The Nameless By Ramsey Campbell

The Nameless
By Ramsey Campbell
1985 Tor Books (Macmillan, 1981)
Paperback, 312 pages

                Man, Ramsey Campbell can sure write a pretty book. His descriptions and similes are second to none. “Cigarette butts snaggletoothed the ashtray.” “The sky was the color of steam.” Everything is so easy to picture and the words flow beautifully. That, of course, makes it a slow read for me as I go back and admire the wordsmithing. Campbell is a master. This is the first full length novel of his that I have read. Would his florid style be too much over 300 pages? Hell no.

 

                Barbara Waugh is a literary agent whose husband died before their daughter Angela was born. Angela was kidnapped and murdered when she was four years old. Now, nine years later, Barbara gets a phone call from a young girl, calling her Mummy and asking her to come and get her. This, of course, sounds impossible but the calls persist and Barbara is convinced that her daughter is not dead. This opens up a lot of searching for answers that might be very hard to find.

 

                Her searches lead her into many seedy, dusty, abandoned buildings and meeting many different strangers who may or may not be able to help. It seems a nameless cult (that even the Manson Family thought were too crazy) might have taken Angela to tap into her possible psychic power. (Angela could be heard talking to her late father on the baby monitor in the past.) People who try to help Barbara out always seem to wind up dead. She scours the United Kingdom, searching with the slimmest of clues, but her lover seems to have found an address where the cult, and Angela, might be.

 

                There are a few harrowing scenes where Barbara’s helpers are caught in a hell-like situation. Margery, another mother who lost her kid to the cult, explores a dark, dusty, abandoned house in a chapter that had me squirming, just knowing something could grab her at any moment. Gerry is an investigative reporter who infiltrates the cult and has a nail-biting walk through the darkened building where sleeping cult members could bust her at any moment. Campbell really knows how to ratchet up the suspense, raise your blood pressure and make you uncomfortable, albeit with gorgeous prose.

 

                The chill factor stays high right up to the end, though I must admit that the ending was a bit of a letdown. Even Campbell has admitted that it feels forced, but that in no way will take away from my high recommendation of this book. I felt a lot of compassion for Barbara and was in her corner the whole way. The Nameless was first published by Macmillan in 1981. It was made into a movie in 1999 by Spaniard Jaume Balagueró, entitled Los Sin Nombre and remade as a six-part miniseries in Spain in 2025. The handsome Tor cover features a flaming Angela painted by an uncredited artist.

Shadow Child By Joseph A. Citro

Shadow Child
By Joseph A. Citro
1987 Zebra
Paperback, 366 pages

                You really never know what you’ll get with an old Zebra paperback. The title and the blurb on the back make it sound like a typical creepy-kid Zebra novel and the cover makes it look like a creepy clown story. It isn’t either. There is a kid in it (who has a clown-with-balloons nightlight… that’s it) but the kid is really just a catalyst, a plot point to make the evil more evil. As I dug in, it appeared that there would be whimsical “little people” in it and I became wary again. I decided to just shut up and read and I was rewarded with a well-written book that actually gave me a few tingles along my spine.

 

                Suffering from the death of his wife, Eric Nolan accepts an invitation from his cousin Pamela Whitcome to join her and her family at their grandfather’s former house, now owned by Pamela and her husband Clint. The cousins, Clint, and Luke, the kid, all get on very well, even though this is the place where Eric’s brother disappeared all those years ago. Well, a few more disappearances occur, a few deaths and they have all happened since Eric showed up. A historian becomes interested in a stone “root cellar” on the Whitcome property, which also sparks Eric’s interest in the local folklore. Too bad the historian becomes one of the missing. Then Clint thinks he shoots a kid up on the hill and soon he is among the missing. Just what the hell is going on?

 

                This is an excellent folk-horror novel that manages to keep the pages turning, even during slower passages, with a town populated with excellent, full-blooded characters and a sense of impending dread that never lets up until it fully explodes. These stone cairns are littered throughout the Vermont mountains in real life, so that lends an extra layer of creepiness to the tale. While one’s suspension of disbelief has to be turned up to eleven in the third act, Citro’s prose is good enough to make that not so difficult. His “monsters” are pure badassed evil and will do everything to keep their secret. You get some suspense, some gore and plenty of secluded hopelessness.

 

                One gripe, for me, was the character of Pamela. While all of the men in town had full-blown storylines and dimension, Pamela was merely there to be a wife and mother, plan meals and read Redbook. When Clint is missing, she becomes a possible “will they or wont they” incestuous partner with Eric, or am I the only one that thought that? At least local historian Elizabeth McKensie, a wheelchair bound elderly woman, gets to use her brain to help out the troubled family.

 

                Better than a lot of Zebra releases, I have no problem recommending this one, warts and all. Citro is a good writer and I will look for more of his stuff. (I have no idea how I came into possession of this one!) A sequel, Guardian Angels, came out a year later, also from Zebra. I have that one, too but again, I know not from where it came. Maybe the little people dropped them off.

Home Sweet Home By Ruby Jean Jensen

Home Sweet Home
By Ruby Jean Jensen
1985 Zebra
Paperback, 317 pages

                This is the second of many books published by Zebra from everybody’s favorite grandmother. While many of her creepy kid books have a supernatural leaning, this one does not. In fact, even though it’s about children (usually a big NO for me), they are not the creepy ones. And despite starring kids, I really enjoyed this book. What do you know? Maybe I’m maturing!

 

                Connie had to have some uterus surgery, and her husband Steve wanted to be right by her side. The problem is, they weren’t sure what to do with their 10-year old son Timmy. He couldn’t just hang around the hospital for a couple of weeks. In steps Steve’s pal Dan Walker, who generously offers to take Timmy along with him on his own vacation into the mountains of Alabama. Connie and (especially) Timmy think it’s a horrid idea but for some reason (that reason being that this is a fiction book) it goes down and the boy finds himself in a van with “Uncle Dan”, heading into the wilderness.

 

                Dan starts getting a bit more creepy than usual before their long journey is over, getting touchy-feely with the boy, but they get to the cabin safely. To Timmy’s surprise, when he wakes up he sees he is among other kids who are all orphans; 13-year old Rex, two younger boys and 5 year old Susie, a very timid child. Uncle Dan’s insanity comes to full fruition now as he thinks he has put together a perfect family, just the 5 children, him and “Little Mama”. Presumably, she is behind the locked door and to make her mad is to get a beating. Or worse.

 

                Anyone who has ever seen Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) knows exactly why Dan puts on the frilly apron and acts funny and what is behind the locked door. But the kids in the book haven’t seen or read it and that’s where Jensen’s writing prowess gets put to good use. The suspense builds rapidly, even though the reader is aware, as the kids learn the secrets of the house. Those who survive, anyway. If children in danger/ being tortured or hurt is a trigger, you might skip this one. Dan also films the kids skinny-dipping, which is pretty gross, though no hands-on sexual activity is ever related.

 

                RJJ does an amazing job voicing the children. Their dialog and actions are believable, though sometimes their thoughts get a little poetic enhancement, but it’s just the author flexing her muscles. The writing is tight and the narrative bowls along at a rapid pace. I finished this one quickly. Richard Newton’s amazing cover does nothing to hide the Psycho-ness of the story inside. As a Bostonian, I love that the skeleton is clutching a Red Sox hat!

Beneath Still Waters By Matthew J. Costello

Beneath Still Waters
By Matthew J. Costello
1989 Berkley
Paperback, 266 pages

                It sucks to try to review a book the day after you finish it and you really don’t remember much about it. This one is a slog to recall. Admittedly, I only wanted to read it in the first place because of the cool (uncredited) cover art.

 

                Perhaps taking a cue from Guy N. Smith’s Demons published the previous year, this one is about the small, evacuated New York town of Gouldens Falls that is flooded to make a new reservoir. Just prior to the flooding, two local boys hop the fence to explore the abandoned buildings. One disappears and when the other one looks for him, he’s almost caught by some sinister people that have grabbed his friend. Something fishy was going on and he runs to safety. Fifty years later, in the present, journalist Dan Elliot wants to do a piece on the buried town so he visits nearby Ellerton and gets more than he bargained for when people go missing in the lake. Even two divers who were looking for a drowning victim don’t come up. Local journalist Susan Sloan is also interested in the big story. Plus, her daughter Claire is having watery nightmares.

 

                Or something like that. There is plenty going on for the length of this novel but none of it is very exciting and the scary bad guys are ill-defined and seem somewhat glossed over. Save for Claire, no character really gets into your heart enough to give a shit. Admittedly, I read this fairly quickly because it always felt like something important was about to happen but it never did. The crack in the dam discovered mid-way telegraphed the obvious climactic action way too soon. (That is not a spoiler in any way. Even the back cover tells you the problem.) The horror elements are weak and the whole thing just seemed like a wasted premise to me. (And GNS’s Demons, the sequel to Deathbell (1980), did the flooded town thing so much  better!)

 

                There are few good moments, like when the rescue divers, and later on Dan, are under the water searching the flooded town in dim light, searching for bodies (or in Dan’s case, clues to the mysterious happenings). Costello manages to write the slow-motion, drifting scenery rather vividly and it creates a few chills. But other than that, I didn’t get much satisfaction from this one. Not a keeper for me.

The Howling By Gary Brandner

The Howling
By Gary Brandner
1977 Fawcett
Paperback, 223 pages

Yes, we’ve all seen the movie The Howling (Joe Dante, 1981) but who has read the source material? I never had, so I thought it was about time to correct that. If you plan to take a first read of this novel, do yourself a favor and forget the movie completely. John Sayles’ script for the film bears almost no resemblance to this book. I can’t imagine what the folks who bought this after seeing the film thought of it, especially Fawcett’s reprint with the movie poster art.

 

Karyn and Roy Beatty are the perfect California couple; blonde, wealthy and happy, with a little bun in the oven. All is well until Karyn is sexually assaulted in her home and she loses the baby and, obviously, develops some serious post-trauma problems. Loving Roy rents a place far enough away from Los Angeles, in the town of Drago, to help his wife recover in relative safety. The tiny town is peculiar, but Karyn tries to make the best of it. The Beatty’s sex life is in shambles, though, as you might imagine. Roy, who is a scumbag after all, soon succumbs to the dark charms of Marsha, a shop owner in town. Meanwhile, Karyn keeps on hearing… something howling.

 

Sure that it is a wolf she is hearing, she orders a stack of books from a neighboring town’s library, and they are delivered to her by Inez, a woman who knows quite a bit about wolves and, more importantly, werewolves. Could someone in town actually be a werewolf? Eventually, Karyn shoots at a wolf-like figure in her yard and blows off its ear. Seems like it should be easy to figure out who is a werewolf now, but the long list of suspects and the speed at which werewolves heal are two things that make the investigation difficult. And Roy is no help because he’s getting laid on the side and feeling quite canid himself.

 

The book is slathered with plenty of gore, attacks and sex. The rape scene is particularly rough and, of course, hiding away the victim and keeping her drugged might not be the best treatment. Karyn’s isolation is well established; she doesn’t drive, it’s a two mile walk into town, and Roy isn’t any help after he goes Marsha-crazy. Karyn and Inez are a team worth rooting for.

 

Brandner was back with two sequels to this one with The Howling II (1978) and The Howling III (1985) (both Fawcett), the first of which continues this storyline. The third entry goes back to the olden days. A film was eventually made that was closer to this first book, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (John Hough, 1988). The British editions of the three books, all published by Hamlyn, have great covers and different titles for the two sequels; The Return of the Howling and The Howling III Echoes.

             Hamlyn's 1978 edition                                                      Hamlyn's 1983 movie tie-in

                                                                           

Ogre By Mark Ronson

Ogre
By Mark Ronson
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 198 pages

 

 

    Forget Shrek and all of that fairy-tale ogre bullshit. This ogre is a massive blob with reaching tentacles that would eat that green goofball and never look back. This is actually a Celtic wormlike deity called the Ooga but the folks involved call it the ogre so they won’t sound quite so stupid.

    Richard Finlay moves from the city into the rural farmhouse in Cumbria that he inherited from his all-but-unknown relative. Why does this happen so often in horror fiction, yet it still has never happened to me? Anyway, the townsfolk hate him, and a kid went missing on his property so he’s not the most welcome resident. There’s also a serial killer on the loose in that part of the country. Finlay and his hot houseguest Patricia have to endure a home invasion scene straight out of Sam Peckinpah’s film Straw Dogs (1971), complete with throwing boiling water onto the drunken villagers.

    Like in Mark Ronson’s (New Zealand author Mark Alexander) previous two horror novels and the subsequent one, an ancient evil is unleashed by way of modern means. This time around, a pipeline being laid through Finlay’s property opens up the mineshaft that the giant blob was preserved in. The ogre itself is a fun beastie, similar in form and action to the aquatic blob in Ruby Jean Jensen’s The Lake (1983), with little tentacles reaching from the ever-changing main blob. As with all good blobs, the more it eats, the bigger it gets.

    The book slowed down a bit for me at around the three-quarter mark when scientists and ministry members set up shop in the Findlay house (because they finally believe the people who say they have seen the ogre). No problem, though, as every time the ogre shows up, fun happens. The characters are pretty basic, a few affectations but otherwise straightforward cookie-cutter folks, but the story moves quickly and pulls you in, even if most of it has been done before and since. I liked Ronson’s Plague Pit from the following year a bit more, but this one is good, and I heartily recommend it. The Hamlyn paperback has a nice gnarly cover of a mannequin head covered in green gunk that looks like it might be a photograph.

The Desecration of Susan Browning By Russell Martin

The Desecration of Susan Browning
By Russell Martin
1981 Playboy Press
Paperback, 254 pages

 

                This is Martin’s second foray into the world of Satan and his loyal followers, hot on the heels of 1980’s Rhea. His writing is crisp and fluid and I even had to look up a few words! Educational! While this isn’t an entirely satisfying read, it is quite good, and it moves by quickly.

 

                Marty and Susan Browning are two Hollywood up-and-comers who have a wonderful marriage. On the way to their car after a movie date, they witness a woman being assaulted in the parking lot and Marty comes to her rescue. Three days later, the Browning’s get a visit from the victim, Wanda Carmichael, with an invitation to a swank party at her mansion. From there on, the desecration begins.

 

                Wanda takes over Marty, makes him (willingly?) divorce Susan and grinds Mrs. Browning’s life to dust. Just what does Wanda have that enthralls Marty so much? Susan’s friend Max tries to comfort her but soon his constant presence starts to be annoying… until she becomes his willing sex slave. Yeah, things are in a weird slide for poor Susan! Why is all of this happening? Perhaps the sleazy private dick will find answers, or perhaps the cute, young Father Crabbe can help her sort things out.

 

                Yes, this is like an X-rated soap opera and that’s exactly why it is so much fun. None of the characters are particularly likeable; Susan herself has many flaws, so we just sit back and watch the shitshow. While God and faith do come into play, it is never heavy handed. My only real complaint story-wise would be that I wanted more Satan!! Rituals are fine but gimme some Ol’ Scratch!

 

                Being that one of the main characters is transsexual and this book was written in 1981, there is a lot of dated transphobia that will make the modern reader cringe a bit, but that’s the way things were (or are for some of the shit slices out there). It’s all part of 80s Hollywood where life is cheap, property is expensive, and Satan brings good things to evil people.

 

                I found this in the children’s books section at a thrift store!