Review: Graveworm

Graveworm by Tim Curran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When her sister Lisa gets abducted, her abductor forces Tara Coombes into a sinister game. What depths will Tara sink to in order to get her sister back? And will she be able to return from those depths in one piece?

Tim Curran has been one of my go-to horror authors for the past few years. It was free on the Kindle one day a few weeks ago so I attacked it like a feral child on an old man in a dark room.

Graveworm is a tale of desperation and insanity. In order to find her sister, Tara Coombes has to become as monstrous as the man who abducted her. It's some pretty crazy shit. It feels like Psycho ramped up a few notches.

Lisa doesn't get much screen time and spends most of the book scared out of her mind. Tara keeps insanity at bay by knuckling up and trying to lure the Graveworm into a trap of her own weaving. Almost as interesting to me as the plight of the sisters Coombes were all the peripheral characters pulled into their orbits. Tara's current beau Steve and her ex, Frank, both get pulled into things, along with the neighbor gentleman whose name escapes me at the moment.

Henry and Worm, and their demented tea party of corpses, were pretty disturbing. Tim Curran can conjure up some revolting shit. While this one didn't physically make me gag like Sow, it was close to reaching the top of the gagometer. Necrophilia, incest, necrophilic incest, gore, and excessive creepiness are the rule of the day.

Despite the length of time it took me to get through it, Graveworm is one hell of a great read. Not for the squeamish, though. There's a hell of a lot to squeam over. Four out of five decomposing stars.

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