‘The Mall’ – S.L. Grey (Corvus)

Way back in September last year I highlighted this title as one that I would be keeping an eye open for and would love to get my hands on. As seems to be the way with my reading pile at the moment, my copy of ‘The Mall’ was eagerly received and then promptly disappeared into the mass of printed paper that is once again creeping across the bedroom floor (I wouldn’t have it any other way!) I have a horrible feeling that the reading pile is where the mice have made their nest...

I rescued ‘The Mall’ in the end though. I wouldn’t say that life has been particularly hard just recently but it has stopped me getting into all the books that I really want to be into right now. The best cure for this is to go for something completely different and see where it takes you; I can’t get into any fantasy right now so maybe reading some horror is the way forward... It turned out to be a move that worked very well.
‘The Mall’ really drew me into its dark and twisted pages to the extent that I was probably a little anti-social around guests over the last couple of days. It did leave me feeling a little let down in places though...

Rhoda’s trip to the mall, to score some coke, has backfired in the worst possible way. The little boy Rhoda was babysitting has gone missing in the mall and Rhoda has no idea where he is. Dan’s job in the bookstore is full of angst and petty anger (which is pretty much his life as a whole) but things are about to get a lot more interesting as he is the only person who might know where Rhoda’s charge actually went...
Rhoda and Dan’s search takes them into parts of the mall that they have never seen before, pursued by something terrifying and facing a series of twisted tasks (sent via disturbing text messages) that they must complete if they want to survive. They manage to pass these tests but the worst is yet to come. The mall that they make their way to is not the mall that they left...

‘The Mall’ is one of those books that almost effortlessly sucks you in and gets you reading straight away. The urgency of Rhoda’s entrance into the book uncovers a hook that you can’t help but bite on; after all, who’s not going to want to know what happened to a poor little lost boy? From there on in, Grey peppers the plot with lots of tiny yet biting questions that draw you in further. There’s no way out other than to keep reading through to the end and that’s the best way for a book to do things.

Grey also gives us a couple of very engaging characters to take us on this journey. Rhoda’s spiky attitude powers the plot forward in directions that you won’t see coming until you’re well down the path. As you get to know her a little more, Rhoda also becomes a surprisingly sympathetic character that you can’t help but root for.

Grey perhaps doesn’t do quite as well with Dan whose angst ridden persona grated after a while; I was there for Rhoda not him. Again though, Dan’s journey yields insights into his character that won’t necessarily make you like him more but will help you to understand him a little more.

Where Grey really excels though is in the atmosphere of surreal terror that permeates the novel and left me feeling more than a little disturbed every time I put the book down for a breather. The flight through the tunnels underneath the mall is an exercise in classic terror that got my heart thumping. You don’t know what is pursuing Rhoda and Dan but you can see all too well the effect that this looming presence has on them and the fast pacing of these passages makes it all too easy to get caught up in the rush. There’s also an element of surreal terror that makes for a nice counterpoint to the regular stuff. Grey hints at what ultimately awaits Rhoda and Dan with brief respites from the pursuit that highlight the growing weirdness of their situation. It’s scarily odd and the worst is yet to come.

The ‘alternative’ mall where Rhoda and Dan find themselves is perhaps drawn a little too strongly to be an effective satire of consumer culture (if that is what Grey intended, I think I can see that intent) but still makes for some terrifying reading. Rhoda and Dan must learn to deal with stuff that seems merely weird at first but then proves to have nasty repercussions that they must fight to avoid. Grey injects these elements of realisation at just the right points to give the plot fresh impetus and carry the reader along.

Rhoda and Dan’s stay in the mall makes for some occasionally harrowing reading (poor Dan...) and I had to be around for the ending. This is where things fell a little flat for me however...

The ending is signposted a little too clearly for my liking but I can let that one go. After all, any good horror novel has that sense of crushing inevitability about its ending, just to make the reader want to hang around and see characters get what’s coming to them.
The problem I found though (and without giving too much away) was that this ending dragged out a little too long and wasn’t so punchy as a result. The last place you want to let the pace drop is right at the end of a horror novel...
What I also found (and this was the only place in the book that this happened) was that events towards the end of the book felt like they were there specifically to push the plot towards a particular conclusion. The organic and smooth nature of the plot just vanished at this point. I found it hard to accept that Dan would do what he did and it was more or less the same with Rhoda. The actual ending worked but I didn’t like how the plot was aimed at this ending.

That to one side, ‘The Mall’ makes for some tense and unnerving reading that any horror fan will get a lot out of. I certainly did. Just beware of that ending...

Eight and a Half out of Ten