Leech by Hirron Ennes

 A startlingly original tale - Leech by Hiron Ennes has been on my reading list ever since tordotcom released it way back in 2022. This and Manhunt were two of my most-anticipated titles that had me super intrigued. Now that I finally finished it, I am glad I got around to it. It's a very cleverly written story about what it means to be human, in a wonderfully constructed gothic horror setting in a bleak post-apocalyptic scifi world.

The tale is narrated by a millennia-old parasite that has ingratiated itself into the human society taking over as The Institute, posing as 'doctor' on duty from the more prosperous industrial town of Inultus, complete with the world's best medical resources and library. The way it hides in plain sight, is by taking over the minds of any promising young person who can be trained as a doctor, within the institute. As the story starts, we learn that the institute has sent one of it's hive-mind doctors to investigate the death of one of their doctors in a remote northern town and the hive-mind has no recollection of the exact sequence of events that led to this death. Even stranger is the discovery of a new form of parasitic organism that could possibly have killed the doctor and is very much a threat to the millennia-old hegemony of the Institute.

Caught in the crossfire between this war between two parasitic hive-mind organisms are the hapless inhabitants of the crumbling chateau where our protagonist has been sent to. Including the vile old Baron, almost bed-ridden but still spitting venom and bile at everyone around, the heir Didier, a quiet, diffident and long-suffering man, the mute but enigmatic boy-servant Emile, the heavily pregnant wife Helene and the mysterious twins who always claim to see ghosts. Can the Institute contain this parasitic infestation in this old mining town and save the inhabitants? When the town is stranded by a heavy blizzard, cut off from the rest of the world, the protagonist, cut off from the rest of the hive, has to rely on their wits alone, even as the threat of the parasitic infestation is real and the town-members are slowly succumbing to it.

Did that pique your interest? It should!

I am so glad I went into this book, completely blind and unaware of the premise. So the whole aspect of a millennia old hive-mind parasite as a narrator blew me away. Hiron's writing is assured, compelling in its imagery of the wonderful steam-punkish gothic world, that crumbling chateau and the mysterious inhabitants within being the perfect setting for a horror novel. What starts off as a "locked-room" mystery of a doctor's death soon turns into a full-fledged body-horror that morphs by way of a post-apocalyptic scifi into a soulful "coming-of-age" story. I wouldn't want to spoil it by explaining what that means, but what I was not expecting was the phenomenal world building. Of a world left in tatters after some mysterious events only referred to as "dog-noses falling down from the sky" ( which I suspect was the whole nuclear melt-down?) and the various stories and myths around it. My favorite aspect is the tale of the Montish people, a hardy set of mountain-men who lived in caverns, grew tails and helped mine Jade and a mysterious ore known only as "wheatrock" that is exported from this remote northern town to the rest of the known world.

A parasite being the narrator or the central protagonist wasn't clearly going to be a sympathetic character but it's not our feelings for this protagonist that drives the story forward. Initially it's the well crafted mystery around the death and the horrifying discovery of the new parasite that could eclipse the whole town, that propels the narrative. But very soon, as we slowly discover the folks within the Baron's chateau, we know there is something deeply poignant buried beneath all that horror. The pacing is slow, deliberate as the protagonist patiently unearths and discovers secrets, including those about themselves, which completely throws the story into a different arc.

The only reason I gave this book a 4-star instead of a solid 5 was because, the ending felt a bit tepid, compared to the rest of the novel. But it's not to take anything away from the brilliantly written old school gothic horror story that Leech is. It's a gut-punch to your expectations and at the core of it, a toe-curling, sordid tale of parasitic invasion, so be warned. Certainly not for the squeamish! But I loved that the book took me out of my comfort zone.

Yes, it is creepy and disturbing but ultimately, it is a book that has you asking yourselves about what makes up the core of humanity. If you are in the mood to be 'disturbed' and 'intrigued', this unique atmospheric book is for you. Recommended!