Almost doesn't rate three stars. Fairly weak offering in the Oxrun Station series. Set towards the end of the 19th century with a standard mummy story about Egyptian priests trying to reanimate an insignificant priest from ancient Egypt in an effort to gain/regain immortality. The body count rises as Oxrun citizens are bumped off in pursuit of getting all the items needed for the ceremony.

Mummies just aren't scary. The lumbering giant in this tale manages to pummel his victims even though he would be quite easy to outrun as long as you don't stumble (inevitable it seems) or fumble with the door and lock.

It feels like when Grant wrote his Oxrun trilogy in homage to the Hammer horror films he had run out of ideas. He sticks with pedestrian plots and wooden characters and even his usual evocative prose is lacking in all but [b:Dark Cry Of The Moon|898622|Dark Cry Of The Moon|Charles L. Grant|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1231822029s/898622.jpg|883810]. The whole thing is uninspired and smells like a dash-off based on a contrived idea when the muse had departed.

I would hate to have purchased these stinkers in the original Donald Grant limited edition hardcovers. ( )

Absolutely the weakest of this trilogy of classic monster books. The mummy pictured on the cover, by my count, shows up for about three or four of the 150 pages, and the rest is very much soap opera material with a few grisly off-stage deaths thrown in.

It feels like Grant had written himself into a corner, needing those monsters to all show up in Oxrun Station, and this, then, showed the limits of the storytelling he could accomplish. It also, quite frankly, felt like he had no idea what to do with the mummy, so he just had him complete a few kills off-stage, and let a couple of other underdeveloped characters toss out a few vague threats.

Really, really weak effort here, but with all the trademark Grant attributes
- a burgeoning romance between the protagonist and a headstrong, ahead-of-her-time woman
- an opening that dwells heavily on the season and weather (I think only one Grant book of the eight I've recently read didn't start this way...and it got old rather quickly)
- his frankensteining of colours and words. Greybeast and blackshadow that, if used once or twice, might be effective, but to become the go-to description for the villain over a very short page count, becomes tiresome
- Oxrun Station. Seriously, why does anyone live there anymore?

Anyway, still missing a few novels in the Oxrun series, it's time to leave that town in my rearview for now, and I'll be glad to see the end of it, after this dismal effort. ( )

What can I say about The Long Night of the Grave that I haven't already said about the first two. Well, not a lot really. They have all been such good reads. Very nostalgic, and make me want to go watch a Hammer Horror movie, of which I have several.

I liked the fact that the monster was nearly always unseen, or just hinted at, almost never in your face. That was a nice touch. I liked the way it made me long for Halloween, and I liked the foggy, creepy, eerie kind of atmosphere that pervaded all three books.

Very well done. If you like the old classic horror movies, and especially if you're a fan of Hammer, then pick these books up. You'll regret it if you don't.

Oh, the first one was still my favourite...
( )