Steve-Calvert.co.uk
Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
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By Guy N . Smith There are no prizes for guessing what this book is about. The title says it all: Snakes. And snakes are not something that the average British citizen has to worry about most of the time. In this story though, the inhabitants of a little village called Stainforth have plenty of reasons to worry about the slithering reptiles when, after a motorway pileup, a truckload of snakes escape into the countryside. The driver of the truck is probably their first victim, then they move on to whoever is handy and when a young police constable called Mark Bazeley arrives on the scene of the accident and tries to administer first aid to an injured young lady-who for some unexplained reason happens to be naked-he thinks that she must be delirious when she tells him that a snake has bitten her. Bazeley finds out the truth of her words soon enough though, when he becomes lunch for an African rock python. The snakes had been living in a zoo, but the zoo was forced to close and they were destined to be rehoused elsewhere. The zoo's inventory of the snakes is a little suspect, but the authorities believe that they are searching for a pair of western diamondback rattlesnakes, one cobra, one African mamba, a pair of coral snakes, a Russell's viper and, of course, the granddaddy of them all the twenty foot long African rock python. And to make matters worse it is an exceptionally warm summer, so the cold blooded reptiles have every chance of surviving in the wild for quite some time. Of course, extra police are called in to help look for the snakes and the military become involved, but an expert on snakes is also needed and so the authorities recruit the services of a young man named John Price. John has a degree in zoology and is an expert on poisonous snakes. His qualifications have, up until now, only taken him as far as the local dole queue, but I suppose that you can't have everything and, on the plus side, John's elderly aunt lives in Stainforth so at least he has somewhere to stay. It is hard to say who is supposed to be the main character in Snakes, it is probably John Smith, but, like a lot of the other characters in the book, he only pops up for a few pages at a time then and disappears again while the story concentrates on someone else. The young gardener Keith Doyle is the viewpoint character just as often as John Smith (if often is the right word), and he is a character that it is easier to feel sympathetic towards. Like John, Keith has a good education, but, also like John, he could not find a job and so he started his own gardening business instead, rather than live at the taxpayer's expense. Keith's girlfriend's parents don't feel that Keith is good enough for her though, and-just to make it interesting-she thinks that she might be pregnant. I like Keith, and considered him to be the most believable character in the book, but he, like everyone else in the story, is not in the story often enough and I really do feel that Snakes is a book that could have been improved if a little more work had been put into defining a main character. Snakes is 170 pages long and for most of those pages the inhabitants of Stainforth are living in fear of the snakes. Nobody can find them, but they keep on killing and that nasty old rock python seems to have developed a real taste for law and order because with in days of eating poor, old PC Bazeley it is snacking on another policeman and then, just a few hours later, it has another attack of the munchies, slithers into someone's bed and has them for dessert. Please! I am not an expert on snakes, but I know a little about them and found it hard to believe that any snake could eat even one full-grown adult. But three of them in a matter of just a few days? And two of those in such quick succession? I don't think so. This was just a little too far-fetched for my liking and it spoilt the book for me. Other aspects of the snakes' behaviour were also a little hard for me to accept as well and so I cannot really say that I enjoyed this book very much. It is okay, I suppose, but there are much better books on the shelves and Smith has written many better books himself. If you have never read any of them I would not recommend Snakes as a good one to start with, it might put you off reading any of his other work. Try Manitou Doll instead and then, if you have to-or if you want to-come to Snakes and try it then. |
