The Quick

By Lauren Owen

Vintage Books

£7.99

The back-cover blurb of The Quick, by Yorkshire author Lauren Owen, goes to great pains to not tell you exactly what this book is about.

Perhaps the subject matter of this Victorian thriller is meant to be a surprise; perhaps the publishers were worried that putting the book's heart on its sleeve might put off some readers. Who knows, but this reviewer will endeavour to not - overtly, at least - spoil the surprise, as difficult as that is.

Lauren Owen did, according to her press release, grow up in the grounds of a boarding school somewhere in Yorkshire, which no doubt fed into the early chapters of The Quick in which siblings James and Charlotte Norbury have a cloistered late-Victorian childhood in a dusty and mostly-deserted hall in God's Own Country, an absent father with financial troubles leaving them to the care of the family servants.

James quickly makes the break for London to love the life of an impecunious poet, while Charlotte takes a back-seat, as women were forced to do in that era, living with a distant relative who is sent to care for them when their father dies and who Charlotte ends up nursing to her end.

The first half of the book concentrates on James and his growing relationship with his dissolute friend in London and all its temptations. But then the narrative takes an abrupt turn into a rather dark alley; James is attacked in the street and when he comes to he is prisoner of the mysterious Aegolius Club, one of London's most closely-guarded secrets.

That's because the members of the club are no longer quite human, and they have made James one of their number. Thus is the secret of the club - and the book - revealed.

What follows is a thrilling ride through the grime and grit of Victorian London's underbelly as James - with the aid of Charlotte, who has come to find out why her brother has stopped writing - attempts to flee the attentions of The Aegolius Club and either find a cure - or come to terms - with his new existence as a twilight creature who has no place in the bright daylight of ordinary society.

You can probably glean from that what James has become, and possibly why Vintage has taken such measures not to market the book as a story about those types of supernatural monsters. Recent movies have re-cast the traditional old creature as something sparkly and sexy, but Owen takes the archetype back to its roots and has the Aegolius Club preying on ordinary mortals in the dead of night.

There are other such creatures in London as well, less affluent than the Aegolius Club and who live in the stews and slums of the capital. A class war between the two groups is inevitable, with James and Charlotte caught in the middle.

The Quick is a ripping yarn written with depth and verve by an author whose age - Owen was born in 1985 - belies her skill at writing and plot. If you think you don't like this sort of book, you should give The Quick a go, and if you think you do, you'll love it.

David Barnett