Mark West's first novel, billed enticingly as "a tale of lost love and gut-wrenching terror", focuses on the lives of Jim Crenshaw and Nadia Jones as they grow from teenagers clumsily falling in love to adults. Unfortunately for their relationship, Jim and Nadia's personal demons aren't quite as figurative as other people's.

Jim and Nadia's relationship develops gradually over the first few chapters - a tentative growth thanks to Jim's shyness and the death of Nadia's mother some five years prior to Nadia meeting Jim. But they are in love and it's a genuinely sweet relationship - albeit one involving lots of teenage staring at bums. The authorial honesty there got an approving smirk out of me.

Their relationship has barely gotten started when it all goes wrong. During an innocent gathering of friends - Jim, Nadia, Jim's best friend Danny and Danny's girlfriend Jen - a Ouija board is retrieved from the attic and a malevolent spirit is summoned. The spirit wreaks havoc and its machinations lead to the death of Danny.

Some years later, Jim and Nadia have drifted apart, struggling to cope with the pain of Danny's death. Jen is unhappily married, and in a moment of drunken despair again uses a Ouija board - this time to talk with Danny. But someone else is waiting - the shade of a cruel murderer named Magellan.

The greatest strength of 'In The Rain With The Dead' is undoubtedly the characters. Jim, Nadia, Jen and Danny are all convincing as teenagers and as adults. The relationship between Jim and Nadia is a convincing exploration of the awkward rites of youth and the estranged preoccupation with misinterpretation of young adulthood. Their dialogue at times flows naturally and at other times appropriately reflects the nervous dancing, too-subtle hints and shifts in conversation of people who want one another but are scared to admit it. It's mostly told from the point of view of Jim, although we occasionally shift to Nadia's perspective, which adds to the substantivity of their relationship. In contrast to these two, Magellan is a stock bad guy - an innately evil individual obsessed with the grisly and grotesque. The most interesting aspect of Magellan is his fetishisation of violence - something that provokes a lust in him strong enough to distract his intellect. There's not much to this, but it is something which sets him a little apart from other antagonists.

Although I will admit to not being as widely read in Horror as I am in other areas of literature, I was unsure about the use of a Ouija board to invoke the supernatural elements of the story. Perhaps I'm biased as I remember using Ouija boards as a child and scorned them even then - but even were this not the case I'm sure that it's a plot device much overused by now. That said, this sort of niggle represents the sort of problems I did have with the novel - minor, subjective and probably irrelevant to most readers. For example, I raised an eyebrow at Jim and Nadia chasing Magellan into his territory without even picking up a makeshift weapon. I wouldn't go after a demon without the biggest damn stick I could find! Occasionally, I was unsure at some of the supporting cast of noughties teenagers. Still, comparing these niggles to the lovely relationship that Jim and Nadia share, the at times genuinely disturbing actions of Magellan (I'm not known for my squeamishness, but at times Magellan even grossed me out), and the strong sense of fear and tension that develops during the final chapters, it's hard to regard 'In The Rain With The Dead' as anything other than a success.

Oh, and there's a scene towards the end of the book where Magellan obtains a Motorhead t-shirt. This mostly seems to have been done so that the bad guy can wear a Motorhead t-shirt - by this point in the novel another nameless casualty seems somewhat pointless - but I think Lemmy would be proud of a demon wrenching off someone's arm and stealing his shirt. It sure beats paying £25 for one after being strip-searched at Wembley Arena.

Shaun Green, UK