BLOOD CRUISE

RELEASED OUT NOW! 545 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author Mats strandberg Publisher Jo Fletcher Books

This pulpy shocker locates its bloody carnage somewhere truly hellish: a run-down cruise ship en route from Sweden to Finland, many of whose 1200 passengers are set on getting hammered. With its cramped cabins and karaoke bar, it’s a sticky-carpeted nightmare. When a vampiric child on-board decides he’s had enough of lurking in the shadows in the approved manner, he kickstarts a wave of infection which sees passengers sprouting fangs, transformed into ravenous “newborns”.

It’s an odd setting for an outbreak horror, but a vivid one, painted with such pungency that you can practically smell the stale vomit. Littered with prosaic details, Mats Strandberg’s prose is often starkly coarse – he’s not shy of dropping the C-bomb or frankly describing sexual arousal, making this feel like the sort of old-school horror novel that got furtively passed around the playground.

Some of the characters are well-sketched: particularly Marianne, a lonely retired woman; and Dan, a sleazy Eurovision star, who, once turned, revels in his newfound power. And the extensive page count provides space to get to know them, via soapy interludes. But as the book flicks from one perspective to another, rarely staying with any for more than five pages, you can’t help thinking that it could have sailed into port in about two-thirds the time.