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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Liz Jensen

Saltwash by Andrew Michael Hurley review – raw, dark folk horror confronts mortality

Dark streams and sandbanks in Saltwash.
Dark streams and sandbanks in Saltwash. Photograph: coastalrunner/Getty Images

Living is hard emotional work – until you try dying. Alongside the rage many terminally ill people feel against the dying of the light, there are the memories that return to flagellate the conscience: the failures of kindness, the misjudged words that can’t be unsaid, the feelings left catastrophically unexpressed. Crimes of the heart – and sometimes, worse.

The malaise of regret and the yearning for absolution vibrate through Andrew Michael Hurley’s latest work of fiction, a wildly atmospheric, deceptively simple tale that borrows tropes from cosy crime only to snare you into something deeper, darker and more chilling.

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