The Official S. J. Bolton Blog

First written: June 10, 2009

Slithering alongside the venomous snakes of Awakening is the book's other dark theme: that of compulsive and dangerous religions.

Round about the time of the second world war, the US in particular saw the revival of various charismatic churches. What they all had in common was enthusiasm verging on the fanatic, a very close and literal interpretation of the Bible and a belief that God passed on some of his own supernatural abilities to mankind. One church that immediately intrigued me was The Church of the Latter Rain.

This church still exists, of course, and everything I've read in its literature and on its website suggests that it is an entirely respectable organization, working hard to promote the messages of God's love and peace throughout the world. I want to make that very clear.

But when it started out - oh boy - could you get more gloriously weird?

Healing through fasting, driving out demons, levitation, a fascination with the zodiac, the sudden manifestation of supernatural fire and smoke, resurrecting corpses. Back in its infancy, the Church of the Latter Rain indulged in some very odd practices. And had some decidedly strange leaders. The Reverend Franklin Hall, to name just one, a bestseller author (of religious pamphlets) who claimed to be able to resurrect dead bodies.

In learning all about him - he features in Awakening - I came across the eerily sinister story of his fawn jacket. Rev Franklin, we are told by his followers, wore the same pale brown coat every day for years and although it was never cleaned, it showed no sign of grease, dirt or odour. This was taken as a clear and indisputable sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life.

For the love of whoever is up there!  A fawn jacket! Are we seriously expected to believe the power that can part the sea, rain down plagues of untold misery and destroy the world in flood, would choose to manifest itself in a fawn jacket bought at Kmart? I haven't heard anything so daft since my Granny started talking about Great, Great Aunt Alice coming back as a bluebottle.

Bringing back the dear departed though, that was a different matter, and Hall claimed he could do it. He wrote a book: 'Formula for Raising the Dead.'  Do you know what? I sent off for a copy. All the time I was waiting for it to arrive, I was actually nervous. Would it be a dusty, leather-bound ream, inscribed with runes, as untranslatable as they were ancient? Would I be unleashing old and unspeakable powers just by having it in the house? Would the graves in my local churchyard start opening up?

It arrived. It was an orange and white pamphlet, full of misspellings and was (call me a basement-dwelling troglodyte, if you must, Rev) barely intelligible.

He defeated me in the end though, Rev Franklin. He was born in the early years of the 20th century. I desperately wanted to find the year of his death so that, in Awakening, I could make a cheap joke at his expense. You know the sort of thing: 'Reverend Hall died in 199x, my dear, one can only imagine he didn't get his followers up to speed in time.'

I could not, and cannot still, find any record of Reverend Franklin Hall's death. So - maybe I'll have to eat my words - maybe he did it after all.

First written: June 8, 2009
Written for Moments in Crime, the blog site of my American publisher, St Martin's Press. 

Slay a king cobra and its mate will hunt you down and kill you in revenge. 

True? Actually, no - just one of the many snake myths I've uncovered lately. More below, if you're interested, together with a few true facts that almost seem less plausible. 

An unexpected bonus of writing fiction, I've discovered, is the obligation to research obscure but fascinating subjects: the rate of decomposition of the human body in different environments, for example; or common techniques of embalming. In Awakening, I had to learn about venomous snakes, and I was starting from scratch. 

Discovering that my home village, a peaceful, picture-postcard place in the English Chiltern Hills has a thriving snake population was the inspiration behind my second book. I became fascinated by the idea of life that seems perfect on the surface, but with something sinister lurking in the undergrowth.  

Researching snakes gave me the opportunity to indulge my twin passions: folklore and forensics. Folklore, because the snake seems to have wriggled its way into the mythology of just about every culture in the world. (Ever wondered why the snake is a symbol for modern medicine? Or of Freemasonry?) Forensics, because I got to find out, in glorious detail, exactly what happens to the human body once snake venom is injected into it. Here's a little extract from Awakening, by way of example. It may not be for the squeamish. 

"Taipan venom is nasty because it contains both a neurotoxin and an anti-coagulant,' said North, leaning back against the wall. 'The neurotoxin binds to the neuro-muscular junctions and stops them functioning. Most victims suffer respiratory paralysis within four to six hours of being bitten. The anti-coagulant would cause continual bleeding from the bite wound and from the gums. Internal haemorraghing is a problem, especially in the brain. You'd have suffered convulsions, probably slipped into a coma. Oh, and the poison eats away at muscle tissue. Your piss would turn reddish-brown as your muscles deteriorated and passed through your kidneys.'  

Snake experts (herpetologists, zoo-keepers and the like) argue that we fear this animal out of all proportion to its ability to harm us. The snake is a shy, secretive animal, they stress, posing no danger to human life until threatened itself. Its venom evolved to paralyse its natural prey - lizards, small mammals and birds, not us. 

Perhaps it's an English thing, this disproportionate fear of snakes. On this small, safe island of ours are we just unable to get our heads around the possibility of wildlife being dangerous? We have robins, rabbits, rodents of various description - nothing scary. True, we also have badgers, and they can be pretty fearsome beasts, but let's be honest, death by badger is rare. 

I got to rather like snakes this past year, graceful, mysterious, strangely beautiful creatures that they are, with their silk-like skin and their gravity defying movement. One thing I do struggle with though: tell me this, you proponents of the gentle, largely harmless, much misunderstood creature. If the inland taipan hunts mainly rats and bandicoots, why does it have enough venom in a single strike to kill 62 people? 

As I write, I can feel a snuffling round the nether regions. The dog has woken up and wants her midday walk through the fields below the village. Time to don thick walking boots and tread very carefully…