Grit and gore

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This article was published 28/10/2023 (1069 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Alex Grecian, graphic novelist and author of the bestselling Victorian murder mystery series Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, shifts his focus to the American West with a fantasy-inflected bounty hunt for a witch that also features ghosts, werewolves and at least one demon.

Red Rabbit joins a bit of a trend of work blending the weird or fantastic with the conventions of a western — think of books such as Cruel Angels Past Sundown by Hailey Piper or Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and films such as Bone Tomahawk and Ravenous. Though the legacy of classic westerns is mostly clean adventures and gun-slinging, contemporary westerns play against this trope to engage with the extreme violence of the actual historical era. As such, readers of Red Rabbit should be prepared for a fair bit of gore.

At her mother’s insistence, Rose Nettles, a school teacher in Philadelphia, answers an ad seeking a wife in Kansas. She leaves her entire life behind to marry Joe Mullins, an agreeable if unremarkable farmer.

After Joe’s unexpected death, Rose encounters a group of drifters placing a hex over his grave. Tom Goggins, a professed witch hunter, assures her the hex will kill the witch Sadie Grace in nearby Burden County. Tom is travelling with a mute child he has named Rabbit as well as two cowboys with no destination in mind and they invite Rose to come along with them to the town of Riddle where they can collect the bounty on the witch.

As this loose posse continues on their quest, the bounty on the witch draws a number of unsavoury characters to Burden County. As Rose and the others get closer to the town of Riddle, it appears that not everyone shares a hatred for the witch, even as more and more dangerous figures are drawn into the chase, including a dogged hunter who seems most interested in the odd child travelling with Rose’s group.

While there are a number of supernatural elements throughout the novel, they intensify closer to the story’s climax. The opening chapters unfold much like a standard western, with the narrative steadily introducing more fantastical characters, creatures and magic until fully exploding into a confrontation between a demon, a witch, a werewolf and a ghost.

Grecian walks a tricky tightrope, with a grim and gritty tone normally associated with realistic historical fiction alongside liberal use of elements usually found in fantasy. He does successfully strike this balance — Red Rabbit is a novel with a propulsive plot filled with monsters but also humanized and engaging characters that readers will care about. Rose’s compulsion to act as a mother figure to Rabbit, even when she vehemently avoided motherhood in her marriage, makes her a compelling and complex character. Similarly, there is much more to the story of Sadie Grace, the townspeople of Riddle and the man who posted the bounty for her death.

While not exactly a horror novel or particularly scary, Red Rabbit is tinged with enough grimness to be a great October/Halloween read. It’s a rousing adventure with well-drawn characters, an exciting plot and a decent amount of monsters.

Keith Cadieux is a Winnipeg writer and editor. Most recently he co-edited with Adam Petrash the horror anthology What Draws Us Near, published by Little Ghosts Books.