Parasite By Richard Lewis

 

Parasite
By Richard Lewis
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 187 pages

 

Richard Lewis knows how to handle a nature-strikes-back premise and he proves himself capable once again with another new pandemic horror out to threaten Britain. The parasite in question is a tiny freshwater worm that spreads bilharzia, also known as schistosomiasis. It’s real. Look it up. It is unpleasant. Of course, Lewis’s parasite has mutated a bit to make the disease even more unpleasant. This parasite can cause madness, gooey death and 80s pulp-horror mayhem.

 

The reader knows what is going on before the characters in the book do and it’s enjoyable to follow them as they uncover the unimaginable. That said, there tends to be a few too many meetings among the doctors, scientists, and politicians for my taste. It doesn’t ruin the book, like it does in Edward Jarvis’s Maggots, but it does slow down the narrative at times. Still, Lewis keeps things moving along and throws us some gruesome parasite action just when we need it.

 

There is a well written romance between our main character George Carson and his associate Jill Turner. Plus, George’s kid, born of his late wife, catches the parasite which brings a new level of pathos to the story. Of course, in true Lewis fashion (SPOILER), he throws in a late-story rape to show that humans are always the true horror in the world. (END SPOILER). It just seems like overkill, but hey… it fucks with you, and I guess that is the point.

 

So, while this isn’t the perfect Richard Lewis book (that would be Devil’s Coach-Horse aka The Black Horde), it is still prime 80s Hamlyn Horror and is well worth adding to one’s nature-strikes-back collection. I just wish there had been less meetings in it.

Return of the Werewolf By Guy N. Smith

 

Return of the Werewolf
By Guy N. Smith
1977 New English Library
Paperback, 112 pages

 

                This slim tome is the sequel to the Master’s (also slim) debut horror novel Werewolf by Moonlight, which was originally published by NEL in 1974. In between the two books, he wrote some classics like The Sucking Pit and the first Crabs novel. He’d also penned a couple of Walt Disney movie novelizations. Go figure!

 

                This one picks up a year after Werewolf by Moonlight ends, with the body of the wolfman being stolen from its grave. (I’ll try to not spoil either book.) And, of course, it’s not too long before the grisly murders start up again on Black Hill. Some eyewitnesses swear they saw a werewolf, too. The story plays out as a Whodunit, with possible suspects and red herrings on every page.

 

                The cast from the first book is back (or dead and disinterred) and if you haven’t read the first book yet, Smith makes it easy to know who’s who and what they were up to in the previous novel. Of course, you will spoil the mystery of the first book by reading this one first, but who cares? This sequel is a lot less gory and has less sexual situations than its predecessor, but it is still a satisfying page turner. It’s too short to be any other way!

 

                The fur was flying again a year later when Smith unleashed Son of the Werewolf (1978), completing the trilogy. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. It’s also on Kindle for you freaks. Unfortunately, not included in the Omnibus is Smith’s other werewolf novel, Night of the Werewolf. Originally published in 1976 in Germany (only) as "Der Ruf des Werwolfs", it was first translated and serialized in the Smith-centric zine Graveyard Rendezvous and later collected as a full novel by Black Hill Books in 2011. It would have been a nice addition.

                                              The German only Der Ruf des Werwolfs

Clickers By J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams

Clickers
By J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams
2011 Deadite Press
Paperback, 271 pages

 

                Originally published as an eBook in 1999, this novel has gone through a few incarnations before Deadite Press released this author-approved edition. It still looks like it could still use a little editing and it is a bit overlong, but the book definitely satisfies anyone looking for a gory Creature Feature. I’m not a big fan of Dave Kendall’s cover art, though.

 

                A horror author heads to a coastal town in Maine to work on his next book. He meets a slew of underdeveloped characters (and, really… who cares? We’re here for the mayhem) and before too long, the beaches erupt with large crabs who also happen to have venomous scorpion tails. What transpires is pure a Guy N. Smith and H.P. Lovecraft mash-up. The gore gets ladled on heavy, and nobody is safe.

 

                Mercifully, Guy N. Smith does get name dropped in the text. It’s only fair because Smith’s trademark “click-click-clickety-click” is lifted for these crabby imitations. I mean… the main character (a fairly unlikeable writer named Rick) dubs them Clickers. It’s the title of the damn book! Original or not, the book delivers what it promised; a gore-filled B-movie of a story. My favorite passage, after an old woman is stung by the crab-scorpion; “Her body expanded and blew up like a hot water balloon, inflating to almost double her size before the skin split and reddish, meaty goo splashed all over the crabs, drenching them in Old Woman Sauce.” The fact that “Old Woman Sauce” is capitalized makes me very happy.

 

                No, it’s not a really well written book but it tells the story admirably and despite going on a bit long, it’s just what the doctor ordered when you need mindless, gory sludge. Gonzalez wrote three more entries in the Clickers canon, all of them with fellow horror author Brian Keene. Gonzalez passed away in 2014. Mark Williams died in 1998, a year before Clickers saw print.

 

                I never even mentioned the Lovecrafty stuff! Dig in! There’s more than just stinging crabs on the menu!

Claw By Jack Younger

 

Claw
By Jack Younger
1976 Manor Books
Paperback, 219 pages

 

                Forget all of those one-star reviews you see online… this book is great! It’s cats killing humans, eating them alive. What’s not to love?

 

                Taking place in Marblehead, Massachusetts (just a hop skip and a jump from where I now sit), the coastal community is racking up a slew of hideous deaths. It is quickly discovered that the cause of these mutilations is… cats! Nobody is safe. Your cat, the one that sits next to you as you read Midnight? Lethal… it will eat you. Eventually, a small group of survivors hole themselves up in a restaurant, hoping that help will be forthcoming. Too bad a violent storm has shut down all power and washed out the bridge into town.

 

                Yeah, this is dumb as shit but it’s also a ton of fun. “A kitten stepped forward playfully to paw a hideous thing that had once been part of a man’s head.” “The furry mass engulfed him.” There were dozens of lines I had to read aloud to my wife, my own dumb cat lying next to me all the time. I laughed out loud a lot. Manor Books rarely disappoint. Part of it is because they had the worst editors ever and typos and misspellings abound. Just part of the fun.

 

                Admittedly, the book slows down half way through, when the plight of Marblehead gets out to the mainland and cops, military and news people try to get in on the action. There’s also a long scene with two cops and an old man they find crawling in the storm that has absolutely nothing to do with the narrative. And, while in real life I would find cat slaughter abominable, it’s pretty funny in this book. Silliness abounds. And watch for the most ridiculous, unromantic dialog leading up to an inappropriate sex scene ever!

 

                Jack Younger is none other than the original Creepy editor Russ Jones. He wrote a handful of novels and comic stories under that name. His comic book background surely informed much of the action and gratuitous gore in this book. The over-the-top badness of this book makes me want to dig deeper into his horror novel work. He is also a very accomplished artist but there’s no word on whether or not he is responsible for the (minimalist) cover art for this book.

Came a Spider By Edward Levy

 

Came a Spider
By Edward Levy
1978 Berkley
Paperback, 232 pages

 

Genetically altered, huge, hungry black spiders overrun Los Angeles. I know, we’ve heard all this before but this lesser-known spiders-attack book has plenty of new ideas to offer and is written in a breathless style that kept the pages a-turnin’.

 

Starting off with a young boy getting bitten by a voracious spider in the desert, it never really lets up. Oh yeah, kids buy the farm in this one. In fact, little Lee, the victim, was now an incubator. These spiders lay eggs in their human victims or just completely devour them. “A thick, black, hairy carpet…” is a pretty nice way to describe the onslaught of arachnid atrocities.

 

In addition to the spider juggernaut, Levy gives us some pretty good characters. The police lieutenant in charge is a very relatable guy for me… a bit overweight, getting a bit old and tired. This is not what he needed. There is also a touched upon, but never fully explored, nerd romance between the scientist in charge of finding a solution and one of the scientists responsible for creating the new strain.

 

Real science is out the window here… this new species reproduces super-fast and are ready to eat up LA at the drop of a coin. They eat up the zoo, and there is a wildly entertaining attack on a movie theater. Fuck The Blob… these guys mean business. Containing them proves to be a real problem.

 

Yeah, like I said; nothing brand new here but a very entertaining take on the Spiders Attack genre. It’s as good as a Richard Lewis spider novel and better than much of the swill I read and enjoy. Levy has a few other novels that I’m interested in reading, including The Beast Within which was adapted by Tom Holland for a film for MGM in 1982.

Blood Flies By Gene Lazuta

Blood Flies
By Gene Lazuta
1990 Charter/ Diamond
Paperback, 265 pages

    
                                              

                I just finished this book and I have absolutely no idea what I just read. Never have I slogged through a more confusing book.

                OK… here’s the gist. Pete Blackwell is summoned to Sharthington, Ohio in a dream. His grandfather had basically built the town and discovered an old Indian legend living beneath Black Island. Oh, and there’s a tower on the island. Anyhoo, Pete’s grandad experimented with this legendary life-form, mixing the DNA with other animals, creating new, weird animals.

                The Blood Flies? They’re described in many different ways, but mainly like toads with wings. They secrete a poison that Kyrik, the bad guy-sheriff, milks to sell and do his own nasty experiments. The flies themselves aren’t even mentioned after the half-way point. Kyrik doesn’t last much longer. The last third of the book is the old Indian legend taking over.

                Or something.

                Now, the story did hold a kernel of interest in it for me, but Lazuta overwrites to the point of parody at times. Conversely, some elements are glossed over so I had no idea what he was “talking” about. The story has an epic scope but seems only partially told. An early 10 pages of exposition told by a drunken sot sets it up, but it still never became clear for me.

Overwriting and senseless prose; a case in point, talking about a girl that Kyrik was holding captive for vivisection (yeah, I know…):

                “She wore a pair of dark trousers, with cuffs— Kyrik always liked cuffs, Pete didn’t think, he just knew, somehow, without thinking, he wasn’t thinking, he just… was— and her shirt was pink.”

                I shit you not. I didn’t change a thing.

                At the end of Part 2, the story pretty much seemed like it should end, but no… there were 100 more pages of word soup to go. Other than some cool mutated animals in the beginning of the section, the third part drags on and on and on. I had to power through to finish it. No fucking clue what went on. Cool cover, though.

                Sorry, Gene. I won’t be looking for your other books.

Croc Attack By Brian Gatto

Croc Attack
By Brian Gatto
2022 Raven Tale Publishing
Paperback, 188 pages

 

                When I see there’s a book called Croc Attack, you bet your sweet ass I want to read it. The author mentioned it on the Books of Horror Facebook page, putting it on my radar, and since it is reasonably priced, I grabbed a copy.

 

                A group of twenty-something conservationists head into the Everglades to tag some animals, take some samples and, in general, do science stuff. This rubs some of the locals the wrong way (damn tree-huggers) but even worse is the thirty-seven-foot Crocodile that has started to make itself known. The book does exactly what it promises; there are loads of Croc attacks as well as inappropriate sex. Gatto is obviously a fan of 80s pulp horror and knows what is required for a book of this type.

 

                The characters don’t really matter; it’s a case of set ‘em up and knock ‘em down, which I am a fan of. To an almost comical point, all of the women are stone cold gorgeous, but if I can suspend disbelief for a 37-foot Croc, I have no trouble doing the same for every woman in the book who is a perfect 10 with a huge rack. No wonder everybody is so horny! People hook up left and right and some think about sex even as they are about to be chomped.

 

                The main storyline is similar to Numunwari (aka Killer Croc) by Grahame Webb and the film Dark Age (1987), which is loosely based on Webb’s book. Coincidentally, there is even a common surname of Darwin in both books. Croc Attack isn’t as gory as I wanted for the first two thirds of the book, with the Croc relying more on stealth, but towards the end, the kills get juicier.

 

                Like almost all self-published works, another pass at editing could have helped. There are a few sentences I would have reworked, and some word changes I would have done. (Yes, the mouth is cavernous, and the hide is scale-laden, but both terms were used too often.) Also, ecosystem, not echo system. These quibbles don’t put me off, they just bug the editor in me.

 

                I admit that I got a bit confused near the end when the action is told from a few different perspectives. Still, I will keep an eye out for this young writer. He has a good sense of humor on display and seems to have his teeth in the right place.

Bugged! By Donald F. Glut

 

Bugged!
By Donald F. Glut
1974 Manor Books
Paperback, 192 pages

 

                To me, Don Glut has always been a true Renaissance Man. Filmmaker, actor, screenwriter, director, musician, and dinosaur expert. It is his comic book writing that first made his name familiar in my life. He wrote for Warren’s seminal horror mags in the early Seventies (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella) as well and countless stories for Gold Key, including creating Dr. Spektor and Tragg, two familiar titles in my house when I was growing up. I was excited to finally catch up with this pulpy horror novel from back in the day, written concurrently with much of his comic work that I’m most familiar with.

 

                Members of a college fraternity show up for their 20-year reunion. The meeting place is one member’s home, deep in the swamp. What could possibly go wrong? Well, first off, one by one, the members get devoured by various insects. Could the member they called “Bugs” be behind the nefarious deed? And if so, just how is he accomplishing this sordid feat?

 

                Glut’s comic book sensibility is on full display here and it works well, pushing along the quick pace of the book. The characters aren’t deep and Glut sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down. You have a mad scientist, his hulking henchman and plenty of victims that deserve their fate. The short novel plays like an old mystery more than anything; it would have fit well into Popular Library’s Frankenstein Horror Series. But never fear… Glut ladles on huge dollops of gore to keep things from reading too antiquated.

 

                Bugged! Is back in print now in both paperback and as an audiobook. It’s a fun way to spend some time relaxing with an old fashioned, good ol’ pulp horror book. It will fit nicely in between the Glut-penned Star Wars novelizations on your bookshelf. Yes- he is a true Renaissance Man.

 

Manor actually gives the cover illustration a credit. It is by Robert Owens. Thank you, Manor.

‘Gator By George Ford

 

‘Gator
By George Ford
1976 Award Books
Paperback, 170 pages

 

                Take a ragtag team of unmatched characters- criminals, moneymen, and a crooked cop, put them in a defunct, deserted motel deep in the Everglades and have them there to receive and then distribute 5 million dollars’ worth of cocaine. Add to the mix one 12-foot alligator who is wounded by one of the men and is very pissed off. What could possibly go wrong?

               

                I must admit that I had a ton of fun with this book. Every one of the characters in it is a complete moron except an innocent cocktail waitress who followed one of the palookas along for kicks. Bad decisions, idiotic moves and really dumb choices abound. Once the big boss and the cocaine arrives, there are almost Rube Goldberg-esque chains of bad events that occur.

 

                The wounded ‘gator doesn’t get as much ink as one might like in this type of story, but he is actually well-written and the only truly sympathetic character in the book. The slimy, buggy swamp is a character unto itself, as well. Except for a Water Moccasin eating a fly on the first page, the reptile science is all pretty cogent, and Ford paints the atmosphere on in thick strokes.

 

                Justin Marriott’s Pulp Horror #8 suggests that George Ford is a one-off nom-de-plume for Paul Fulford. I can’t find any more books under either name that look like they’d be of any interest to me, unfortunately, because this one is a great deal of fun, and I would love to read more like it. Ford/ Fulford must have read a lot of comic books and delivered at least one super-fun paperback.

Satan’s Snowdrop By Guy N. Smith

 

Satan’s Snowdrop
By Guy N. Smith
1980 Pocket Books
Paperback, 256 pages
                                            

                My love of Guy N. Smith is well known. As an addict of nature-strikes-back novels, many of his books are near and dear to my heart. Some of his non-animal books can be hit or miss with me but he always weaves an interesting story. Satan’s Snowdrop is an excellent book by anyone’s standard and there aren’t even any killer crabs in it. It is a hard-core haunted house tale.

 

                A rich American dude buys a picturesque Swiss mansion that had been the stomping ground of a Nazi torturer. Within the walls walk not only the tortured souls of the victims but the very evil that made all of the shit go down. Even moving the house, brick by brick, to America doesn’t quell the spirits. His family falls victim to the house and he finally sells it… to a new buyer who fares no better.

 

                The story is told in two parts, essentially from the viewpoint of two young boys who are forced to live there by their fathers, one after the other. Smith doesn’t blink when it comes to putting children in harm’s way and that is a welcome change from a lot of horror literature. Normally, I’m not into creepy kid novels but when the kids are innocents and the supernatural threatens them, I’m in.

                Satan’s Snowdrop is a haunted house book that works; there are many unnerving passages and Smith toys with the reader, setting up scenes that he knows will mess with you, and he succeeds. This sits in my top-5 of non-animal Guy N. Smith books. For now.

Cat’s Cradle By William W. Johnstone

Cat’s Cradle
By William W. Johnstone
1986 Zebra
Paperback, 412 pages

 

                Oh, William Johnstone, how I hate to love you. But I just can’t help myself! We would never agree on anything in real life but you sure can write an entertaining horror novel.

 

                Every 25 years, a small girl and her cat, born of the same mother (so I guess they are twins), emerge from hiding to devour a few people and get ready to invoke the big guy… Satan. They are awakened early this time, but the murderous rampage begins anew. Their victims age rapidly, mummify, and dead or not, become instruments of evil themselves. Large groups of cats gather to shred the population. One of the mummified arms starts spewing forth millions of huge, flesh-eating maggots. Pools of curdled blood are passageways for the Old Ones, demon minions of the big guy himself. Man, Ruger County is fucked.

 

                As you can see, this is typical Johnstone kitchen-sink storytelling but by god it never gets dull. When the government (The OSS, Office of Special Studies) gets involved and begins a cover-up, it makes things even more difficult for our manly-man cop hero Dan. With so much going on and a lot of characters, many chapters tell the tale with short paragraphs checking in on different situations happening around the county. I kind of liked this, it kept my lazy brain up to date with the turmoil.

 

                This book doesn’t utilize all of Johnstone’s usual tropes. The action takes place in Virginia, rather than Louisiana, and Dan is ex-CIA rather than a Viet Nam vet. Most of the right-wing viewpoints are saved for picking on an intrepid female reporter; one of the OSS crazies is even called a right-wing fanatic for his overt, dangerous patriotism. But Christianity is still big and is called on in hopes of saving the day. Admittedly, I got confused by all of the characters a few times, but you can’t deny Johnstone’s gory, eyeball melting, flesh-shredding madness. If one bonkers horror scene doesn’t tickle your fancy, the next one will. Or the one after that. Richard Newton's lovely cover has nothing to do with the narrative but it might as well!

 

                Oh, and there’s a phone call from Satan. In the days before caller ID, that was possible.

The Accursed By G.S. Burdick

 

The Accursed
By G.S. Burdick
1982 Playboy Press
Paperback, 256 pages

 

                I’d had this book on my shelf for over a decade. One night, I just grabbed it and dug in. Hey, wait… no gore? No lurid sex? No dinosaurs? Am I going to like this? Yes, I did.

                More medical thriller than horror, the story follows a pair of divorced (from each other) plastic surgeons whose high-end clinic is having an unlucky streak. A nurse going ballistic on a patient, unexpected heart failure, the woman half of the team, Dr. Rebecca Meehan, getting assaulted, and more misfortunes befall the clinic. Rebecca thinks they are all related but that couldn’t be! Could it? Her partner, Dr. Nicholas Christoff thinks not, but after a few more incidents, even he starts to wonder.

                I’m not sure who G.S. Burdick is; I can find no information or other books by him/ her. The female characters, like Dr. Meehan and Detective Anita Lopez, are brilliantly written, so I’m leaning towards a woman writer. So many nuances, warts and all, are believably written. The re-budding romance between the estranged doctors is handled delicately and with sensitivity.

                So, the cover. A 3-headed dog. Cerberus. Obviously, that’s why I bought the book. Well, he does figure into the story a little, as does a large helping of other Greek Mythology, but it’s not heavy-handed and Burdick makes it work. Not as much suspension of disbelief is needed as you might think when I mention ancient Gods and their descendants, a Cyclops and good ol’ Cerberus.

                Stepping outside of my comfort zone gave me an excellent read and a palette cleanser between nature-strikes-back novels. But yeah, I bought it for that kick-ass cover. I admit it. No idea who painted it, though.

  Midnight Magazine            

The Sucking Pit By Guy N. Smith

 

The Sucking Pit
By Guy N. Smith
1989 Grafton
Paperback, 158 pages

                Another brisk, non-deadly-animal adventure from the master. When Guy N. Smith said he’d written more books than he read, you’ve just got to believe him. This one, first published in 1975 by New English Library, must have been written after thinking up a suitably exploitable title. And true to form, it’s a pretty satisfying read.

                On a visit to his secluded cabin in the woods, sweet Jenny find her uncle dying. Before his passing, she gets his gypsy black book into her hands and curiously peruses its contents. She tries a potion. Thus ends Jenny’s sweetness, replacing it with an animalistic sexual appetite and murderous intentions. She and the gypsies that live in the woods make life a living hell for the landowner and for the area in general. The sucking pit? It is a quagmire in the woods, an ancient gypsy burial site and a convenient place to dispose of bodies.

                The book is too short to be anything but an exciting page turner. Smith, as always, leaves out any fluff and gets right to the good stuff. To the detriment of the book’s brevity, there is a romance between two people trying to figure out what is going on at the cabin in the woods that blossoms into true love in just a couple of pages, but that can be forgiven. Who has time for building a budding romance in a book called The Sucking Pit?

                This title, Smith’s second horror novel, has had many different releases over the years with a few different covers. The 1989 edition by Grafton, reviewed here, sports a nice Luis Rey cover painting.

                This book sucks. In a good way. Guy N. Smith is a treasure.

 Midnight Magazine

Snow Shark By Brian G. Berry

Snow Shark
By Brian G. Berry
2022 Self-published
Paperback, 199 pages

 

                Peter Cushing was a great actor. No matter what the role, he always took it very seriously. Blood Beast Terror? Silly hokum, but he played it straight.  I bequeath the Peter Cushing Award to Brian G. Berry. Snow Shark could have been played for laughs, but it isn’t. Not that aren’t some intentionally funny parts, but Berry keeps a straight face and the book reads much better for it.

                A secret military project, a mutant, invulnerable shark that thrives on land, in the snow, accidentally drops from its transport near a ski resort. This spells trouble for the packed lodge, including the young family there to celebrate a child’s birthday. A military crew is on hand to try to stop the unstoppable but between the shark and its protective creator, who is part of the crew, it’s not going to be easy. Or possible.

                Berry is known as an “extreme” horror author, and he sure lays the gore on thick. He doesn’t, however, dwell in the nihilism and mean spiritedness that I tend to associate with “extreme” horror. He is having fun and it’s catchy. I was enjoying all of the ways he was describing the pulped human mess that was the aftermath of a shark attack. The snow truly runs red and after a bolt of lightning sets the lodge on fire, there is some wonderful drama… to stay in and fry or take a chance with the shark.

Being self-published, it could have used another run through of editing but nothing was bothersome to me. In the afterword in the book, it is said that this is the first in a series called VHS Trash, stories that would be great 80s movies that went directly to tape. It is exactly that, with a heavy dose of SyFy Channel CGI monster madness. I’m eager to read more in the series as well as Berry’s other work. His storytelling is right in my wheelhouse.

                This book sports a very nice cover by Jorge Iracheta.

Midnight Magazine

The Slob By Aron Beauregard

The Slob
By Aron Beauregard
2019 Maggot Press
Paperback, 128 pages

 

                This book gets a lot of mentions on the Horror Books and Splatterpunks Facebook pages and naturally, that caught my attention. I like to indulge in the extreme stuff and this one was supposed to be way out there. Imagine my delight when I was walking through a local Horror Con and unbeknownst to me, Aron Beauregard was there! I bought a few books from him (and Daniel Volpe), ready to bust my AB cherry. He seemed like such a nice young man.

 

                Having grown up in a squalid setting, Vera became a neat freak, always cleaning to overcome the filth of her childhood. Life hadn’t been easy, but she eventually persevered, married her (disabled) husband and was pregnant with their first child. For extra cash, she became a door-to-door vacuum salesperson and business was booming. In her second trimester, she knew she’d have to give up the job. But just one more day… one more sale…

 

                Then, she rang The Slob’s doorbell. And her life went to hell.

 

                Beauregard is a hell of a good writer, and this book is much more than an extreme horror gross-out. Vera is a fully developed character, flawed (as we all are) and very relatable and I really became attached to her. That is why, halfway through the book, I got the biggest sucker punch in the gut since I read Let’s Go Play at the Adams’. From the point she gets to The Slob’s house till the end of the book, it is pure nightmare.

 

                The Slob is full of horrific violence, various bodily fluids, rape, dismemberment, humiliation, and every sordid action you can (and could never) imagine. Then why do I heartily recommend it? Because it is compelling, very well written and, well yeah… gross as fuck. Not many books make me wake up in the night feeling nervous and lousy, thinking of the protagonist. This one did.

 

                This edition has a lovely cover and interior art by Anton Rosovsky.

 

                And he seemed like a nice young man.

Midnight Magazine