In the village of Merton Health Inspector Mike Brady is tasked with helping to evict an elderly tenant from a dilapidated house. Unfortunately for Mike the tenant has come to a bad end and things are about to get a hell of a lot worse in Merton. Seems your common garden slug has mutated into a flesh eating nightmare. Okay a single one isn’t going to overly ruin your day but try hundreds or thousands of large slime critters eating you alive! Brady enlists the aid of a local sewage worker and a young museum curator to end the infestation from hell. Can Brady succeed, or will Merton become a slaughter house? And the slugs aren’t the only threat, there’s also their slime trails, which contain a parasite that turns humans into blood thirsty monsters! Hey slugs and zombies, you might want to put that sandwich down before we get into the meat of this one, pun intended. Hey just when you thought you could eat the meat you can't get passed the lettuce.

There was a movement, primarily out of the U.S, that was termed “splatterpunk” which encompassed writers working in the gore end of the horror theme park. Extreme visual horror if you like dripping off the page to unnerve the reader, hey all rooms in the horror mansion covered here folks. Slugs can be considered to be directly in this movement of extreme horror with graphic sex, extreme violence, and a willingness to go where traditional horror novels fear to tread. Hutson isn’t pulling his punches here, he has a ludicrous B movie concept and in Slugs, the writers first recognised horror novel, he is up and running with prose that will turn your maiden Aunt Silvia’s hair white. Put on your big boy or girl pants, we’re delving between the covers of this particular trip down to the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

I got an almost cinematic vibe from Slugs, not so much due to the prose, but more to do with the structure of the novel. We get an opening scene, an old drunk dude with personal problems becoming slug food in his dilapidated hovel of a home. Hey he doesn’t keep up the garden, how horror can you get, we like it sane and orderly around here, but we really like it when chaos enters the picture and things get messy. How many horror movies have you seen where an opening scene sets the agenda with a shocking death, before you are introduced to the main characters and a perfectly ordered world. Here Hutson is doing the same, but he takes time out of his busy schedule to add some background to the character, who after all is simply victim number one, and thus is trying to garner some reader sympathy. Hutson is doing more here than a free lunch date full of Hollywood directors. We then get the main meat for the grinder until the final confrontation. Along the way there is an ever growing death toll, some of which will have the reader squirming, and the development of central characters to fit the narrative. There is no point in spending dozens of pages of prose filling out a character whose central purpose is simply to defeat the forces of chaos, the only exception to this is if the character’s past experiences have a direct impact on the main plot, but let’s not divert here.

To be honest Hutson’s characters in Slugs are by the numbers, first novel blues y’all, but will get the reader to where they should be without too much in the way of speed bumps along the highway to entertainment. We have the major character, who may have anger management issues, who is uniquely a health inspector for the local council. I’ve seen some nightmares in commercial kitchens, but from my limited experience a unique background for a horror hero. We get a sewage worker, wonder if he takes his work home with him, who is clearly going to be a victim at some stage and who’s discernible characteristic is he has kids. A museum curator who I guess is meant to be our Van Helsing for this novel, but who really doesn’t give us much insight into what caused the slug infestation. Who else, Kim as the wife, who is pretty much window dressing for a few sex scenes. And that’s about it, beside various victims. Nothing extensively new here, the Author is learning his craft folks, early days and baby steps come to mind. Hey am currently writing some fiction and believable characterisation is hard.

One of the trademarks Shaun Hutson is known for is his quotes. Rather than venturing into classic literature or the thoughts of the thinkers of the world, hey not including Donald Trump here, Shaun throws in heavy metal quotes from bands like Iron Maiden. It’s a bold strategy Cotton and for mine it pays off for Hutson. Heavy Metal and horror go together like Jason and a machete, it’s surprising more dark genre authors haven’t checked out their record collection. Breath of fresh air comes to mind, who needs a Jane Austen quote when Lemmy has us covered.

The writing style is crisp and straight to the point. Hutson isn’t going for great pathos or drama here, he is writing a book about killer slugs, and knows exactly where the novel is at in terms of the English novel. Pacing keeps the reader rocking, with descriptions kept to a minimum, the action and gore is where this book is at, let’s not muddy the waters with the sort of stuff that English literature undergraduates are going to be impressed with. The novel is short, straight to the point, and keeps on track without feeling the need to impress your overindulged English Lit Professor. Have I laboured this point enough, just to be sure, Slugs isn’t the great English novel, it doesn’t want to be.

Plot wise, and once again killer slugs, we got from point A to point B to point C without feeling the need to divert into side routes. Slugs appear, Brady becomes aware of the menace, attempts are made to analysis the danger, and then we get the final confrontation in the sewers under the village of Merton. Hutson puts us in some town in rural Britain and doesn’t feel the need to write beyond that. It could be argued that there is a subplot about the danger only being focused on when it affects the middle class and as usual the working class gets shafted, but to be honest I don’t think the Author was going there. Local colour rather than local political structures being the name of the game here. If you are happy enough to read pulp and just get your horror on then you are in the right place.

Pretty much the horror is from the gore end of the street, don’t expect anything subtle here, Shaun Hutson is rocking splatterpunk to the delight of any reader that picks up a novel titled Slugs. We get some gruesome descriptions of a number of victims, surprisingly many of which the Author does give some characterisation to, and it’s not just restricted to humans, oh no, the animal kingdom is a food source as well friends and neighbours. Surprisingly, for yours truly anyway, Hutson does pull up short of children joining the menu, something Herbert didn’t stint on with his nature attacks novel The Rats. I would like to say Hutson is showing some understanding of how horror works, and when you should pull your punches, but hey where else has Hutson shown any degree of restraint. As we delve further into the Author’s body of work we’ll see if this rings true across his bibliography, or did perhaps his Editor put the brakes on. So expect some gruesome scenes, Slugs isn’t the novel for your Mom’s reading club.

Shaun Hutson presents a first novel that doesn’t get much out of the penny dreadful realm of horror, the characterisation is above the usual however, but the book isn’t meant to be what your college lecturer would term “quality literature”. Hutson presents a read that is fast pace, gets down in the horror trenches, and for mine is something all horror fans should at least have a go at reading. Sure the structure is your standard three acts, the rising chaos, the exploration of that chaos, and the final confrontation, but the author handles the requirements with ease. Full recommendation folks, this is one of those reads that will have you searching out other books by the author. We have some homework here, just how far will Hutson go in later novels, but heck can’t wait to get into that homework. Just when you thought it was safe to go out and do the gardening, Shaun Hutson suggests maybe you should stay indoors instead.