Guy puts his pipe where his mouth is - and smokes it!

Article by Sally Boyce, originally published in the Mid Wales Journal, October 2007

Dark clouds loomed over a certain Radnorshire town when author Guy N. Smith wrote his sinister story entitled The Knighton Vampires, and now it's time for spines to tingle once more as the writer unleashes more fear with a book set in the same location and on this occasion at the bewitching time of Halloween.

While everywhere shops are busy selling pumpkins, masks and black pointy hats, the emphasis on Guy's latest scary novel, The Cadaver, is focused upon October 31, All Hallow's Eve, and displays of the new tome can be seen in the Knighton Bookshop, where indeed signed copies will be available.

Threat

But let's not get too carried away here. A dedicated family man, Guy is a familiar sight in Knighton, an area where he has happily lived for many years. And while he can whip his readers into a lather of fear with his writing, he's really a committed countryman who just happens to feel strongly about certain British institutions which could now be under threat.

As a former victor in the annual British Pipe Smoking Championship, an event which disappear under the new no smoking ban, he nurtures plans for launching his own tournament on the family smallholding in the hills of near Knighton, combined with a special conker championship.

He pauses, mid-puff on his impressive Sherlock Holmes pipe, to scoff in disgust at "political correctness gone mad".

Such an event would be one more thing for the author to grapple with, conducting as he regularly does, an extremely hectic working schedule.

Mornings are dedicated to his prolific writing career while afternoons are concentrated upon a hugely successful on-line second-hand book business. Added to that, he is also gun editor of the Countryman's Weekly, and manages to submit five articles per week. Of course, when you consider that he once wrote a book in 24 hours - in response to a challenge laid down by fellow author Lionel Fanthorpe - there's no question about his stamina. "Writing is always the priority," explains Guy, who has received enthusiastic requests for a sequel to The Knighton Vampires from shoppers he bumps into around the town.

The Cadavers is not a sequel, though the author has turned to the market town once more for an entirely new story of fear, mystery and horror. "The reason I've chosen Knighton again is that I know it, and of course location important."

He adds: " If you choose places further away you have to do a lot of research to get it right, ad after the success of The Knighton Vampires it seemed a sensible thing." This is a spine-chilling tale from a master of horror: '... In the small Welsh town of Knighton, a group of children, dressed for Hallowe'en, gather outside the shabby house of the most feared and despised resident, Edward Kroll.

'With Sunken eyes and thin, bloodless lips in a cadaverous face Kroll is a frightening and mysterious figure.

'After one of the trick-or-treating children is killed in a freak accident, Kroll disappears. It seems that he may have died in his bed. But Kroll's vengeful spirit haunts the town from beyond the grave.

'When a figure closely resembling him returns to the town, dressed in the familiar overcoat and trilby, the inhabitants start to question what, if anything, lies in that churchyard burial place. . ."

Fan Club

And now read on. . . as countless readers have when Guy N. Smith puts pen to paper.

He has written no fewer than 110 novels, including Werewolf by Midnight, Night of the Crabs, The Slime Beast, The Sucking Pit and Snakes, and has an active fan club which holds yearly conventions. On top of all that, Guy's website averages no fewer than 35,000 hits per month.

His latest success began as a short story which spawned a novel, and is loosely based on a strange character who once plagued the lives of Guy and his wife, Jean, herself a familiar figure through her involvement with the Teme Spirit's theatrical group in Knighton. "This chap used to come to stay, and was a real eccentric," says Guy. "He was really creep, and used to stay up all night browsing the books. He would appear at the top of the stairs in his nightshirt, and he used to say he needed to 're-position' himself about the house.

"He did give me nightmares - the cadaver's face, the trilby, the sunken eyes, so it was from him that I got this germ of an idea."

Guy has been compared with James Herbert, Stephen King, more recently put on a par with Dean Koontz as well, and in his busy working life he does give 100 per cent.

As part of his work, he undertook a course in private detection, and emerged with first-class honours - "purely to see if I could do it" - and he embarked wholeheartedly into the business of organic farming. His knowledge of the country and rural pursuits such as shooting and fishing have been transferred on to the page in a series of books, and of course, through his contributions to Countryman's Weekly.

With Hallowe'en fast approaching, those who are brave enough to delve into the pages of The Cadaver will see that Guy N. Smith has fully applied his skills as a master of suspense. Once again he has produced a 'knuckle-blending of thriller and horror genres'.