The Devil’s Ark by Stephen Bywater
Published by Headline, May 2014
320 pages
ISBN: 978-1472210395
Review by Mark Yon
In The Devil’s Ark, Stephen Bywater’s debut novel, we have a novel that is about ancient horrors resurfacing to frighten the living.
Set mainly in the 1920’s, the story tells of Harry Ward, a photographer working in Iraq/Mesopotamia. Still affected by his fighting and his injuries there in The Great War, he takes on what should be a relatively simple job – to take photographs of an archaeological dig just outside Mosul.
Whilst Harry originally returns to the country to gain some kind of redemptive closure, what he finds there actually achieves the opposite. As the dig progresses, it becomes clear that what is being uncovered is Nineveh, an ancient Sumerian temple, one buried on purpose and which should have been left hidden. And when previously-entombed horrors are unleashed, Harry finds himself in fear of his life.
Whilst the plot may not be particularly new, The Devil’s Ark is a great fun read. Sometimes you can be happy knowing what sort of thing to expect in a read and here in The Devil’s Ark the reader is not disappointed. Like a good Hammer Horror movie or a Weird Tales magazine story, the fun here is not in the actual events as they happen but in the telling.
This is a good debut. Stephen manages to set up the tale well, evoking images of an ancient Empire, lying redolent in desert heat, whilst an even older evil is awakened. Along the way there’s some nice details of the history of the Sumerians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, an idea of the difficulties in setting up archaeological digs and a smidgeon of biblical foretelling that set the scene nicely and give the situation a pleasing semblance of reality. Like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, there’s a real feeling of ancient history here to look at, and Stephen does well to use these as a provocative setting.
The expedition though is a rather strange mixed bunch, it must be said. There’s a jovial Russian named Stanislav who can decipher the ancient Sumerian writing who becomes an ally for Harry whilst their group leader, Tilden, is rather cantankerous. Such a situation does not bode well. Tilden’s wife as the novel progresses has a nervous breakdown. Harry has an affair with one of the wives, which doesn’t help, especially when the woman then goes missing. As the reader will rather expect, by the end of the novel there’s quite a high body count.
The nature of the ancient Sumerian succubae, means that, yes, there’s an element of sex involved as they prey upon the men of the expedition. The physical embodiment of the evil spirits are remarkably well done in they are clearly other-worldly and defiantly evil. Harry himself finds coming to terms with the supernatural difficult, at a time when much of the world generally is trying to come to terms with the real horrors of WW1 trench warfare.
The effects of this traumatic time in history means that, at times, Harry is unclear whether the events are real or as a result of his unsettled mind, and the author does well to maintain this idea with the reader that it could all be just happening in Harry’s head as he experiences some kind of mental post-traumatic breakdown. It is clear that the site and its guardians have an effect on the others in the party as well.
Where these stories normally fall down is in their ending: once ‘the thing’ has been unleashed, how do you contain it/kill it/dispose of it? That part of the tale is a little bit deflected, but the ending has a nice little twist I wasn’t expecting, which gave a pleasing degree of enigmatic ambiguity to the proceedings.
In summary, The Devil’s Ark delivers what the reader hopes it will do when they start. It is a nicely written and surprisingly scary tale that might just get you looking in those dark corners of the room whilst you’re reading.
Mark Yon, May 2014
