Ideas abound in Fox Bites, a bold, ambitious new novel from Cardiff-based Lloyd Markham. In Zimbabwe, during a time of political discontent, we follow Taban, a young boy who makes a vengeful wish he soon regrets, and as a result he becomes stalked by a fox who threatens to make his wish come true, dragging him away from reality into vivid dreams in which he embodies a telekinetic revolutionary locked in an uprising against a dangerous regime. The dream world begins to infiltrate the real; Taban wakes up with strange, glowing scars, and he starts to display traces of the powers of his dreamworld alter ego, powers that he learns to harness over time, but not always to successful effect.

The shifting between the perspectives of Taban and Solomon is well handled and convincing, ensuring the book never loses its momentum, and although the fantastical elements of the story are, well, fantastical, it never feels as if they’re being deployed to cover up an underpowered plot. There are some slightly convenient coincidences that help the story wrap itself up towards the end, and the dialogue doesn’t always fizz, but this doesn’t detract much from a dark and genuinely gripping work of fantasy horror.