In the 1980s, someone once commented that the most eye-catching words with which to open a newspaper article were "Margaret Thatcher". To open a novel with a quote from the woman, as The Hollow Men does, could similarly be described as an attention-grabber. And simultaneously appropriate, since although this book is set early in the next century, eighties (and occasionally nineties) cultural references abound in a slightly obtrusive manner not dissimilar to the early work of Paul Cornell. Here, his sometime colleagues present a story which reads like a Stephen King novel transported from Maine to the West Country. Ignoring the classic advice that they don't want to be going up to that there village, the Doctor and Ace become involved in the lives of these particular children of the corn, the in-bred people of Hexen Bridge. Intent on discovering why so few visit, why there are no other villages for miles around, and why no-one knows how the town looks from the air, the Doctor also, not unexpectedly, has unfinished business of his own.

The prose is functional rather than spectacular and the abundance of references to previous Doctors and companions becomes irritating, but these are minor problems in an enjoyable if not terribly original story. The isolated village where outsiders ain't welcome is, of course, the staple ingredient of countless novels and movies, The Wicker Man (alluded to here on one occasion) being one of the most acclaimed examples. The setting works here due to the detailed depiction of the modern lives of the populace. Ace is portrayed exactly as on tv, although the Doctor - despite his characteristic manipulative side being to the fore - seems rather generic until the book's climax, where his confrontational nature calls to mind his encounter with the Gods of Ragnarok. The motivation of the main villains (which I won't give away here) is particularly well handled - not predictable but seeming obvious once it is revealed, it is also a concept which is too often nebulous and ill-defined in tv science fiction but here seems believable.

And see if you can predict exactly when Ace will comment that "we don't like strangers round these parts".