SLAWTER (12+)
by Darren Shan
HarperCollins, £12.99; 256pp

THE SEVENTH SON OF A seventh son, Tom Ward is apprenticed to a Spook — a magician who earns his living by trapping or destroying evil beings haunting the County. Some, such as boggarts, can be destroyed or domesticated; others, such as witches, must be bound underground with iron and salt. Their bony nails scrabble constantly at their prisons, trying to get free — and sometimes, they succeed.

The Wardstone Chronicles, by Joseph Delaney, now on their third outing, are ideal for the reader who has outgrown Harry Potter. Be warned, these books are seriously scary, though one of the most interesting features of young Tom Ward’s adventures is the way that they show us how close evil is to good, and how even witches can change for the better. This is unusual in horror and fantasy, which enjoys Manichean opposites, and is one reason why the series appeals to adults and children.

In Spook’s Secret, Tom and his master are at the Spook’s winter house, Anglezarke, where damp bedrooms and a moor full of terrors await them. Delaney’s series is suffused with a deep feeling for his native Lancashire, and its harsh beauties underscore hard choices made by characters. The Spook is in love with a beautiful witch called Meg — whose ferocious, feral sister is penned in the cellar. One drop of human blood will revive her. Alice, the reformed witch who is Tom’s friend and saviour, is appalled at Meg’s treatment, which involves keeping her drugged and forgetful — but has she become too close? The Spook’s sinister ex-apprentice is trying to get hold of a magical grimoire (a book of spells), and threatens Tom’s father’s soul with hellish torment unless he steals it from his master. The grimoire will release an ancient evil that will keep the world in winter. Beautifully produced and consistently surprising, the weird and wonderful Wardstone Chronicles are an annual treat.

Darren Shan’s Demonata series needs nerves of steel even before you’ve opened the snarling, glow-in-the-dark covers. Grubs Grady’s parents invoked a magical family bargain in the hope of saving their daughter from turning into a werewolf. Poor Grubs found them eviscerated in the first book, and went mad. Sent to live with his uncle and half-brother, he, too, discovered he could save the ones he loves only by playing chess against a demon in Lord Loss.

Having won in the first book, he ought to be happier in Slawter, but, as he warns us, there are no fairytale endings. Uncle Dervish still suffers from appalling nightmares, so it’s a bit silly of him to hook up with a cult horror-movie director to advise her on how to make a film about demons. Grubs and his half-brother, Bill-E, come along as extras to the village of Slawter, and soon find that the special effects are just a bit too bad not to be true.

As grossly entertaining as ever, Grubs’s cynical teenaged voice carries the story along like a bat out of hell. There is an obnoxious child star, Bo, who turns into one of those feisty heroines, and a rather predictable climax, but the most memorable character is the obsessive director, Davida, bent on creating an immortal horror film. Inevitably, she discovers that, when supping with the Devil, you are your just desserts.

Delaney and Shan share an interest in salvation and redemption, and you can hear the oral tradition of Celtic storytellers in their hypnotic prose — just as you can in Eoin Colfer and Herbie Brennan, whose latest thrillers will also be springing demons on us later this year. Strong imagination may, as Shakespeare said, make us suppose a bush a bear but we all love a chill down the spine during these hot, midsummer nights.

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