The Intruders

Well is it a horror movie or isn't it? Huh?

While we’ve read most of his work, we’re yet to decide if British author Michael Marshall is actually any good. His prose is always brilliant, but his plots tend to go haywire. Some of his novels – Spares and One of Us in particular, which were both penned under the name Michael Marshall Smith – get too weird to be enjoyable by about the halfway mark.

His latest release, The Intruders, is equally hard to award our seal of approval to. It falls vaguely – very vaguely, mind you – into the crime, thriller and horror genres. There are two main strands to the story – one a seemingly straightforward detective setup, the other something to do with a runaway girl – that initially seem to be completely unrelated. The first two-hundred pages or so of the book are very slow.

The ending isn’t as strong as it was clearly supposed to be and the twist is a little clichéd. The Intruders really could’ve done with a bit more work, maybe a few more months editing, rewriting and honing what had the potential to be a kick-arse tale. Unless you’re a big Michael Marshall fan, don’t bother with this one until the mass-market paperback hits later in the year.

It’s entertaining enough, but it’s not the tight piece of storytelling we were hoping for after the lacklustre Lonely Dead. And definitely forget it if you’ve never read any of his work before. Look to the sci-fi flavoured Only Forward instead.