Smith’s work mixes sex, violence, gore and self-conscious humour. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural considers that Smith’s horror novels were “endearing, imbued with lively storytelling and the tacky brilliance of the horror and science fiction cinema of the 1950’s”. However, he is best known for his seventy plus horror books. He has written a series of children’s books under the pseudonym Jonathon Guy, two thrillers under the name Gavin Newman and a dozen non-fiction books on countryside matters. Smith has had over a thousand short stories and magazine articles published. For other critics though, this adds a certain camp quality to his work. Smith’s work has also been criticised by some as right-wing and reactionary, with the heroes often being thinly-disguised versions of Smith himself while hippies, lefties, protesters and animal rights campaigners are generally shown in a poor light. What is happening? Why? Only The Busker knows the answers.The pulpish nature of Smith’s concepts and writing are legendary in the horror fiction world, and have been spoofed by the award-winning comedian and writer Matthew Holness in his Garth Marenghi persona. And throughout, Jonjo’s melody is a symphony of madness and death. Then the crop circles appear as if to herald Armageddon. Jonjo’s warning of impending doom is coming true as tiny corn people are glimpsed flitting through the autumnal mists. And the harvest festival becomes a nightmarish inferno of death.

The Kirby’s milking goat vanishes without a trace. Sharon, the Deeps rebellious, teenage daughter, disappears. They incur the contempt of the Deeps, an agronomist who seems hell bent on destroying the environment with his poisonous herbicides and pesticides. The Kirby’s have forsaken a secure lifestyle for an idealistic organic farming project. Crowds are drawn irresistibly by his strange, haunting, hypnotic music, a weird melody that lingers with the listeners long afterwards, a nuisance by day but terrifying in the nocturnal hours, calling them, commanding them. There had been buskers in the cathedral city of Lichfield for centuries, but never one like Jonjo.

Doomflight by Guy N. Smith