Epeolatry Book Review: Shadow of the Hidden by Kev Harrison

Phew! What a wild ride that was. Kev Harrison—who, btw, is one of the loveliest horror writers you’ll ever meet—spins a web of intrigue with an abundance of occultism as he takes his characters on an adventure from Turkey to North Africa and back again, all in a quest to reverse an ancient curse and save a family. 

We meet our protagonist Seb, a freelance archaeologist-translator of sorts (his job is never really stated, but the details aren’t important beyond the fact he knows about ancient stuff and he speaks multiple useful languages for the region—huzzah!) as he’s getting ready to leave his current assignment in small-town Turkey. It’s a town he often returns to, and he’s mates with his landlord/owner of the local cafe, Oz. We see their clear friendship through banter and blokey love, and then Seb heads off to his next adventure. 

When he’s off the plane, though, he gets a message from Oz. The family farm has been attacked by something, and he needs help. Professional help. Of only the sort Seb’s contacts can provide. So Seb heads back, and our adventure begins. 

Turns out that old widow Oz refused to help on Seb’s last day in town had, during their altercation, laid an ancient, unknown, pre-Islam curse on Oz, and now his whole family is facing the consequences. We now head from Turkey to Tunisia to Egypt, picking up various academics and historians and religious figures along the way—most notably Professor Deniz, aka the love interest, who studied in the US and so importantly can speak to both the East and West—as Seb’s merry band face djinns, demons, curses, ancient texts in lost languages, and the very real threats of being a white guy in post-Arab Spring North Africa. 

That latter point is deftly handled. The author himself has travelled extensively in the region, and has lived in many of the countries to boot, and his love and admiration of the people, the culture, the geography, the history is clear. There are times when you’ll be drooling at food descriptions, and it’s these little details that really help to bring the world to life. But this is not a case of white guy inserting himself, as the real driving force here is the wonderful Turkish woman Deniz, who takes up the cause of these strangers with intense academic curiosity. We see this world through Seb’s eyes, we get swept up through him, but we are very well looked after by the locals he works with to get answers. 

It’s a true race against time with very real and BIG stakes, giving this tale an air of an Indiana Jones film or an actually-good Dan Brown novel. Harrison is not afraid to yank the rug from under us, and when you get to THAT twist, you’ll be in tears. But for me, this is where the story does start to drift off. We lose something that had seemed absolutely central to the tale with still quite a bit to go. As a reader, you can understand why things continue, but the stakes feel less personal. And I’d have loved to see more of the actual monster; the big face-off felt rushed and a little confusing because we hadn’t seen it in action close-up, really at all. The novel runs on the shorter side, and it feels like it had room for more dwelling on the occult side of the world to help build those stakes—at least as much as the culture of the region was brought to life. 

That said, it didn’t dent my enjoyment of this story. There’s adventure, there’s romance, there’s travel porn, there’s superstition and supernatural elements, there’s history and ancient terrors—I mean, what more could you ask for?

/5

Available from Amazon and Bookshop.