REVIEW  Chaz Brenchley - Blood Waters Flambard Press £7.99
Reviewed by Jay Russell
The ten stories in BLOOD WATERS offer a largely grim, but often insightful and even tender examination of lives on the edge. Many Brenchley characters live on the psychological edge, others on the physical border separating the conventional from the marginal, the loved from the loathed. Although many of these characters exist on the legal/moral fringe as well, the stories are only vaguely genre tales in the expected sense. No bog-standard crime fiction here; but then, that's a good thing.
All the stories in BLOOD WATERS are concerned far more with character than narrative. This isn't a thrills and chills collection, though some cold lives indeed are laid bare. Brenchley has a real knack for expressing desolation and desperation, and at his best brings to mind the likes of Derek Raymond, though no one descends into the old slough of despond quite like the late master. Brenchley has a fine ear for dialogue, and is able to conjure place and mood with grace and parsimony. If the prose occasionally overheats, perhaps that just connects him back with genre tradition.
Interestingly, the best stories in the collection, "Scouting for Boys," "Pawn Sacrifice" and "My Cousin's Gratitude," all originally appeared in Maxim Jakubowski anthologies. "My Cousin's Gratitude," at novella length, is a particularly rich character study, though a bit wobbly plot-wise, but all three stories share a controlled, confident and compelling writerly voice. The original pieces in the book are weaker, and "Murder at the Red House," a story written to be read serially on radio, simply doesn't work on the page.
It is explained that the tales in BLOOD WATERS all came out of a stint the author did as crimewriter-in-residence at the St. Peter's Riverside Sculpture Project in Sunderland. I have no idea what that actually means, but somehow believe Brenchley when he describes it as "the strangest job in the known universe." He also notes in passing that some of the stories may be found carved in stone, steel and concrete at that project. Again, I'm not sure that any of these words merit being set in stone, but they are more than worthy of print. BLOOD WATERS is small press publication -- hard to imagine a major publisher taking a chance on such unconventional writing; more's the shame -- so interested readers will likely have to seek it out. Those who do will be  rewarded for the effort.
[NB BLOOD WATERS can be bought directly from the publishers - see our page on the Flambard Press]