Then, slowly, it began to turn skywards. Och, no, he thought before the end, not ma brain... not ma brain... anything but ma brain...please don't slice ma brain... no, no... not the brain...och, no...'Never before had there been a book about a flying knife, and, although Marenghi would ink three sequels*, Slasher, R.I.P.P.E.R., and Slicer IV: The Blade is Back, Slicer is our first novel-length taste of the Marenghian terrors to come. The themes are all here: blood, redemption, fear of cutlery, distaste for body hair, and the question of Man's place (mis-place?) in Romford. Its influence can be seen in a host of imitators, notably Fork! by Herbert G. Samson.Much has been written about Slicer's psychological implications (try either Dan Britten's essay in 'Bending Spoons and Stabbing Knives: the Psychic Phenomena of Spiritual Cutlery' (New York, 1985) or Muriel Carter's Slash Me, Slay Me - Post-Modern Carve-ups in 20th Century Horror Fiction (New York, 1988) ), but most significantly it gave a much needed kick in the arm of an elitist publishing industry obsessed by literary 'classics'. And, as Hard Gore's Neil Nichols has opined: 'One can only be thankful that our bi-annual Marenghi shock treatments continue to prevent the genre slipping into postmodern somnambulism.' Marenghi evidently concurs with the renowned splatter fiction aficionado : 'I see my life as being a single-handed pump. And that can get lonely.'*Marenghi prefers to think of them as a 'self-integral cycle''It really doesn't get any better' The Observer'A cut above the rest of the so-called "dangerous implement horror" sub-genre' The Sunday Times

    Her elder sister Ruth, caught up in a world of parties, fashions and boyfriends, ignores her. And her brother Simon, to whom she is devoted, goes to London to study music. Listless and unhappy, Anna takes no pleasure in her family's new home, or in her surroundings. The Wyndcliffe, "a brooding ancient face of sheer stone, dour and grey," matches her mood. Then she encounters John Hollis, a young sympathetic poet. But he died in 1823......"