Renegades by Shaun Hutson

Renegades
by Shaun Hutson
1991 Time Warner

Sean Doyle is a cop on the anti-terror squad who plays by his own rules on the hunt for IRA terrorists. David and Laura Callahan are decadent arms dealers who have discovered a stained glass window commissioned by Gilles de Rais which holds the key to eternal life. These two storylines run into each other in a gory bloodbath...eventually.

Doyle is the most absurd renegade cop in literary history, a pure Matthew Holness character, written straight but with enough self awareness that Hutson had to know how silly the whole thing was, but still fun for the ride.

The Dirty Harry meets Hellraiser premise never really takes off, largely because the two ends don't meet until the end, futz around for a few dozen pages, then fizzles out. Not much comes out of the Giles De Rais angle - a demon pops up, gets shot, and disappears, going down easier than most of the terrorists.

Probably fine on it's own merits, but hurt by the lost potential. Cut this in half and ramp up the horror elements and this could have been the greatest story put to page.

Available from Amazon

Come the Night (aka Chainsaw Terror) by Shaun Hutson

Come the Night (aka Chainsaw Terror)
by Shaun Hutson (also as by Nick Blake)
Originally 1984 Star

Handyman Edward Briggs has lived in London home with his sister since their father murdered their cheating mother.  Sis tries to move out, but incestuously obsessed brother calls a stop to it by cutting her head off.

After dispatching her boyfriend, Briggs introduces a series of prostitutes to his sister's rapidly rotting head before introducing them to his basement full of power tools.

Meanwhile, reporter Dave Todd has been working on an article on the sex trade, and uses the prostitute he's been sleeping with as bait for Briggs.  The book is pure video nasty, something straight out of 70's 42 Street, with a climax straight out of early Peter Jackson.

The book started as Chainsaw Terror under the name Nick Blake, later reprinted as Come the Night, before being included in an omnibus edition under Shaun Hutson.  I've compared the nastiest pages of Chainsaw Terror and my omnibus edition of Come the Night, and I can confirm that these scenes are word for word the same.  They even seem to have the same typesetting, with the same page and line breaks.  Other reviewers who have copies of each have confirmed this as well.

 From the text itself there seems to be scenes cut out.  One has Briggs slowly lowering a drill into a woman's eye, his Johnson out and ready, then...

Dot, dot, dot, she's already dead on the floor.  Like he didn't even re-write it, just cut it out.

Don't get me wrong, this is a nasty, distasteful piece of work.  Hutson strikes a good balance here, clearly making it nasty on purpose, but not enough to slip into cartoonishness.

If you're interested in just the text, the omnibus edition with The Abduction and The Visitation is the best value.  Tip o' the hat to @richleau666, @paperbacksnpugs, and @whatmeworry

Paperback from AbeBooks

Victims by Shaun Hutson

Victims
by Shaun Hutson
1987 WH Allen

A sleazy special effects expert is nearly blinded in an effect gone wrong, gets a cornea transplant, and gains the ability to see murder victims, which is convenient as there's a serial killer on the loose. Add in a reporter with a creepy boss who's stalking her.

There are a lot of dropped threads in the story, but it's tied up so nastily it makes up for it.  The whodunit elements are secondary to the gore and sleaze, giving the book a good giallo vibe.

I don't know if Hutson usually does this, but the book is full of referential names: Frank Miller, Sam Loomis, Det. Chandler, etc.

Paperback from AbeBooks

The Skull by Shaun Hutson

The Skull 
by Shaun Hutson 
Leisure Books 1982

A contractor finds a vial with a tiny skull in it during a construction dig.  Turns out it's an homunculus from the 16th century, an alchemist's experiment in creating life.  There is a series of tunnel under the construction dig leading to sealed off chambers.  What are in those chambers, and the story behind the creation of the homunculus is a fascinating read...

Erebus

Erebus
by Shaun Hutson
Leisure Books 1984

This is more like it.

Experimental animal feed mutates animals in a small English town, turning them into killers.  Likewise to the townspeople that eat the meat.  A farmer and American reporter try to dig up the truth, while the evil chemical plant owner, who for some reason commands the British military, try to contain and cover up the incident.

The book is strongest at the beginning, with regular animal attacks leading up to human atrocities.  It suffers when it tries to have a plot, provide scientific explanations, and draws way too much from I Am Legend and its derivatives.

It's Shaun Hutson.  A quick, fun gorefest.