Book Review: The 37th Mandala

For years now I've been reading my way through two separate horror lists - The Bram Stoker Awards for best novel and the titles in Kim Newman's Horror: The 100 Best Books.  Both of these have been a great way to read books I may not have heard of before and introduce me to all sorts of new authors.  Then last year I came across an entirely new one - The International Horror Guild Award, which ran for fourteen years from 1995 - 2008.  Although I had read a few books off the best novel list There were more than ten I had never heard of, which lead me to today's book The 37th Mandala by Marc Laidlaw.

The book is really great - starting with a terrifying incident in Cambodia and then quickly moving on to a new age author named Derek Crowe at an author signing.  A big part of what I liked about the book was the slow build up to the reveals - the story and characters get laid out first before anything really awful happens and then the narrative begins building momentum like a snowball to an avalanche, which a payoff that actually hit Lovecraft levels for me.

A fantastic read about the dangers of blind faith and importance of responsibility to others.

Strongly Recommended.