Published by Simon and Schuster, Review by Lesley Finlay
What a debut! The Dark Inside is a strange book telling a sweeping, emotional story that is cruel, intriguing yet intimate and humane. James, who is a loner and who lives with his violent stepfather following the death of his beloved mother, stumbles upon Webster, a homeless man in an abandoned house.
Webster believes he is afflicted by a curse that manifests itself in deep wounds that come during a full moon. He is on the run from gypsies who want to make money out of him.
The unlikely pair go on an incredible journey that is at once rooted in the very harshest side of modern life – peril, enslavement and betrayal yet in a mystical world of potions, magic and redemption.
Friendship takes them to seek a cure for the curse, but pursued by the gypsies, they face many tests: this reader had no idea how the story would enfold.
When it came to it, the dénouement, written in a spare, unflinching style that never once falters, was the only possible way it could end. Let me tell you, it is both shocking and moving with a pinch of schmaltz.
So well done Rupert Wallis: I hope this debut is a success.