love that it felt like a sick and twisted fairy tale. What I didn’t enjoy was the graphic details of murdered children. That was something that took me out of the story and really it just felt gratuitous.
September 9, 2011
I’d like to suggest that Stephen M. Irwin’s The Dead Path be categorized as an eco-friendly or "green" horror novel, but to say more than that would give too much away.
It centers on Nicholas Close, a successful thirty-something antiques dealer, who leaves London to return to his native Australia after a freak accident (for which he blames himself) kills his wife. After her death, (and much like the boy in The Sixth Sense) Nicholas sees dead people - ghosts on the very spot where they died, re-enacting their deaths on a sickeningly endless loop. But his attempt to escape this non-stop horror show fails miserably - naturally, or we wouldn't have a story. Once home, an eerie forest just a stone’s throw from his childhood home brings back disturbing memories and an unseen force lurking within starts anew to wreak havoc on his life and the lives of those around him.
With the exception of some Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe that I was assigned in grade school, this is my first foray into legitimate horror fiction, so I don’t have much to compare it to. I can say that Irwin has created some terrific characters here, particularly Nicholas’s Wiccan sister Suzette and Hannah Gerlic a feisty tween, plus he’s able to evoke a downright creepy atmosphere at times. But I was expecting to be truly disturbed or, at the very least, haunted, and I can’t say he succeeded in that. Although there are some nailbiting moments, the book is never able to sustain the deeply chilling tone it seems to be reaching for. Ultimately, the impression I came away with was of a supernatural suspense novel, rather than an all out horror story.
Oh, and you'll have to suspend your disbelief more than just a bit as the mystery starts to unravel. I think if the sort of things described in this novel went on in a small suburban community with such clockwork regularity (over a period of many, many years), someone would've noticed long before Nick Close moved back to town. But unanswered questions and gaping plotholes are customary pitfalls of paranormal literature, I suppose.
But nonetheless, this is still a fast, entertaining read. The characters are well-rendered; a cut above those found in most genre fiction. The prose is subtly artful, but not so obvious as to distract from the story and the requisite twist ending really did throw me for a loop.
It centers on Nicholas Close, a successful thirty-something antiques dealer, who leaves London to return to his native Australia after a freak accident (for which he blames himself) kills his wife. After her death, (and much like the boy in The Sixth Sense) Nicholas sees dead people - ghosts on the very spot where they died, re-enacting their deaths on a sickeningly endless loop. But his attempt to escape this non-stop horror show fails miserably - naturally, or we wouldn't have a story. Once home, an eerie forest just a stone’s throw from his childhood home brings back disturbing memories and an unseen force lurking within starts anew to wreak havoc on his life and the lives of those around him.
With the exception of some Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe that I was assigned in grade school, this is my first foray into legitimate horror fiction, so I don’t have much to compare it to. I can say that Irwin has created some terrific characters here, particularly Nicholas’s Wiccan sister Suzette and Hannah Gerlic a feisty tween, plus he’s able to evoke a downright creepy atmosphere at times. But I was expecting to be truly disturbed or, at the very least, haunted, and I can’t say he succeeded in that. Although there are some nailbiting moments, the book is never able to sustain the deeply chilling tone it seems to be reaching for. Ultimately, the impression I came away with was of a supernatural suspense novel, rather than an all out horror story.
Oh, and you'll have to suspend your disbelief more than just a bit as the mystery starts to unravel. I think if the sort of things described in this novel went on in a small suburban community with such clockwork regularity (over a period of many, many years), someone would've noticed long before Nick Close moved back to town. But unanswered questions and gaping plotholes are customary pitfalls of paranormal literature, I suppose.
But nonetheless, this is still a fast, entertaining read. The characters are well-rendered; a cut above those found in most genre fiction. The prose is subtly artful, but not so obvious as to distract from the story and the requisite twist ending really did throw me for a loop.
November 26, 2010
There are some reviews that are comparing this guy to Stephen King. I don't think that's entirely a correct comparison. There are some similarities between this book & Stephen King's IT, but by large this guy reminded me more of Robert McCammon. (Trust me, that's a good comparison.)
Nicholas Close used to lead a somewhat charmed life. That all changed the day his wife died & he got into an accident that left him seeing ghosts. Not just any type of ghosts, but the images of people dying over & over again. Desperate to get away from the memory of his beloved wife's death, Nicholas goes home again- only to discover that the nightmares of his childhood are far worse than anything he could have faced back in his old life. A childhood friend of his was horribly murdered... and it was supposed to have been Nicholas that was taken. With more & more children going missing, Nicholas will have to figure out who- or what- is behind the disappearances before it finds him.
Readers who are looking for something full of action will be a little surprised by how slow this book starts out, considering that it leaps directly into everything. Don't lose heart- the story picks up as the book progresses & the attention to detail is pretty good in this book. Irwin bases a lot of his supernatural goings-on in actual mythology & Paganism, which made for a really nice touch to the story that I'm sure that people will love. (I'd elaborate more on this, but I can't without spoiling parts of the book.)
It's just that at times I really wished that the book would just get on with what it was trying to do. This is a great book- ESPECIALLY for an author's first book, but people who are looking for something fast paced will be slightly disappointed at first. (It does pick up towards the end, though.)
I just can't bring myself to give this book 4 stars. It's far better than 3 stars, yet not quite 4.
Nicholas Close used to lead a somewhat charmed life. That all changed the day his wife died & he got into an accident that left him seeing ghosts. Not just any type of ghosts, but the images of people dying over & over again. Desperate to get away from the memory of his beloved wife's death, Nicholas goes home again- only to discover that the nightmares of his childhood are far worse than anything he could have faced back in his old life. A childhood friend of his was horribly murdered... and it was supposed to have been Nicholas that was taken. With more & more children going missing, Nicholas will have to figure out who- or what- is behind the disappearances before it finds him.
Readers who are looking for something full of action will be a little surprised by how slow this book starts out, considering that it leaps directly into everything. Don't lose heart- the story picks up as the book progresses & the attention to detail is pretty good in this book. Irwin bases a lot of his supernatural goings-on in actual mythology & Paganism, which made for a really nice touch to the story that I'm sure that people will love. (I'd elaborate more on this, but I can't without spoiling parts of the book.)
It's just that at times I really wished that the book would just get on with what it was trying to do. This is a great book- ESPECIALLY for an author's first book, but people who are looking for something fast paced will be slightly disappointed at first. (It does pick up towards the end, though.)
I just can't bring myself to give this book 4 stars. It's far better than 3 stars, yet not quite 4.
February 17, 2012
I had great expectations for this novel, and they were nearly fulfilled. The story has a fantastic premise and plot line, good Supernatural effects, and that lovely interweaving of history that I enjoy so much. I think perhaps what distracted me is the setting-I know so little about Australia, and the author’s incredibly detailed references to and recognition of local fauna (and perhaps slang) had me constantly wishing I was reading on Kindle rather than in a hardcover print copy, so that I would have available the instant dictionary to look up terms. Then, too, the book seems to be written more in the style of mainstream, literary fiction, which made the going somewhat slower for me. I guess what I want to say is that there are great passages in this book, a lot of scares, and I really enjoyed that. I just wish the book had been somewhat faster paced. However, I still recommend it, and I’m sure it will have a wide audience. As I said, the Scares are very much well worth the reading.
Nicholas Close is a tremendously haunted man. I know this has become a cliché, but for Nicholas, it is literally true: since he spotted a strange visage in the trees at his local park in London, and lost his wife short moments afterward, he discovered he quite literally sees ghosts-repetitive loops of action at the time of the individual’s death, or suicide, or accidental death (in one case, a repeat of the individual’s murderous frenzy). Sometimes the ghosts even try to assault Nicholas. He leaves England hoping to escape, returning to his childhood home, but that is a serious, potentially fatal, mistake-for in his home town of Tallong, Australia, there are more than repetitive energy emanations to worry about-much more and much, much worse.
Nicholas Close is a tremendously haunted man. I know this has become a cliché, but for Nicholas, it is literally true: since he spotted a strange visage in the trees at his local park in London, and lost his wife short moments afterward, he discovered he quite literally sees ghosts-repetitive loops of action at the time of the individual’s death, or suicide, or accidental death (in one case, a repeat of the individual’s murderous frenzy). Sometimes the ghosts even try to assault Nicholas. He leaves England hoping to escape, returning to his childhood home, but that is a serious, potentially fatal, mistake-for in his home town of Tallong, Australia, there are more than repetitive energy emanations to worry about-much more and much, much worse.
January 9, 2016
Quite an enjoyable horror novel. There were touches of Stephen King in this: talismans that inextricably defeat evil; secrets children seem to know instinctively. It's beautifully written, although towards the end I was getting just a little weary of the constant metaphors. Not everything has to be like something else, sometimes rain on the pavement can just be rain on the damn pavement. Still, it stands out from most horror because of the writing. I liked the main character. Why am I not raving about this book? I got a bit lost toward the end, to be honest.
But recommended for lovers of relatively gentle and well written horror.
I will just add that personally I love spiders. Always have. I'm one of those annoying freaks who encourages them into the house and names them. Eric has been good pal over the last few months. So horror novels based around arachnophobia have to work a bit harder to be scary for me. If you do (irrationally) fear spiders, you might want to give this one a miss.
But recommended for lovers of relatively gentle and well written horror.
I will just add that personally I love spiders. Always have. I'm one of those annoying freaks who encourages them into the house and names them. Eric has been good pal over the last few months. So horror novels based around arachnophobia have to work a bit harder to be scary for me. If you do (irrationally) fear spiders, you might want to give this one a miss.
August 2, 2011
The first flat-out horror book that I've read in a while, The Dead Path really keeps you hooked. It's fast-moving and admirably creepy (and the book cover glows disturbingly in the dark). After a short stint in London, the bulk of the book takes place in Australia, and Irwin is adept at putting a plot that involves the highly British legends of the Green Man into the more rough-and-tumble Aussie language and setting. One thing—if you have a problem with spiders, you might want to give this one a pass. Seriously.
October 5, 2010
To me, this book was more of a supernatural thriller than true horror. Delivering a deliciously good read, The Dead Path will appeal to a broad range of readers including horror, thriller, supernatural, drama and crime lovers. It's always great to discover a new author who has the potential to become a lifelong favourite. If his next book is as good as his first, Stephen M Irwin will certainly join those ranks for me (and I am sure, many others!)
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