The Old Religion by Martyn Waites

The Blurb On The Back:

Welcome to the dark heart of Cornwall …

The Cornish village of St Petroc is the sort of place where people come to hide. Tom Kilgannon is one such person. An ex-undercover cop, Tom is in the Witness Protection Programme hiding from some very violent people, and St Petroc’s offers him a chance to lice a safe and anonymous life.

Until he meets Lila.

Lila is a seventeen-year-old runaway. When she breaks into Tom’s house she takes more than just his money. His wallet holds everything about his new identity. He also knows that Lila is in danger from the travellers’ commune she’s been living in. Something sinister has been going on there and Lila knows more than she realises.

But to find her he risks not only giving away his location to the gangs he’s hiding from, but also becoming a target for whoever is hunting Lila.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Martyn Waites’s novel (the first in a series) marries thriller and folk horror but because there’s so much going on it’s less than the sum of its parts. It has good pacing and there are some creepy moments, but the plot is heavily contrived at times and neither Tom nor Lila quite convince as characters while the antagonist is similarly underdeveloped. It’s not a bad book, I kept turning the pages, but it wasn’t as satisfying a read as I’d hoped.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.