Audiobook Review: Spanish Girls by Paul Magrs

A fun and entertaining black comedy!

The plot of this story is fairly simplistic, and the characters are sketched in pretty broad strokes – and rather similar to the mother and son serial killers from the TV series Psychoville (right down to the son’s Harry H. Corbett accent) – but that doesn’t detract from some witty writing that manages to squeeze both laughs and tension from the familiar set-up.

This is a basically a black comedy about an elderly mother and her grown-up son, and what happens when he attempts to flee the nest with a new friend. Listeners will have to find out for themselves where the mother’s homemade Spanish dolls come into play… There are a few laugh-out-loud moments, but there’s little here to genuinely chill the blood. The emphasis is on humour rather than horror – and that’s deliberate. The comedy is dark, but cosy; the few horrific elements are so over the top that they provoke chuckles rather than shivers of terror.

The actors are very good. There’s some real chemistry between the three leads. Nice sound production adds another dimension to the mix. Spanish Ladies is fun and entertaining, but it won’t make anyone jump in fear.

GARY MCMAHON