A delightful B-movie of a book. Despite some hastiness in the storytelling – certain plot points forced or telegraphed, and character developments sketchily written – Graham Masterton's 1978 pulp horror The Devils of D-Day delivers on its tasty concept. An American cartographer comes across a rusting Sherman tank abandoned in a ditch in northern France, its turret welded shut and a crucifix serving as an ominous seal. Investigating this local legend, the sceptical American has the tank opened, unleashing a malevolent spirit on the unsuspecting world…

The setup is enticing, the anticipation grows and the payoff is largely satisfying. There are a few disappointments: some of the plot points come too easily (at one point, a retired American colonel just tells the protagonist over the phone what he has to do and where to go) and the interesting backstory of the Allies enlisting demons to fight in World War Two is never fully explored. There is, however, a good moral behind this, with Masterton hammering home the anti-war message in the book's final pages, and there's a general cleverness to the story's concept and construction that gives the reader confidence (the parking ticket on the windshield wiper at the end was an exquisite moment of bathos).

The book's lesser elements actually work to its advantage, like a bit of play in the steering wheel that makes the ride more exciting. You want a horror story to have either a Gothic or a grindhouse feel, and Masterton opts for a touch of grindhouse. The Devils of D-Day, with its demonic possessions, has a veneer of trashiness which I rather liked (of course, the young Frenchwoman our protagonist woos gets naked at one point). The novel isn't an exemplar of the genre, but it reads well and it's certainly worth rapping on its derelict hulk to see what voices stir inside. ( )

This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com
Britain in the 1970s was still obsessed with the Second World War. In some ways that might seem surprising, as the 70s doesn’t feel that long ago to me, but it’s worth remembering that 1978 is a fair bit closer to 1945 than it is 2019. As a kid I had teachers who fought in the war, and representations of it and its aftereffects proliferated in British popular culture. Even something as modern feeling as ‘The Rats’ is set in a London still scarred by bomb sites.
‘The Devils of D-Day’ is the first book at I’ve looked at that tackles the war head on, though. Later in the month I’ll be reviewing James Herbert’s ‘The Spear’ which adopts the ‘the Nazis used occult forces’ trope. Graham Masterton’s book takes a slightly different approach, this time it’s the Allies who are summoning demons.
The book has a contemporary setting – Normandy, with its hero, Dan McCook, an American cartographer who is there to map D-Day battlefields for a book. He discovers the abandoned wreck of an American tank, sealed up and with a metal crucifix welded to it. Through conversations with the locals he learns that it was one of 13 tanks used in the D-Day landings by the allies, each driven by a demon imprisoned inside it. The demon in this tank is, of course, still there, and it whispers to Dan from its prison, begging him to free it.
What follows is a creepy tale of the occult that is more akin to the demonic possession sub-genre that was so popular in the 1970s, than the war novel the cover promises. The demon is genuinely unsettling, and the violence is imaginatively horrific. We see characters vomit maggots, an old woman skewered by every blade in her house, and more. As in, Blatty’s ‘The Exorcist’ the language the monster uses is often as disturbing as the physical atrocities it commits. The concept of the military using demons might seem silly, but by focussing on the present day rather than the historical events, Masterton makes it work. He also weaves in some effective commentary about how normal rules sometimes go out the window in times of war. Parallels are drawn between the evil that has been unleashed and the atomic bomb, the result being a horror novel that is a little more thoughtful than many.
It’s an enjoyable book. Ingeniously nasty, gripping and satisfying. McCook is a believable hero, but the demon is the star of the show – memorably evil and decidedly chilling.
( )

Graham Masterton turns from ethnic demons to a novel about conventional Christian demons, as scary as they can be. An abandoned Army tank in Normandy is believed to have a demon inside and a visitor and local girl decide they must open the tank. Fast-moving story, lots of tension, with an interesting conclusion that is reasonable outgrowth of the supernatural set-up. ( )

Plus de trente années après le débarquement des alliés sur les côtes normandes, Dan McCook, un cartographe américain, entreprend à la demande d'un ami, de retracer une carte de la région normande. Ses conversations avec les habitants du coin l'amènent à s'intéresser de près à un char, un Sherman, abandonné sur le bas-côté de la route depuis la fin de la seconde guerre. Dès son approche, d'étranges voix lui intiment de retirer l'imposant crucifix qui entrave l'ouverture de la tourelle... ce qui finit bien sûr par arriver (sinon il n'y aurait pas d'histoire !). Enfin libéré de sa prison, Elmek, le démon des couteaux et des lames acérées (connu aussi sous le doux nom d'Asmorod), n'a qu'un seul but : libérer ses 12 compagnons afin qu'ils invoquent, ensemble, le tout-puissant démon Adramelech. Dan McCook, parviendra-t-il à empêcher cette horde de démons d'invoquer leur maître destructeur ? Et si tel n'est pas le cas, quelles seront les conséquences de cet acte innommable ? ( )

This book from early on in Masterton's horror career now seems like it's written by a different author. The characters are awfully one-dimensional and the plot is wafer thin. The element of evil is not fleshed out and as menacing as Masterton's later books portray. 'Devils' seems little more than a short story, only 180 pages long, and regular fans may be disappointed. Older horror tales sometimes don't fare so well with time and unfortunately this is one of them. ( )