The Book: Darkness Crawls Apace

A new book published by BookLocker containing 17 tales of the supernatural from vampires to werewolves to magicians. Some of these stories feature creatures never encountered before. The tales describe the adventures of a Reverend Montague Wynnter and his trusted companion Sir Charles Berwick.

Reverend Montague Wynnter and his bemused sidekick, Sir Charles Berwick, have got to be amongst the best characters to come along since Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. These are detectives of the supernatural and get involved in all manner of mysteries. Montague Wynnter is a striking character. Page turning stuff. I highly recommend anyone interested in suparnatural stories to read this book.
- Ulrike Ochs

A great collection of spine-chilling stories about Montague Wynnter, the brave and astute persecutor of the evil side of the supernatural. With his protagonist, the author does not only evoke associations of the historic person of Montague Summers, he even masterly characterizes the work of this eccentric who lived in the first half of the last century dedicated himself to the publishing of numerous volumes about witchcraft and vampires.

In these compelling tales of mystery the author creates a dense atmosphere that often reminds me of the masterpieces of E. A. Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann or Arthur Conan Doyle without ever copying them. With his gripping language, Donovan knows perfectly how to make the reader’s blood run cold. Due to the well thought-out and polished plots of each single story, this volume turns out to be a real page-turner, a real must-have for anyone interested in brilliant scary tales. Hard to say which one is the best, but one of my favourites is definitely the cover story - telling of the hunt for a witch in the legendary capital of Hungary.
- Manuela Knoll

An exciting read, with a sprinkle of a Holmes and Watson feel, filtered with a little Basil Rathbone. Monty and Berwick are loveable, quirky characters, easy to identify with. Supernatural and odd goings on keep you racing along beside these fine men. No need for gratuitous blood and gore here. These excellent detective stories are set in real locations lending a familiar feel bringing you right into the moment. More, more please from Monty and Berwick.
-Dave Gaff

Reverend Montague Wynnter investigates the supernatural as if it was an everyday occurrence. His take on the creatures is that folklore holds the answers to all the problems. The stories are fast paced and encourage you to turn the page.Some of the best in my mind are ‘walks on Dartmoor’ a story about a werewolf, 'funereal rites', about a Ghoul and 'Night Falls on Piccadilly' a creepy tale where Montague gets visited by his dead parents but really all the stories in this volume art excellent.The tales are reminiscent of such supernatural stories as W. H Hodgson’s 'Carnacki the Ghost Finder' and Alice and Claude Askew’s 'Aylmer Vance' but with an element of adventure thrown in. These are great stories and well worth a read. A full thumb's up.
-Chris Hamer

John Donovan writes of a strange time where supernatural creatures are real and magicians and mythical witches roam the earth causing havoc. The two characters featured in the book, Reverend Montague Wynnter and Sir Charles Berwick are not unlike Homes and Watson except that sometimes they stumble about to find a solution and don’t always know the exact truth of what is going on. All these stories are real page turners and I hope that we hear more from Montague Wynnter. There are the odd reference to other places and people in some of the stories the most obvious being to Dracula in ‘Night Falls on Piccadilly’. From the way the tales are written I get the impression that the folklore of these monsters has come into play in the telling of the stories and many of them are refreshingly different from the modern take on such things as vampires and werewolves. A truly excellent book that I can highly recommend.
-Paul Scott