'The Wakeman Recreation Ground'

The first story in Tom Johnstone's collection Last Stop Wellsbourne left a slightly nasty aftertaste. Not that it's a bad story, far from it - it is a very good story. But it does strike a little close to home. It's a story of fascists, Nazis, far-right thugs right here in little old Brexit-barmy England. The fact that they carry out the monstrous crime that forms the core of this tale in a fictitious town doesn't really take the sting out of the tale. 

The protagonist is a moderately successful author, Louise, who in her younger days was a member of a far-right group. One of her old associates asks her to meet him at the eponymous recreation ground, a place with a strange reputation. Louise was not impressed by the assorted thugs she met there and wants nothing to do with them. But a drone takes footage of the meeting and, when a horrific video of a racist crime is posted online, she falls under suspicion. The irony is that Louise was never quite what she seemed back in the day...

The group of fascists is well-drawn, and the actual incident is convincing in its brutal stupidity. What happens next is an audacious twist on the old theme of a revenant exacting revenge. The recreation ground is, it seems, exactly that. All in all, this is a horror story that manages to work on several levels and doesn't really offer much by way of closure. Rather like modern British politics. Join me in a day or two and I'll have more things to say, perhaps even  some cheerful ones!