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Night of the Devil

Novel by Ann Curd (England) 1989.

A previous reader of my ex-library copy wrote his-or-her judgement of Night of the Devil on the endpapers. It reads as follows - "This book is absolute muck. Calls herself an authoress. It's the pits, and I'd love to tell her so." To my acute surprise, this unknown critic turned out to be right on the money. Reading like the first draft of a first novel, the only redeeming feature is the incredibly tacky cover: would you believe black and white line drawing on lime green?!

In relating the wild and excessive antics of a successful Northquay rock band (that's about the entire plot!), author Ann Curd proves that she knows nothing whatsoever about rock music or the workings of the music industry; that she can't write dialogue to save her life; that she has no concept of plot structure, pacing, background detailing; and in a 'soap opera' type sequential plot, she demonstrates that her understanding of personal relationships is below the level of Sweet Valley High.

In fact the whole book reads as if a deranged editor took a teenage romance and added great gobbets of sex, drugs and satanism. Indescribably bad, this should be required reading for any budding writer just to show that if this could get published so can anything they could possibly turn out. Unbelievable!


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