The Devil Rides Out

This is when he was firing on all cylinders.

It's only, I think, a year removed from the publication of his best novel, The Devil Rides Out.

And, you know, some folks have said that this is his best kind of adventure novel or his best non-supernatural novel.

And I cautiously agree with that, but we'll get into the ups and downs of this novel.

Wherever we are now, it's an earlier version.

And his plan was to write and review about every Dennis Wheatley book in chronological order.

Sadly, I don't think he even got as far as The Devil Rides Out, which of course was Dennis Wheatley's most important book.

But, uh, his writing about the...

Like so many people actually said on social media when we posted about today's event, I have my nana to thank for Catherine Cookson coming into my life.

So my nana didn't have a huge amount of books in her house, but she had The Devil Rides Out.

coma I don't know if anyone's read coma but and loads of Catherine Cookson and she loved it on telly as well but she felt passionately about Catherine Cookson and it's actually only as I've got older that I've really understood what it was my Nana connected with who you know had her own kind of intergenerational trauma, violence in her marriage.

And it kind of becomes clearer the older you get and the more perspective you get.

I'm actually staying at a lovely cottage in the sea this evening.

having spent several nights roughing it in the tent you see there's been some sea serpent sightings in the area so i'm on the trail of the in the wake of the sea serpents if you'd like to make a bernard huvelman's reference and yet been kind of staying out sleeping on cliffs and on beaches in a tent but on this evening just for a change and to make things nicer i've booked myself a little cottage looking out onto the sea as it is autumn or well it's it's september at least and so we're getting on towards the autumn the nights are starting to close in getting deliciously cool and we're getting ready for spooky season here on the podcast i have something in mind i was thinking of well i have a lot more i'd like to do than i actually have time to do but i might dip into the occult just for a change just for a slightly off topic october episode and uh maybe i was going to go with dennis wheatley's the devil rides out and then i realized i'm not going to have the time enough to do it justice especially as i have another dennis wheatley reading planned in the next couple of weeks so i'm going to do something a bit simpler because i'm long time listeners know how much dennis wheatley means to me how funny and interesting i think he is and i'm you know you know you all know how this is going to go When that time comes, I'm going to have to go back and reread for the third or fourth time Phil Baker's absolutely mammoth biography of Dennis Wheatley, The Devil is a Gentleman.

One of my favorite books of all time, but an absolutely enormous tome.

And yeah, it's just it's not enough for me to read The Devil Rides Out on its own.

I'm going to have to go back and look through that book.

biography again not gonna have time this year maybe next maybe next Halloween but this Halloween I'm thinking will I make a commitment I don't know right I have something in mind which is a bit simpler but still still fun uh given the time that I have to put this together because i have something else in mind at the moment from this episode and possibly the next one depending on timing i want to compare two novels two lost world novels about atlantis the first one being this episode sir arthur conan doyle's the maricot deep and i'm going to compare that one to good old dennis wheatley's they found atlantis the maricot deep from 1920 let me see now Well, the final edition published in 1929 when he added on a couple of extra chapters.