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The Scarlet Gospels

A Terrifying Duel Between Good and Evil - The Perfect Horror Novel

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The Scarlet Gospels

By: Clive Barker
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

The Scarlet Gospels takes readers back to the early days of two of Clive Barker's most iconic characters in a battle of good and evil as old as time.

The gates to Hell are open and something beckons . . .

The last of Earth's magicians are living in fear. A Cenobite Hell Priest known as Pinhead is killing them off, gorging on their knowledge to enhance his own magical powers as part of a quest to take over Hell. Meanwhile, Private Investigator Harry D' Amour is fulfilling the final wishes of the dead, who communicate with his business associate, the blind medium Norma Paine. But while investigating one such case, Harry inadvertently opens up a portal between Hell and Earth.

When Harry's nemesis Pinhead emerges through the portal, a vicious battle ensues. After failing to enlist Harry to pen his Scarlet Gospels – the epistles chronicling the Hell Priest's grand coup – Pinhead instead captures Norma. Harry realizes he must go through Hell – literally – to save her.

‘A damned good read’ – The Guardian

Praise for Clive Barker:

‘Clive Barker is so good that I am literally tongue-tied’ – Stephen King

‘Barker dislocates your mind’ – Mail On Sunday

‘A powerful and fascinating writer’ – J.G. Ballard

 Ghosts Horror Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Scary Haunted Suspense

Critic reviews

Barker dislocates your mind
Pinhead has always possessed enormous melancholy grandeur, and Harry D’Amour is a significant noir presence. The story that unfolds between them is meticulously framed, endlessly inventive and spun with rollicking good humour . . . a damned good read.
Clive Barker is so good that I am literally tongue-tied. He makes ther rest of us look like we've been asleep for the past ten years (Stephen King, author of The Shining, Misery and Fairy Tale)
A powerful and fascinating writer with a brilliant imagination . . . an outstanding storyteller (J.G. Ballard, author of Crash, High-Rise and Empire of the Sun)
All stars
Most relevant
An amazing tale by my favourite author. The narration is spot on. If you fancy a trip to hell and back, this is the book for you.

Just fantastic

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Thoroughly enjoyable. Truly outstanding descriptions paint an amazing picture in the mind. I could visualise every word. An absolute must for any Hellraiser fan!

Fascinating story

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Having waited so long with baited breath for a new book from Clive Barker, I confess I set myself up to be underwhelmed. I'm left with a sense of "I don't know what exactly I expected, but I don't think it was that."

I will try the story again in hard copy and properly allow my imagination to run with it.

I'm sorry to say I found the narrator rather hard work. He could well have done better to allow his audience's intelligence to supply the characters' accents, for instance. His interpretation was so completely at odds with my earlier experiences of Harry and Norma that it marred my enjoyment of them, of the new people that were introduced in this story and consequently of the experience as a whole.

It suffered from being so long awaited.

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must get if you love hellraiser univers I only wish I had got it sooner

brilliant

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I recently listened to the Hellbound Heart and decided to get the sequel to see how the story ended.

It starts with graphic descriptions that have no real purpose except to be distressing.

The story suffers from a lack of focus and needless meandering in its storytelling.

it has a strong sense of trying to be the Final masterpiece from a master of the genre.

it wants to end Pinhead, Harry D'Armour and possibly other loose threads in one explosive tale.

Alas I found whole chapters that didn't really need to be there. They don't add any extra detail to the characters, add additional lore to the world or advance the plot much.

I tested this by occasionally jumping forward a chapter or two. Hoping I'd find the story had moved in a direction that I needed to go back to pick up the thread of the story. Alas at times I was able to jump several chapters and didn't miss a thing.
I did of course go back to listen to them for the sake of completeness and found it really wasn't worth the effort.

If you cut a good third of the length it could have made a tense, lean novella. As it was Pinhead didn't need to be there at all, Harry felt like he was a vehicle for exposition.
Walking about enduring info dumps.

The Lucifer section was really weak.

Take Clive Barkers name off it, rename Pinhead and Harry D'Armour and it kinda reads like a fan fic effort.

Recommended only for completists.

Needed a good editors pencil.

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