The Lucifer Chord

September 2, 2013
A massive reforestation project invites malignant supernatural visitations in this enjoyable but unsatisfying tale. Arboreal specialist Tom Curtis, desperate for money, agrees to help dying businessman Saul Abercrombie replant his Welsh estate with the types of trees that thrived there in the Dark Ages. Despite unsettling encounters with a vindictive thorn bush, a laughing cairn, and his doppelganger in a church window, Curtis finds rewards in the friendship of Aber-crombie’s daughter, and in his hefty pay. Through selective disclosure of information and quick scene changes, Cottam (The Colony) slowly uncovers hidden connections. As Abercrombie’s true motivation emerges and workers disappear, pagan professor Andrew Carrington arrives from London, hoping to prevent the return of an ancient demonic presence. Cottam infuses his story with a convincing sense of eeriness and a well-handled shift from normality to dread, but his aggressively telegraphed (“What could possibly go wrong?”) and increasingly far-fetched supernatural manifestations degrade the otherworldly to the ludicrous. Readers unshaken by the implausible will enjoy Cottam’s imaginative exploration of the power of discredited myths.

August 13, 2018
A familiar horror theme—the musician who makes a Faustian bargain for success—gets a nifty spin in this occult-tinged thriller. Of course writer Ruthie Gillespie is aware of the apocryphal rumors that Martin Mear, the 40-years-dead leader of the iconic ’60s rock band Ghost Legion, dabbled in black magic. Nonetheless, she takes an assignment to research an essay on him for a definitive box set of the group’s recordings. But when she discovers that Martin’s beloved uncle Max was connected with the secretive Satanic cult the Jericho Society—and when people around London whom she interviews about the band’s meteoric rise begin dying under mysterious circumstances—the purported begins to look increasingly like the probable. Cottam keeps the supernatural inflections largely to the margins of his story, developing it as an intricate mystery grounded in the mythology of rock music and its fandom. The result is a sinewy spooker with plenty of unforeseeable surprises.