DBC Pierre: Breakfast With The Borgias (Hammer Arrow)

(Hammer Arrow, £7.99)

The resurrection of the Hammer film studios was a welcome surprise, and for those who remember the 1970s as a decade awash with horror paperbacks (from Dennis Wheatley to James Herbert to endless Pan anthologies) the news that Hammer had also launched an accompanying publishing wing made perfect sense. These being more style-conscious times, they're trying to do it with as much class and sophistication as possible, hence the commission of established literary author DBC Pierre for this diverting novella.

Pierre's story concerns Ariel Panek, a young American academic in a hoodie who is booked to speak at a scientific conference in Amsterdam. He's using the opportunity of being abroad to rendezvous with his student crush Zeva, away from prying eyes. But bad weather forces his plane to land in Stansted and he finds himself billeted in a remote, dilapidated old hotel on the Sussex coast. He needs to let Zeva know why he's been delayed, but the only phone in the hotel that can get a signal belongs to the Borders, an eccentric family who have gathered there to commemorate some event they only vaguely allude to. That night, their emaciated, self-harming daughter Gretchen manoeuvres Ariel into the most terrifying situation of his life.

As much as anything else, Breakfast With The Borgias is a clash of two philosophies. Ariel is an old-school Newtonian scientist. Quantum mechanics is beyond him. It's chaotic, non-intuitive, inexplicable. But why should this be of the slightest relevance in a run-down English hotel? And why should the matriarchal Margot Borders be so remarkably well-schooled in quantum connectivity? Someone is trying to tell Ariel something, but he has no idea what, or how it relates to his present circumstances. But he has to learn the rules of the game if he has any hope of escaping and clearing his name.

Devoted readers of the genre will probably have guessed where this is going long before the end. And for a book that's broadly intended to fit into the horror spectrum, it's not overly frightening. The predicament Ariel finds himself in would be traumatic for anyone, but it's not the kind that sends much of a supernatural tingle down the spine. It's a good novella, which highlights the dangers of becoming too reliant on communications technology, but instead of ramping up the creepiness as it goes on, Pierre allows it sputter out too early.