The Shadow People - Graham Masterton

 

This horror/mystery is the third book following Det. Sgt. Jamila Patel and Det. Con. Jerry Pardoe as they team up to find a ritualistic cult of cannibals.  A pile of bodies with evidence of cannibalistic activity are found in an abandoned building next to a painting on the wall that suggests these bodies were a possible sacrifice.  The initial investigating officers are attacked but the criminals seem to disappear quickly, causing the police force to be concerned the criminals might be more organized than they originally thought. As the investigation continues and more people are abducted, Patel and Pardoe find connections that this group may be worshiping an ancient god who has been all but forgotten. 

TW/CW: cannibalism, torture, police treatment

I was immediately interested in this book as soon as I read the description - who doesn't love a good cannibal cult story?  And the book certainly does not hold back at all in regards to those elements. I think a lot of times the cannibal element would be used as the 'twist' where the investigating detectives would be completely stumped until one of them would have a lightbulb moment and say "what if they're eating the bodies". That was not the case here.  We get a human BBQ in the opening scene and it only gets more graphic from there. We see, on page, in detail, the ritualistic way this cult butchers (for lack of a better term) the people they abduct.  I think Masterton toes the line between graphic and over-done well and I personally never felt that the book veered into 'torture porn' category of violence but that line in the sand could absolutely vary from reader to reader. There was fantastic atmosphere built up around the cult and the police investigation and the creep factor was high.

The multi-POV in this book was done really well to amp up the tension and pacing of the story.  The book is told mainly by alternating between the police investigation and then from a POV inside the cult. We also get some brief scenes from the POV of the cult victims but those don't last very long.  I really enjoyed the choice to set up the POV this way because there is no real question in the reader's mind as to what is going on.  The reader has (mostly) all the information and the thrill and tension is seeing how these two sides clash and which will come out on top.  Getting a POV from inside the cult was really interesting because we can see the inner workings and structure of this pretty complex system.  The police have, as I think most people would, written off the cult as all being insane.  The POV choices allow the cult members to be more humanized than if the story was told solely from the police POV. And, to be clear, at no point was I rooting for the cannibal cult to win, but it was nice to not have them be so black-and-white evil and actual have some nuance.  Masterton does a great job of knowing when to switch these POVs to amp up the tension because the reader knows how each side is progressing in their own mission.  So ending a cult POV chapter with plans of when they'll take their next victim only to switch to the police POV who have no clue about the impending attack really worked well for me. 

The actual police investigation felt a little lacking for me.  For the first 70% of the book, the police are basically two steps behind.  They have some clues, some theories, but mostly just a whole pile of questions with no real way to answer them.  Then, suddenly, everything comes together perfectly for the investigation to be wrapped up quickly.  I think if the exact same solutions were used, but just spread out a little more throughout the narrative, it would have felt more organic.  However, the fact that we get three big breaks in the case pretty much at the same time was really convenient and not satisfying. Also Patel and Pardoe are pitched in the book as being some sort of expert duo who are really good at cracking the bizarre cases but I didn't see anything special about them or the investigating style at all.  I was sort of expecting a X-File Scully/Mulder pairing type of dynamic but that isn't really the case. They just seemed a little less likely to dismiss the more 'out-there' theories than some of the other officers but not to any degree that they'd get called in off their other cases to work as a specialized team. I thought they had some good banter and seemed to work well as a partnership but they just felt like a regular detective partnership that got handed a weird case.

I also wanted to talk about the tone and police interaction in this story.  I did read an ARC, so there is a chance some of this will change before final publication but this is my feelings about what I read.  The tone had a very "good ol' boys" feel to it that made it read a little dated to me. The story is set in present day London so maybe the tone and attitudes includes are entirely accurate.  However, as a reader in America the story felt a little dated.  For example, early on a character makes a comment that due to recent political shifts, they have been told to be more politically correct when referring to suspects.  Then there are multiple instances of one character describing a suspect as "having a screw loose", then another character would give them a look and the first character would sort of roll their eyes and correct to "mentally disordered" or "mentally unstable".  This happened often enough that it stood out and I kept waiting for one of the older detectives to make a comment about how "these young people these days and their PC language" type complaint. Also, the way the police make borderline derogatory remarks about homeless people and mentally ill people throughout the book again just made it feel a bit old fashioned. I've read plenty of police procedurals - many set in London - where this sort of language and attitudes were not included so it really stood out to me. There was also one scene early on where the police were trying to force a non-verbal suspect to take a shower but the suspect was resisting getting into the shower stall.  So as an alternative, they took the suspect out into the parking lot and washed him with the hose where they wash the cars. I didn't pick up on any real plot reasons that would rationalize treating the suspect in this manner so it just came off as abusive.

Based on the description of the book, Patel and Pardoe are brought in to investigate cases that may have a supernatural aspect to them. Since it was mentioned in the description, I was expecting this aspect to play a much bigger role in the investigation than it actually did.  I was expecting some sort of hints that maybe something supernatural was happening, maybe a theory that gets thrown around the investigation team but is laughed off initially. Something along those lines would have been great.  If I had to stretch, the supernatural element at the beginning would be the odd painting on the wall by the human BBQ.  However, that seemed like such a stretch to get these two 'specialized' investigators together a painting.  I did really like where we eventually get with the supernatural side of the investigation, but I wanted more of it earlier.  Again, I was hoping more for an X-Files type of situation I suppose. 

Overall, I did like this read but it had some key parts that didn't quite hit for me. I loved the horror elements and the atmosphere Masterton crafted.  The POV choices and narrative structure worked well to enhance the pacing and tension in the story.  However, the tone and some characters felt dated to me, I thought the investigation wrapped up a bit too quickly, and I wanted more supernatural breadcrumbs earlier in the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC

Expected publication date is March 1, 2022