The BookViral Review: Originality and authenticity always make for great books and Infernal Gates by Michael Jack Webb certainly fits the bill. A supernatural thriller that whips along at a cracking pace, intelligent and immediately engaging, Webb revels in the complexity of his tale as he weaves converging plot lines together. It’s a testimony to Webb’s control over his material that narrative streams never seem to repeat or collide or, indeed, swamp one another. Writing in crisp prose and only lingering in the detail when it isn’t to the detriment of his storyline, he has a meticulous eye for detail and whilst he stays firmly within the conventional paradigms of popular supernatural fiction it hasn’t constrained his imagination. Clearly underpinned by extensive religious and historical research Infernal Gates is richly layered in a way that puts more conventional historical accounts to shame. Creating a novel that is rare and mysterious. That can be read and enjoyed but also learned from. But what really marks Infernal Gates as a novel of note is its main characters. Goodies, baddies, historical and contemporary each one comes to life and earns their place with none less than Ethan and Sam with their burgeoning friendship and pasts which are cleverly entwined.

Highly intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable novels of this calibre deserve to build an enthusiastic following and Infernal Gates is recommended without reservation.