Green Fingers by Dan Coxon

I would like to thank the author for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Black Shuck Books

Published – Out Now

Price - £4.99 paperback

A series of micro-collections featuring a selection of peculiar tales from the best in horror and speculative fiction

For me, the best horror is the unsettling and the eerie. A bit like looking in the mirror and seeing the world reflected isn’t quite the one you’re used to seeing. Reality being subtly altered for me is much more disturbing than the giant monsters roaming the corridors because it plays with is what we are seeing really happening or is it our brains not working – neither is a particular comforting answer. In Green Fingers Dan Coxon provides six deliciously strange tales where nature in particular seems to have taken a turn against us.

Invasive Species – A really good opening tale. A neighbour who takes great pride in her garden receives an unusual plant package. It appears to be a very fast spreader and soon our narrator faces a powerful garden invasion. I really enjoyed the way it captures how our narrator’s needs for order gets quickly shattered by something as simple as a single all conquering weed. Coxon then tightens the screw on the tale as we see this invader isn’t just stopping at the lawn.

By Black Snow She Wept – This is a historical tale of an early 19th century woman who was on a wagon trail with her husband in the winter mountains. They meet an apparently injured stranger in the middle of nowhere and reluctantly decide to help. They discover the man is hiding many secrets. I loved the voice here as our narrator being a woman is underestimated by both men and her insights are quite sensible as to what may be really going on. There is a wonderful building of tension in this desolate apparently empty land as we await exactly what secret is being hidden to finally hit and then the story lets rip.

The Pale Men – The story is both weird and creepy which I always enjoy. Our narrator has returned to his father’s hometown after his death. He is trying to clean out his father’s appalling home and while there is also meeting up with the old men that his dad would hang around with in the pub. This has a story where you know something very strange is going on but there isn’t anything obvious clues as to what. Sullen men, dilapidated houses and a rather tense local area are all things we can see in everyday life. But there is a growing sense that this place and these people aren’t like the rest of us– the ending is both surprising and yet pulls the pieces of the story together really well.

We Live in Dirt – A town’s elderly mayor gets frightened by a large mushroom puffball containing a video tape. It’s a glorious weird image to hang a story off and then it unpeels as to why the mayor gets such a strange reaction. I loved how this story quickly tells a tale that lasted decades and also at the same time suggests something even weirder may be going on. Surprising and disconcerting.

Green Fingers – This tale deservedly gets the title of the collection. Our narrator loves to walk her dog and one day unexpectedly finds a tree with police tape on it. This turns into a little urban folk horror as she goes down the rabbit hole of a mystery connected to a tree suggesting some strange neighbours are up to something. Another story where I loved the sense of an old mystery finally being uncovered and yet one hard to escape.

Among the Pines – The strangest tale in the collection finishes the series of stories with a writers’ retreat where the inhabitants begin hearing endless screaming in the night. Here the weirdness of the outside preying on the minds of the urban writers is where that building sense of disquiet cones from. This story plays with our fear of getting lost out there or in ourselves and the ending is both surreal and horrifying.

This is a really strong collection of horror stories where we meet very different narrators who all find their world going 90 degrees from the norm. Coxon has a wonderful way of setting up a premise that isn’t immediately obvious and then making the results stranger than you would expect. A wonderful collection to read in your garden…but watch out for what may be watching you.