Man-Eater
By Ted Willis
1976 Bantam
Paperback, 200 pages
This is a good one. More thriller
than flat out horror, it delivers the gory goods while maintaining an exciting
and compelling story. A washed-up animal trainer releases a pair of tigers into
the English countryside and even though they had been raised in captivity,
their survival instincts take over. Terror and mayhem ensue.
Willis fills the book with
believable characters and even though they might seem cookie-cutter on paper
(the tired detective, the eccentric sharp-shooter, socialite, etc.) they are
brought to vivid life, and I totally bought it all. Best of all, when the story
takes on the tigers’ point of view, it adds another layer of adventure and
pathos, rather than falling into silliness like it might in a lesser writer’s
hands. The book chugs along quickly and you embrace all of the characters
involved, both human and feline.
Willis (eventually Lord
Willis) never ventured any closer to the horror genre than he did with Man-Eater. A successful playwright, screenwriter
and, especially, TV writer, he even wound up in the Guinness Book of World Records as world's most prolific writer for
television. Man-Eater was made into a
TV movie for CBS in 1978 called Maneaters
Are Loose starring Tom Skerrit. In the film, the action moved from England
to California, naturally.
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