The Old Religion by Martyn Waites

          My first thoughts on starting to read this book that it was all a bit The Wicker Man, I was pleased to read that this was vindicated by the author in his blurb as being the type of feel he was going for.

It is quite a claustrophobic book, despite the sweeping seascapes conjured up in your minds eye of the Cornish coast everything feels dark and oppressive which, considering the subject matter, is to the benefit of the story.  St Petroc itself is dieing, the young are moving away to find work and those that are left are struggling to make ends meet.  When the "old ways" seem to be the answer just how far will they go to save their village?

With side stories involving drug trafficking and the disenfranchisement of youth there is a lot to follow here.  There are a wide range of disaffected characters from our main protagonist Tom Killgannon, through the local policewoman Rachel, Lila, Pearl, Pirate John, Noah and a seemingly never ending cast.  Somehow each character is individual and you know who they are only minutes after reading about them - quite a feat by the author there.

I thought I had worked out who Morrigan was but I was off the mark.  I particularly liked that that the writing skirted expertly around the issue of gender with Morrigan being eternally third person and so no possessive pronouns enter the text.  Those sections must have been the very devil to write as he skirted round the gender issue.  Strangely this also provided one of my niggles with the book, I found myself being ejected from the story with thoughts of "Oh, I see what he's doing here...very clever".

On the whole I found this to a seriously enjoyable book.  Just enough twists and turns to keep you interested and guessing about what is going on and who is behind it all.  I would have liked more of the supernatural element and, according to the author's afterword, quite a lot of this was cut from the book for reasons unspecified.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.