The Matrix by Jonathan Aycliffe
The Matrix is a Spine-chilling Tale of Black Magic and Necromancy
Not the film which is all macs and dark glasses, but a real, good-old spooky tale of black magic and ghosts.
I'm listening to the series now on Radio 4 extra and enjoying it so much that I wanted to share (and record) the experience. It all begins when a young Scottish man, Andrew Macleod, loses his wife and throws himself into his studies into the occult. At first his sorties into magic and the dark arts (as they would call it in Harry Potter) was academic, but slowly and surely he becomes drawn into his studies until they become an obsession.
Then two things occur that take Macleod into a much more fearful place, he meets the charming and dashing Duncan MyIne and finds a mysterious book and like the alchemists he finds that he is in pursuit of everlasting life, but via a very different path.
The tale is set in Edinburgh where I lived for six years. I love to hear of all the places I used to visit and know well being mentioned in the telling of the story. Dean Village, Leith river, Tollcross. The story also takes the academic to Morocco and the Arab world creating a sharp contrast between the two worlds.
What I love most about the book is that it's told in the form and language of the great classics of horror. Indeed, it seems that when elements of the contemporary world appear - unemployment benefits and such like - they seem like anachronisms and jolt the pictures of the 18th or 19th centuries that build up in the mind. This horror story is in the here and now. Black magic exists today and is all around us.
This Amazon.com book copy seems extra-ordinarily expensive - see if you can get The Matrix from Amazon.co.uk for 4.99 (UK customers only) or get a 
Love Gothic horror books? Here's my growing list of Gothic Horror Classics
More Books By Jonathan Aycliffe
If you like The Matrix, you might also like other books by Jonathan Aycliffe. Take a look and see what you think of them.
Who Is Jonathan Aycliffe?
I'd never heard of this writer, who has produced at least 15 books under the names of Jonathan Aycliffe and Daniel Easterman so I was intrigued to find out a little more about him.
His real name is Denis M MacEoin. He was born in Belfast in 1949, was a lecturer in Islamic studies (hence the interest in the Arab world) specialising in eastern faiths.
He is also interested in natural medicines (witchcraft!) and he married to homeopath and health writer Beth MacEoin.
He lives, not in Edinburgh or Cornwall, but in Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England however he did study English Language and Literature at Trinity College,University of Dublin and Persian, Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Two ancient cities full of great material for writers of the Gothic novel.
