The Dead Path
Stephen M. Irwin
Hardback, 384 pgs.
I had needed a break from the rich tapestry of Martin and I found this during my local Boarders going out of business sale which offered 70% off hard backs. Why not? I never read horror and Fall was approaching rapidly. I had picked up a decent amount of Halloween reading but I don’t think I will get to the bulk of it until November once I have closed out a "Song of Ice and Fire." Oh well, that is why I have a stack of books.
On a side note, I need to find some book ends. The fancy little decorative things with a hefty weight. If you come across some for cheap, let me know. I should start checking garage sales.
'The Dead Path' was my first foray into horror beyond Mr. King and Miss Rice. I don't generally read horror at all simply for the fact that I find horror really subjective and writers seem to write about what is scary to them. If you align with the same fears it is generally a success, otherwise its just kind of dark fiction. For instance, in The Dead Path uses spiders. I hate spiders but they are not scary to read about for me so that is a complete miss, even if they are the size of a small dog.
The author Stephen Irwin is from Australia, he has a happy life and seems pretty ordinary as far as authors go. Irwin graduated from Queensland College with qualifications in Film and Television production. He has produced some movies but I don’t know of any of them and have not bothered to look. He has two kids and a loving wife, wonderful. He has one some praise for his shorts and had a second book published in Australia, it is unclear if this is a sequel to 'The Dead Path' or not.
The book starts off with a brief introduction to the main character, Nicolas Close. Nicolas is a 'picker.' Just like the History show he roams around looking for crap to sell to people with dramatic interior design desires. He makes a decent living and his wife and himself have just purchased a nice flat which they are renovating. Nicolas is off to the store to pick up some supplies. As he motorcycles down he gets into an accident and although he is fine, he immediately decides to phone his wife. As his wife travels down a latter to answer the phone, she slips and breaks her neck. Now, Nicolas sees ghosts of the murdered or suicide variety in vivid detail playing out their final moments over and over. Obviously this is drastically effecting him so he runs home to his mother to try and come to grips with the whole thing. Of course this is when things get crazier and weirder.
Overall the book wasn’t scary. A couple of weird things, some dibble dabble with old mythos and that is about it.
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