The Old Religion

An engrossing and very contemporary (post-Brexit) horror-mystery, THE OLD RELIGION is set in a tiny seaside village in Cornwall, St. Petroc. Almost abandoned, the remaining villagers try to struggle on. If only the local Council will agree to site a proposed Marina there, employment and income will improve. But other sites are in competition--so locals determine to weight their chances--with a solid return to the Old Ways.


The two best aspects of the novel for me were the application of pagan beliefs to this undeniably 21st-century problem; and the multiple layered mysteries throughout, so compelling that my attention never wavered.

Oh folks,. Aren’t they terrifying? So much so there’s literally a subgenre created for their very specific blend of terror. And so you know the premise. A city person moves to a small town. Small town turns out to be hosting some evil. The person battles the evil. Pretty straight forward scenario, success of which usually depends on the execution. In this case the execution held up. Martyn Waites is a seasoned (albeit it under a pseudonym) author and his writing reflects years of experience with plotting and characters, albeit thematically this is something of a departure for him…a fusion of mystery and supernatural. And a politically themed fusion, no less. A tale distinctly utilizing the singular sort of a terror in itself…Brexit. Specifically, this story is set is a small farming community, a sort of place that has predominantly voted for the very thing that ends up screwing them over. Now the disappearance of the EU agricultural subsidies is devastating their small town and the folk is turning to alternative solutions…the old ways. And since we’re already established that the folk in question isn’t all that bright about the choices they are making, this one is bound to be a doozy. And that’s the situation our protagonist, a man scarred by a violent past and trying to start over, finds himself in. Contending with locals that go from their usual (not overly welcoming to strangers) mode to the downright homicidal one. A good, if not especially original, story, well written, atmospheric. Waites did a good job of describing the darkness and desperation slowly descending on a small community, the sort of collective madness that overtakes it. And, more importantly, since Waites seems to be specializing in series, he created an interesting compelling likeable protagonist to carry this and future installments. To be fair, the supernatural element is pretty underutilized. The evil here is predominantly (wo)manmade. It’s funny, because just the other day I read Tudor’s Other People, a thriller that didn’t advertise a supernatural angle, but featured it pretty heavily. This was more of the opposite. The spooky frights in this book are primarily of the explicable dark psychological variety. All the same, though, it had that creepy Wicker Man thing going on, something somehow perfectly suited to the English countryside in a way that’s diametrically opposed to other English countryside things like, say, Downton Abbey. All in all an enjoyable entertaining read. One, as much as I love standalones, I can objectively agree can easily merit a continuation. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Martyn Waites has crafted an engrossing page turner of a read in The Old Religion. Well worth the read!