THE DEVIL TIMES TWO

Millionaire playboy and explorer turned fanatical anti-Satanist Phillip St. George is back, and this time it’s not quite as personal. In the first book, St. George was seeking revenge for the horrific murder of his beautiful wife, a task that he was spectacularly successful at. This time around he’s after a New York coven led by a foxy witch lady, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive. St. George doesn’t BELIEVE in Satanism, of course, he just knows the danger its adherents pose. His sworn duty is to kill them all, and then set fire to where they live.

The most ridiculous scene in this ridiculous book is when he is captured, drugged and laid out, naked, ready for sacrifice. As the witch looks him up and down, she is so impressed by his physical beauty and, not to mince words, the enormous size of his penis, that she decides to make him her lover instead. It’s the break that our big cocked hero needs, and the coven are on borrowed time from there on in.

It seems that this second book in The Satan Sleuth series was also the last. It’s a shame, as although they’re not great literature, they are great fun, and they are perfect for train journeys that last about two hours.      

31ST

 

HOTEL HELL

MANIA (1989)

The best Guy N. Smith novels are the ones with a simple premise, the sort of thing that can be summarised in a few words – big, nasty crabs, for example, or deadly locusts, killer Mummy, evil Punch and Judy Show, etc. This list is not exhaustive. It’s difficult to sum up ‘Mania’ so succinctly, but it’s something along the lines of ‘snow storm forces normal people to take refuge in a guest house in Donnington run by sadists and populated by lunatics and perverts. Oh, and Satan has made one of the residents pregnant’.  

The hellish hotel / asylum is only sketchily realised, a kind of ‘Fawlty Towers’ where Basil is a religious maniac and flasher, Sybil a torturer, Manuel an occult book collector, Polly a compulsive masturbator and Terry the chef a lascivious alcoholic tramp. The heating doesn’t work, the toilets won't flush, the Devil lives in the basement and there’s always stodgy pie and cold chips for tea. 

‘Mania’ is rambling and muddled but, rather in the style of a good shaggy dog story, it does keep your attention as it is being told, even though you know it’s ultimately going to end with the realisation that you’ve been wasting your time. Its main issue is that it is rather subdued, as if Smith didn’t necessarily have enough confidence in the story and characters to do what he does best: put his foot down and go fucking mental.    

Naturally, that doesn't stop Guy from hyping his own work from the very beginning, over egging this particular souffle with the following startling, completely untrue pre-prologue statement: 

You are about to embark upon a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind, an exploration of the unknown. Travel at your peril for your safety, your sanity cannot be guaranteed. For some there may be no return. 

It's like putting a 'Danger of Drowning' sign on a foot spa. 

One non-rhyming couplet from this somewhat tame offering has entered our Guy N. Smith Hall of Fame, however, and we are happy to reproduce it here, for you, and for the ages. 

Book early to avoid disappointment.

THE TROUBLED NOW

 

This book was enormously entertaining, and took two hours to read, only marginally longer than it took to write. The story involves a super handsome, hyper intelligent millionaire explorer / playboy and his relentless search for the Mansonesque gang of hippy misfits who butchered his film star wife in the name of Satan, and it cracks along at quite a lick, especially as author Avallone keeps his foot on the accelerator by having lots of one sentence paragraphs.

Yes, he does.

Definitely.

There is no question of that.

No question at all. 

The Mansonesque gang are only playing at being Satanists, of course, and the relentless search of our hero (did you notice he's called Phillip St. George?) mainly involves him getting his lawyer to get him a long list of stuff like smoke grenades and a cigarette lighter with a gun in it and then idly hanging around the scene of the crime and waiting for the murderers to come back. When they do eventually return, St. George stuffs the miscreants full of psychotropic drugs and subjects them one by one to all manner of psychological torture while they cry and soil themselves. 

That'll learn 'em.  

Definitely.

There is no question of that.

No question at all.