The Laughing Policeman by Elizabeth J. Brown [SPFBO]

The law failed him. The demon won’t.

Charlie Haynes is an ageing ex-detective, working unsolved cases. Obsessed with cleanliness and order, Charlie is a loner who trades on his experience of grisly crimes, and struggles to maintain a relationship with his adult daughter.

When three teenagers are murdered in a public cemetery, the ritualistic killings show similarities to one of Charlie’s old investigations: a savage serial killer who targeted the members of a notorious Traveller family, the Boswells.

Charlie is called in to speak to the one surviving witness, whose terrifying testimony confirms his fear: the Caravan Cannibal is back, roused by the reappearance of an ancient dagger that has haunted Charlie throughout his career.

As Charlie realises he has a personal connection to the killer, he must confront his own demons to protect the last remaining Boswells, Ciara, and her young daughter, Addy, and free an innocent from the grip of an insatiable evil.

A magic dagger and demonic possession make for a creepy time in this pulpy England based supernatural horror. 

Two policemen find the consequences of putting away two brothers in a crime family are more than they bargained for. Tragedy and the supernatural strike, and a race begins to save a mother and her young daughter from being killed and fueling the full resurrection of an already deadly demon. 

After an atmospheric prologue, the story starts like a British police drama, and it nails the feel pretty fast, as well as the way that these dramas often have tragedy at the end of the first act. Then things get pulpier with a demonic possession serial killer and a time jump, which feels a little bit of a left turn, but the text makes work. The final act feels more urban fantasy, and sets up a larger plot. If that all feels a little whiplashy, well, it is. The pacing doesn’t quite recover after the time jump, at least until the climax, and the balancing of the viewpoints felt wonky.

The supernatural elements wavered between truly chilling and a little cheesy, but there’s a charm to the book that kept me coming back, reminiscent of the better pulp horror books of the seventies and eighties. Note that this is not a book for those averse to horror or traumatic character deaths. The fantasy elements are more backloaded in the second half of the book as the demonic possession element of the story comes to the fore.

This book kept me coming back for more, and the unpredictable nature of the plot was definitely a benefit for it as a horror. While the plot and pacing was a little uneven, the atmosphere was well served by the prose, and I’d be interested in seeing where the author takes the story next. 

I initially put this book up for semi-finalist consideration among the other judges in my group, as it was my favourite of the initial four books I read, but it couldn’t quite match up to most of the other contenders.

Verdict: Cut