The Stranger Times

CK McDonnell

Bantam 2021

Hb, 432pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781787633353

CK McDonnell is a former standup comedian, now a novelist and, according to his publisher, “quite a big fan” of Fortean Times, on which The Stranger Times is clearly based. There are some major differences, though: rather than a four-weekly colour magazine, The Stranger Times is a small weekly newspaper produced in a former church in a scruffy bit of Manchester, edited by an unkempt and drunken Irishman who sleeps in his office and swears at his staff!

It’s Hannah’s first week on the paper, and with no journalistic experience she’s effectively become deputy editor, trying to create some sort of order out of the chaos which seems to be the normal state of the paper and quickly becoming a safety barrier between the editor and the rest of the staff. The Stranger Times, like FT, has a policy of reporting accounts of weird stuff happening, while not necessarily believing in ghosts or UFOs itself. But then some weird stuff starts happening very close to home, as Hannah and the others get dragged into a gruesome supernatural battle… It’s dark and at times scary, but it’s also a comic novel. The humour is more slapstick than subtle, and often too drawn out – but the novel gets better as it goes along, and becomes a thoroughly enjoyable read. It’s the first in a series; I look forward to engaging with this disparate crew of offbeat journalists in future books.