Larry is a burglar who needs to get his hands on some cash. Sharpish. When his step- father – a retired cop – asks him to track down his errant sister , he has the chance of a way out of his financial problems but Larry soon digs himself even deeper into the mire. Moorlands is a tight, atmospheric crime thriller with a strong sense of melancholy.
Martin works in a dirty book store and spends his life haunting the losers and lowlifes at the nearby motel. Like Heatley’s similarly hard-hitting The Motel Whore, The Vampire gazes into the darkness with bloodshot eyes and is similarly unflinching. Gripping and certainly not for the squeamish.
The Black-Hearted Beat by Jason Michel
War correspondent Jude Mortimer lives a life on the edge in the first part of Jason Michel’s The Black-Hearted Beat, which kicks off brilliantly, like a visceral blend of Graham Greene and The Deerhunter. Teetering on the precipice of a dream, a nightmare, delirium, oblivion, The Black-Hearted Beat is as rich and red as wine and blood. Taste it.
Paul D. Brazill 