Amongst towering mountains of trash in the backstreets of Lima, three young boys are trying to raise an ancient demon. They don't think their incantation has worked; but that night a teenage drug runner is gunned down across their makeshift altar. As his killers walk away, his body stirs. Not because it still contains a spark of life. But because something is stirring beneath it...
Port Callao. The MV Lysicrates, a three-quarter-mile long super tanker, is being loaded with hundreds of tonnes of trash. Watching from the bridge, in a bleary state of hungover gloom, is second-in-command Matthew Cotton; more interesting is the arrival of a young American student who has missed the boat she should have been on.
They should have paid more attention to the trash.
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[In other circumstances, Eugenio might have given the rat a name]***
(HarperVoyager, 5 June 2014, first published 1 January 2000, ebook, 336 pages, Around The Year In 52 Books 2019, 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme, something old, borrowed from my library)
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This is my first time reading the author and I look forward to more of her work. Horror is one of my favourite genres. The alien films are among my favourite. I couldn't resist this book when I read the premise. And I was not disappointed. The Ancient was a great read, tense, dark, atmospheric and scary as hell at times. I was hooked from the moment the drug runner dies and something starts to shift beneath his pooling blood. The setting on a ship is perfect for a horror novel. I was freaked out at times. This is a cracking horror read. I thought it was great.
