STEPHEN LEWIS is delighted by the fantastical, frightening world of Wormwood summoned up by GP Taylor.

NORTH Yorkshire vicar Graham Taylor says of Wormwood, his eagerly-awaited follow-up to Shadowmancer, that it is "the first real book I have written".

That is not fair on Shadowmancer, a cracking tale of the supernatural set on the North Yorkshire coast in the 1700s, which shot its author straight to the top of the literary 'A' list when published a year ago.

He is right, however, when he says that Wormwood is better. In writing Shadowmancer, GP Taylor learned his trade. With Wormwood, you get a mature writer who is master of his art.

One of Shadowmancer's strengths was its vivid depiction of the lawless 18th-century North Yorkshire coast; a wild, rugged place of windswept cliffs, boggle holes, smugglers caves and a satanic, battlemented vicarage, home to the book's evil anti-hero Obadiah Demurral, the Vicar of Thorpe.

So compelling was Taylor's depiction of this landscape that Shadowmancer sparked a mini tourist industry as people flocked to the coast to see for themselves the scenes he described.

He brings those same powers of description - and an eye for grainy detail worthy of a Hollywood film-maker - to his depiction of London in 1756, the setting of Wormwood.

Taylor's London is a reeking, roiling city of dark, dank back alleys, open sewers and sleazy, rat-infested lodging houses that is almost Dickensian in its squalor. The streets teem with hustling, bustling humanity, hag-like beggar women, street urchins and drunken revellers urinating against inn walls, all rubbing shoulders with the gentry in their smart clothes and carriages.

"My fascination with 18th century London began years ago when, as a young punk living in London I was so skint that I couldn't afford to take the tube or the bus," the author says. "Walking everywhere, I became aware of 18th century London... literally. Beyond the facade lies a city so old that it screams from the alleyways dragging you into the past.

"In writing Wormwood I wanted to bring to light a society that was even more decadent and self-centred than we are today. Eighteenth century London was a hotbed of intrigue and fear, where disease and debauchery went hand in hand."

It is his wonderful recreation of this stew of an ancient city that gives Wormwood much of its power.

In the opening chapter, Dr Sabian Blake - astronomer, scientist and master of the ancient mysteries of the Kabbalah - receives a visitor at his smart Bloomsbury Square house. The stranger presses into his hands a parcel, then leaves.

Blake, tearing it open, finds he has become the owner of the Nemorensis, an ancient, leather-bound volume said to contain the secrets of the universe. Scrawled in the book's margin Blake finds an ominous prophecy: "Wormwood... the bright star shall fall from the sky... and many will die from its bitterness."

What the prophecy foretells is the coming of a comet that will smash into the earth and destroy everything in its path, London included.

Before the first chapter is over the comet has already made its first appearance in the night sky, sparking a catastrophic earthquake, turning night to day, and so terrifying the dogs of London that they go wild and, in a truly horrifying scene, set on a crowd of confused people and tear their throats out. All of which is just for starters.

If the Nemorensis can foretell the coming of the comet, perhaps deciphering the prophecy it contains could hold the key to saving London. But others are interested in the Nemorensis besides Blake - and does the book itself, written by an evil fallen angel, necessarily tell the truth anyway?

The plot unfolds in set-piece scenes of increasing darkness towards a nightmare climax at London Bridge as the world seems about to end. But what really brings it to life is its gallery of outlandish, oddball and downright terrifying characters and creatures.

Blake himself is a dark, complex man in whose soul good struggles with ambition.

Then there is Agetta, Blake's housemaid, a scrawny, quick-fingered, vivid little thief of a girl, too poor to be worried about what is right or wrong but burdened all the same with a good heart; and the hellish Lady Flamberg, beautiful yet monstrous, who dines on wriggling, slimy eels and wields a horrifying supernatural power.

Add to the cocktail a fallen angel shorn of his wings; an evil bookseller; a sleazy apothecary; a strange sect who can conjure monsters out of clay; a blue-tattooed ghost bent on revenge; and a gallery of hideous creatures conjured from hell and you have all the makings of a terrific supernatural thriller.

Wormwood by GP Taylor is published by Faber, price £6.99. GP Taylor will be at Whitby Bookshop from 11.30am-1.30pm on Saturday and at Waterstone's in Scarborough from 3-4pm the same day to sign copies of the book.

Updated: 08:46 Wednesday, June 09, 2004