Night Killers
By Richard Lewis
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 208 pages
I love Richard Lewis. He never
lets me down. He jumped on the nature-strikes-back bandwagon in the late 1970s
and knocked out a bunch of excellent horror novels. He wrote TV and movie
tie-ins under his real name Alan Radnor, but his horror books as Richard Lewis
vault him deep into my heart, right there alongside Guy N. Smith.
Night Killers is a
gruesome novel about cockroaches that develop a taste for human flesh. The
origin of their dietary change opens the book in very gruesome fashion, with a
serial killer’s poor disposal of a victim’s body. This whole opening is a grueling,
gory, and exciting scene and eventually leads us to another excellent horror set
piece. It’s not until 30 pages in that we meet our main characters. Like most
of the great eco-horror novels, Lewis sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down… the
deaths are gruesome and harrowing. Much to my delight, there is a scene with a
toddler… no, he wouldn’t go there… Yes. Yes, he did. I am a big fan of “nothing
is sacred” horror.
Taking place in a seedy section
of London, Sally is in charge of Unity House, a hostel for alcoholics and
vagrants; a place for them to stay and be safe. Her boyfriend David, a reporter
(I know, an oft used trope) might have stumbled on a big story here in the East
End. Main characters or not, Lewis puts them through the paces, and you never
know if they’re going to make it to the end or not. The book never lets up with
grisly roach killings and claustrophobic situations of hopelessness. Except for
a gratuitous rape scene (really, hadn’t she been through enough already?), I
have no complaints at all about the savagery Lewis ladles on.
While I enjoyed every moment of
this book while reading it, perhaps it is telling that when I sat down to write
this review a few weeks later, I didn’t remember it very well. I had to skim
through and reread it a bit to remind myself what it was that I liked so much
about it. Even though it evidently didn’t stick with me, I loved it as I read
it and gleefully recommend it.
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