Dead Leaves by Andrew David Barker
Andrew David Barker , Boo Books / October 3, 2015

To Scott, Paul and Mark, horror films are everything. The year is 1983, the boom of the video revolution, and Scott Bradley is seventeen, unemployed and on the dole. Drifting through life, he and his friends love nothing more than to sit around drinking, talking about girls, and watching horror movies. But things are about to change. As the ‘video nasty’ media storm descends, their desire to find a copy of the ultimate horror film – The Evil Dead – is going to lead them to the most significant days of their young lives. As the law tightens and their way of life comes under threat from all quarters, they come to learn what truly matters to them – and what doesn’t. A heartfelt story of friendship, loyalty and youthful rebellion, Dead Leaves is a darkly funny and brutally honest depiction of aimless life in a Midland town, and perfectly captures the impact those first few years of video had on a generation. Last year I read The Electric by Andrew David Barker and thoroughly enjoyed the eerie, beautiful prose in his reimagining of the classic haunted house story.  I enjoyed it so much in fact, I awarded it my…

The Electric by Andrew David Barker

The Electric… A crumbling shrine to the art of film, the abandoned cinema lies empty in the outskirts of town. Abandoned, but not deserted… For The Electric is a cinema like no other. The spirits of Hollywood’s greatest stars enjoy their final turn on celluloid, watched eagerly by an audience of ghosts. When Sam Crowhurst stumbles across this terrible and beautiful secret, his life will be irrevocably changed. As the friendly and the dangerous among the dead gather around him, the last days of summer will see him discovering more about life – and the afterlife – than he ever expected. You probably wouldn’t suspect it to look at me, but I’m actually a raging, unabashed sentimentalist at heart. If you walked passed me in the street the perma-scowl on my hairy Neanderthal-esque face would give you absolutely no inkling of the huge, soft pussycat of a man that hides within. Why the self-deprecating admission to begin this review? A couple of reasons really. Firstly, to confirm that looks can be deceptive, and secondly, and probably more importantly in this case, that my sentimental nature makes me the perfect audience for the debut novel from Andrew David Barker. Things get…