John Sharrock is a struggling writer living in a small English market town. He and his wife have recently separated, he is battling depression, and of late, he is experiencing strange thoughts and dreams. When his dog begins acting strangely, it is the first sign that something is terribly wrong within the animal kingdom. Soon after, a series of horrific animal attacks hints at a deadly new virus. John must survive bloodthirsty pets and ferocious local wildlife as he embarks on a journey to save his estranged wife and seek answers to the question: what caused all animal life to turn hostile? Set against the backdrop of the uncertain spring of 2016, Hostile blends gruesome set pieces with psychological horror and delivers a knockout finale that is guaranteed to shock readers.
Overall, this was a fairly solid if somewhat slightly flawed effort. The book’s at its best with the burgeoning mystery at its center, with the main aspect of the story offering a strong build-up to what’s going on around the city. The strange series of encounters that take place, mainly through the interweaving narrative of individuals who meet up with increasingly rabid and unnaturally-behaved animals who lurch and attack at any provocation, with the authorities baffled about what’s going on and trying to deal with the multitude of mutilated victims trying to make it out alive. This helps to create a fine mystery where the inability to determine what’s going on and trying to use the available clues about everything going around at the zoo, at the hospital, or in the various homes where the pets are involved in several attacks, going crazy, and attacking owners. With several possible alternatives being discussed as plausible explanations, it has a strong setup going for it.
This is held in fine form by the series of solid attack scenes throughout. With the book diving in nicely with a vicious gorilla attack in a zoo to start things off, the constant hammering home of their deranged nature and unnatural characteristics leading up to the fateful attack has some generally creepy aspects to them. Moving on nicely to the series of attacks and confrontations in the community where it’s either involving narrow escapes from animals that shouldn’t be doing what they do or getting killed by their normally loving pets, it all brings about a slew of fantastic encounters involving dogs, cats, rats, and birds among others. The suspense and action in these scenes involve lengthy and well-detailed scenarios that all contribute to bringing this one along rather well, with the mysterious elements of the storyline being nicely aided, and everything coming together in a fun and thrilling first half.
In the final act of the book, this does take a downfall with a bizarre turn into psychological grief-based horror instead of the nature-run-amok stuff that had been featured until then. The introduction of a specific storyline about the cause of the outbreak and the series of animal attacks that were at the forefront of the book for the first two-thirds of the reading time does this a wholesale injustice by taking the entire purpose of everything into a different area altogether. This is introduced in a bizarre manner involving some incredibly awkward writing, trying to make sure that the connections are obvious, from how the different characters are introduced in the matter of the story, or what the connection means once everything is revealed. The tension is reduced, and the interactions trying to make sense of everything with this newfound revelation come across as clumsy, trying to stretch out a story that was working fine before, which is the one drawback to this one.
3.5/5
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