Dante and Tom are two twenty-something musicians that have failed to break into the big time with a couple of albums in their discography so far. Dante takes a post with enigmatic professor and writer Eliot Coldwell, author of Banquet for the Damned, that has unduly influenced Dante. The duo aim to base their new album on Coldwell’s latest book, the one Dante is going to do some research for. Arriving in the University seaside town of St. Andrews, the duo discovering something is very wrong in the township. Also arriving is Hart, an anthropologist specialising in nightmares, who wants to discover why so many students of Coldwell are having horrendous nightmares and are then turning up dead.

This is the second Adam Nevill novel I’ve read, after a huge recommendation from various sources came in 2024, and I’m starting to think Banquet might have been a better kicking off novel than The Reddening, Nevill’s first excursion into writing a horror novel. For mine Banquet is far more accessible to the first time reader, though you still have to be wise to the Author’s writing style, more on that later, and in particular his approach to horror tactics which range from traditional to almost the mundane background of the day to day world. 

Writing in that uniquely English style, Nevill spins a tale of witchcraft from the past oozing into the modern world via doors that should have been left shut being opened allowing the past to seep out in a Folk horror novel that ensures the reader is aware that no single character is safe from the infernal. Without giving anything away, there is a body count even within secondary characters. 

Like all good horror writers Nevill has full control of his pacing. For some readers this book might seem a tad slow moving, the Author is even with his first novel very careful in his construction of the narrative, but there are scenes – mainly action ones, that put things into a higher gear. Nevill allows his characters to breath, something missing from lesser writers, and we become aware of their thoughts, motivations, character development, and ability to either rise to the occasion or fail what tests are thrown in their way. Nevill has a huge gift with his characterisation, he creates a mental picture in the reader’s mind of what his characters might look like. There is of course an inherent danger with that when it comes to movie adaptations, but hey we’re here for the prose.

I have an almost obsessive interest in how authors spend their valuable time in describing scenes. For me this can be either make or break for a novel, and in particular a dark genre outing. Some authors have completely lost me as they spend paragraph after paragraph describing the miniature, yet other authors have also lost me as they spend zero time in description, leaving no feeling of place or scene in the reader’s mind. Nevill pretty much skates the line between those two extremes, with descriptive paragraphs giving the reader room to make mental pictures of the locations, while not out living his welcome in this regard. And those descriptions range from the mundane to the chaotic, Nevill is nothing if not an equal opportunity writer in this regard. Hey you are definitely not going to get bogged down in Banquet, the novel moves along as needed.

I’m starting to get a handle on Nevill’s prose style, reading a third novel by the author at the moment, and would put the style down as a cross between the great James Herbert and the severely underrated Ramsay Campbell. There’s meat on the bone to grind to while the prose raises itself well above the mundane we are expecting in a penny dreadful. While some authors indulge themselves in naturalistic style Nevill is steeped in the English literature style of using the written word to raise the novel well beyond the backyard allies of the more grunge orientated word smiths out there. Hell I would even recommend this writer to those out there that normally restrict themselves to the quality fiction display at their local bookstore, a display that really hasn’t had anything new on its shelves in the last twenty years.

Nevill’s horror tactics are at once nuanced and still manage to pull off a number of blood splattered passages. While most deaths happen off page, all about the tension and atmosphere with this read, the aftermath of those deaths isn’t being shied away from either. There’s this rising atmosphere of fear and loathing going down in an almost understated fashion, till the “brown man” decides it really is time to get the festivities happening, mostly off the page once again. So don’t expect slaughterhouse torrents of blood here, but do expect that cold finger of dread to plunge down your spine as the horror intrudes in ever increasing quantities. 

I am rapidly becoming an Adam Nevill fan, even enjoyed both Netflix adaptation of his works, which I hadn’t realised were from Nevill novels till we suddenly decided to go on a rampage on the author’s back category at Sminds. The dude has picked up the banner James Herbert left with his passing, and is off and running with it, helping to keep the English breed of horror alive and biting. Banquet as a first novel is quite the achievement, its atmospheric, builds the tension, and shows a writer already well advanced in his craft. I have no issue saying this is a must read, full recommendation, this is horror at its finest. You may have sat down for a snack with this novel but what Adam Nevill gives you is a five course gourmet feast that will whet your appetite for destruction and have you wanting to read more of the author’s by now solid body of work. Can’t wait to devour the next novel, Adam Nevill has me rocking to the English horror and what it can be.