Once A Mask of Flies hits the bookshops it would be a major injustice if we do not start hearing serious chat and buzz around the writing of Matthew Lyons in the horror community. I read both his earlier novels The Night Will Find Us (2020) and A Black and Endless Sky (2022) but believe this latest to be his strongest work to date, which fully deserves to be a breakout hit. Equally impressive is how different his three novels are; his debut sees a group of kids being menaced by an ancient presence in a remote forest and in his second two siblings have a nightmare inducing road trip across Nevada with threats everywhere.

A Mask of Flies seamlessly blends crime, heist, action, road novel, religious cults and ancient supernatural horror into a brutal intoxicating cocktail. It also does so with incredible skill; the clash of hardboiled pulsating shootout action merging with a shapeshifting monster (all on the same page) was unmatchable yet, within the parameters of the story, totally believable. Once this book began to motor my eyes were nailed to the page and she sheer level of brutality on offer was awesome. Faces are shot off, brains are spilled, friendships broken, a huge body count mounts, limbs are shattered and that’s before we even get to the shapeshifting monster.

The ferocious action plays out in the remote, mountainous and smalltown areas of Colorado and opens with a gunfight which is cool enough to close out a Sam Peckinpah western epic. In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller is double crossed by another gang member, trying to save her wounded friend and accomplice, has no choice but to return to her family’s abandoned cabin – a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death many years before.

The scenes with Anne on the run, hiding out in motels, avoiding police patrols, plugging wounds, and dodging nosy public as her face is plastered all over the television news made for fantastic reading. Truly desperate, she ends up at the old cabin and awakens an ancient force which has unexplained connections to her childhood. To say Anne was damaged would be a huge understatement, and the flashbacks to her childhood and the death of her mother give a good reason why. Considering Anne would not think twice about blowing somebody away (which she does) she is an incredibly sympathetic character and I loved how she went to any lengths to protect her pet cat. Matthew Lyons puts his main character through a metaphorical meatgrinder, but Anne keeps on swinging and I was cheering along with every broken tooth, fractured arm, stab wound, and punctured lung. She makes some terrible choices, but on many of these occasions the options were non-existent.

The creature, a shapeshifter for want of a better term, drifts in and out of the action and I did wonder how good this book would have been without the monster. Still pretty damned powerful I would say. It reminded me of the T2 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, totally unrelenting, ruthless and with one sole objective, get Anne Heller. Like the T2, the monster even has the ability to wear the faces of others and soon Anne cannot trust anybody. This is all beautifully set to the backdrop of Colorado ghost towns, dangerous pitstops, and unpredictable weather, whilst being hunted by the other members of the gang looking for the cash. Oh, and don’t forget the shapeshifter.

I do not want to say much about the origins of the creature as it heads into spoiler territory, however, Anne has very little memory of the horrific events which led to the death of her mother until she finds an old video cassette in her family shack. After watching the film, things start coming back, the hunt is on and the cult come knocking. A Mask of Flies is littered with memorable characters and set pieces; there were two shootouts in a diner and a police station which were as good action sequences as anything I have read.

After completing A Mask of Flies I was exhausted and felt like I had been repeatedly punched in the face. This was a gory, visceral, pulsating and exhilarating novel and I love the way in which the author brings to live these remote and dangerous parts of Colorado blending crime and supernatural horror to near perfection.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire @TorNightfire and Netgalley @Netgalley for the e-arc. All thoughts are my own.

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Anne returns to her family’s cabin after a failed bank heist. It’s also the site of her mother’s untimely death.

With her she has her friend Jessup, and Dutch, a police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, she discovers strange relics of her mother and begins to piece together her childhood at the cabin.

When Jessup goes missing, she and Dutch bury him. Only, that night, he knocks on the door. She’s not hallucinating, it really is Jessup, risen from the dead.

Now the cops aren’t the only ones after Anne, and unraveling the secrets of her mother’s past may be her only hope of getting out alive.



This book was an interesting blend of thriller and horror. It was a unique blend of plot and character driven. It was interesting because I really didn’t like Anne at all. While yes, she was a strong female lead, she made some horrible choices. I did appreciate that she was a female bank robber as I don’t fell that has been done often before. I enjoyed the paranormal elements of this book, they were a lot of fun, though I do wish they had a little more oomph and originality. While it was entertaining, it felt that I’d read it before.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read and had some fun parts, I’d recommend it to those looking for an interesting horror.

This was my first read by this author, and this book has piqued my interest enough to make me want to read more!

Not sure what I was expecting when I requested this book. It's a really interesting mesh of horror and crime thriller. I like the writing style of the author (never read anything before by them). I'd definitely recommend this title to those who like this style of book and I look forward to reading more from the author.