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!

When Darkness Loves Us By Elizabeth Engstrom

When Darkness Loves Us
By Elizabeth Engstrom
1986 Tor Books
Paperback, 249 pages

 

                What an extraordinary book! Writing that flows as smoothly as a gentle stream, weaving tales of angst, horror and heartbreak with such compelling prose that the book is nearly impossible to put down. Iconic sci-fi author Theodore Strugeon, with whom Engstrom took a writing course, provides a forward here where he says he saw her greatness early on. And boy, was he right! The two stories contained in this book are unlike anything else I have ever read and both of them satisfied me one hundred percent.

 

                “When Darkness Loves Us”, the first story, clocks in at around 70 pages but effectively covers a huge timespan. Newlywedded Sally Ann is watching her husband plow the fields and slips down some stairs into a tunnel below the woods, a place where she played as a child. While down there, someone closes and locks the safety doors at ground level, leaving her lost in complete darkness. And she is pregnant. What happens from there is an amazing story of adaptation, loyalty, fear and evolution, all expressed brilliantly within that short page count.

 

                Clocking in at 164 pages, “Beauty Is…” tells the story of Martha, born without a nose, shunned and abused by her father, loved by her mother (a healer) and left mentally challenged after an incident during her childhood. Now an adult living on her own, she is childlike in a small town of people who look out for her. But Martha has a drive and despite her disabilities, she has a will to learn and love and be loved. When young Leon comes by to help fix up her house and stays on, she develops a closeness with him that seems to open up new feelings and lost abilities. But surely that creepy asshole who knows she has some money in the house will louse things up for our protagonist.

 

                I must admit that both stories reeled me in completely and held me tight. I got all of the emotions while in Sally Ann’s and Martha’s bleak worlds. I felt all of their pain and their triumphs, their determination, and plenty of heartbreak. Engstrom is an incredibly effective writer and she pulled me in hook line and sinker. I find her writing in this book right up there with Michael McDowell in her ability to transport me into another place completely. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

 

                Luckily, Valancourt reprinted this book as part of their Paperbacks from Hell line and kept Jill Bauman’s amazing cover from the Tor paperback (which illustrates “Beauty Is…” rather than the titular story). According to the author via her website (http://www.elizabethengstrom.net/), both Spanish and German translations are forthcoming. Muy bueno! Sehr gut!

The Resurrected By Guy N. Smith

The Resurrected
By Guy N. Smith
1991 Grafton
Paperback, 223 pages

                This book is dark. I’ll admit to having squirmed in my seat a few times. At first, I thought it might go a little bit like Johnny Craig’s amazing story “Till Death” in EC Comics’ Vault of Horror #28 (Dec. 1952) which has a somewhat similar set-up but no, GNS takes things into even darker territory.

 

                Merryn is dying of a brain tumor at 28 years old. Wanting to get in as much as possible before her end, she marries her boyfriend Bernie. Together, they face the end with love and commitment. Bernie knows a white witch who can offer no help but an ex-colleague of hers gives him a call and offers an ominous chance. Bernie must take that chance. Enter Richie Howe, another witch. But his magic is far darker than the white witch’s. His work begins right after Merryn dies.

 

                Careful what you wish for, Bernie. Richie sure does bring Merryn back, but she isn’t quite the same woman anymore. She is distant, a little smelly and super horny. If Bernie can’t handle it, Richie can. In fact, Richie becomes quite close to Merryn, and she is his showpiece; a “living” example of his power. Richie’s boss is Old Scratch, and he likes what’s being done but would like a few lives sacrificed in his name as well. What the hell have you done, Bernie?

 

                Bernie had the best intentions but what he got back is a cold, uncaring whisp of an undead wife whose only function seems to be to cause him pain. Merryn is a wonderfully off-putting character. She’s beautiful but slimy, delicate but hard. She is just a pretty vessel full of selfish lust and hatred. Bernie holds out romantic hopes, but he knows it is far too late. GNS plays both sides beautifully. The early pages shows a devoted couple with heartbreak hanging over them and with limited time. Their “after” lives are filled with tension, torture, regret and fear and it all revolves around Richie and his master.

 

                This is absolute top-shelf GNS in my opinion. He could have played it easy and just schlocked away a good idea with cheap, gooey scares, but he makes it much more; a tragic relationship story from hell with enough pathos and both hope and hopelessness mixed in with the sleazy scenarios and demonic doings to really push this one into greatness. Luis Rey’s cover is just beautiful, too, giving this one my highest recommendation.

Incubus By Ray Russell

Incubus

By Ray Russell
1977 Dell
Paperback,251 pages

 

                Ray Russell will always have a place in my heart for writing the story ”Sardonicus” and adapting it for the screenplay to Mr. Sardonicus, William Castle’s 1961 masterpiece. That story first appeared in Playboy where Russell was the fiction editor. Fifteen years later, it seems that Russell may have drawn on some of the more salacious elements of his Playboy gig when he was writing this novel. Incubus is, as the Washington Star reviewed it, “not for the squeamish”.

 

                A series of brutal rape/ murders are terrorizing the small coastal California town of Galen. The victims have been torn apart down yonder, bludgeoned by a massive member and covered with semen. Well, yuck! Police investigations turn up nothing and the local doctor rules out many of his male patients as suspect because he knows they aren’t packing that kind of heat. Only Julian Trask, an anthropologist who is back in town (he was a Galen teacher) to help figure the crimes out, has an inkling as to what is happening. His theory is supernatural and is not taken seriously by most. Until there is no alternative. As in many books of the era, much Scotch is consumed throughout the proceedings.

 

                Sound sleazy? Sound perverted? It is both but Russell’s prose are so polished and readable that it really doesn’t read as lascivious as it sounds. It is a mystery story, trying to figure out just who the incubus might be. The cast of characters are all well fleshed out and while many are not very likeable, they still convey enough emotion that I got invested in them. Many of the adults seem like real prudes (BJs are the devil’s work!) and despite many strong female characters, a story like this can’t help but have a thread of misogyny going through it. The attacks are brutal, gory and disgusting and even locking up all of the women in protective custody (see what I mean?) doesn’t keep out the sexual evil spirit.

 

                In 1981, the book was adapted into a film directed by John Hough. Some key changes were made to the story making it stupid, like the incubus attacking males as well. Kind of makes the whole “male demon raping women to prolong its bloodline” part of being an incubus obsolete. The movie is lame, the book is great (if you have the stomach for it) and I highly recommend it to purveyors of putrid pulp.

Entombed By Guy N. Smith

Entombed
By Guy N. Smith
1986 Arrow Books
Paperback, 191 pages

 

                              

           Arrow, 1986. Art- Les Edwards                                             Dell- 1987. Art-?

                When I was a kid, my mum took me to Howe Caverns, a 150 foot deep hole in the ground in Schoharie County, New York. It is a massive underground cave with a subterranean river and there is a lovely tour that you can take. The rock formations are lit with beautiful colored lights, yet the scenery (and cool air) can feel a bit sinister. I loved it so much, I took my own kid there when she was 10 or 11. With that, I think I might have gotten a little more out of Entombed than I might have had I never been that far underground.

 

                Priest Simon Rankin has been questioning his faith after a failed exorcism. To clear his mind, he packs up with his girlfriend Andrea and heads to Cwmgilla in Wales. The town’s claim to fame is a retired slate mine that has been opened as a show cave, taking tourists down into the caverns for tours. Rankin wasn’t keen on taking the trip down but acquiesces to Andrea’s suggestion. While down there, he senses an evil presence, and it all goes to hell (quite literally!) from there. His faith, whether or not he knew it, is enough to shake up the evil in town.

 

                A kid wanders off and disappears in the mine. Workers going to look for him have the roof cave in and trap them. Mysterious children’s voices, visions, and Satanism all rear their evil heads. Andrea is demonically raped and possessed and Rankin’s faith had better be damn strong to fight the kind of nastiness that now runs rampant in Cwmgilla! The power to the mine is gone so nobody gets in or out unless you happen to know a spelunker. Luckily, Rankin does.

 

                Obviously, the claustrophobia is massive in this book. The scenes in the mine, with its uncharted depth and underground lakes is a labyrinth of dark, airless fear. There are many chilling moments of anxiety and agitation. That said, at about the three-quarter mark, the narrative started to slow a bit for me. But I never doubted that GNS would pick it back up and, holy shit, he sure did! The prose approaching the climax is amazing, especially when the Satanist group is gorging on the blood of a sacrificial victim. “Like maggots in a jar, a grotesque entwinement of all that was vile.” It doesn’t get much better than that.

 

                Obviously, if you have read the Sabat books, some of this might sound familiar. Rankin seems to be a tryout for Mark Sabat, whose first book came next from GNS. (The first publication of this one was from Hamlyn in 1982.) Both are ex-priests and exorcists, there is a violated church, a body exhumed for Satanic reasons and other similarities. Overall, Rankin is a more likeable hero than Sabat. As much as we all love our Hamlyn Horrors, hold out for any of the Arrow reprints to relish the amazing Les Edwards cover.

The City By Richard Haigh

The City
By Richard Haigh
1986 Grafton
Paperback, 191 pages

                The City is the second in Richard Haigh’s (Laurence James’) proposed trilogy of killer pig novels. The first chapter here even refers to the trilogy! Unfortunately, that third book never came out. This first sequel to 1984’s The Farm brings back the Buckland Whites, the breed of killer pigs that were, along with scores of other animals, chemically altered in the first book. The set-up is absolutely amazing.

 

                Britain’s biggest ever agricultural fair is being held at Wembley Stadium. Farm equipment, livestock; everything you would need to have the farm of your dreams under one roof. Including thirty Buckland Whites, “the killer pigs from Hobbs Farm in Wales” as a chief attraction. Fun for the whole family. As expected, an animal rights group ANL (Animals Need Life) plan to disrupt the show with demonstrations and the freeing of the caged animals.

 

                Our hero, TV journalist Jill Wallace is pretty bored with her assignment to cover this dull show but she’s there anyway and cover it she will. Also in the building is a model super-modern farm home with all the bells and whistles, including a family living in it for the duration of the event, a children’s TV show broadcasting live, a surly, racist guard who isn’t afraid to kill, an SAS unit of the army on premises, food vendors (lots of bacon) and, of course, the demonstrators. James really ratchets up the wait, giving you many characters that you need to see become pig chow and holds off for two-thirds of the book until you’re ready to burst.

 

                Then, he hits you with it. Hard.

 

                I haven’t read this much of a book aloud to my wife in my excitement in a long time. You see, Laurence James is an excellent writer, and his bloodletting can be downright poetic. This next passage is worth the cost of this rather hard-to-find, expensive paperback, as the wife in the model home is about to meet her maker… “Her last coherent thought, before she became preoccupied with the mystery of her own dying, was how very loud the crumpling bones of her skull seemed to sound.” Goddamn, that’s good. This book is far less mean-spirited and has less graphic sex than the first one but it too is a corker.

 

                While we enjoy reprints of the first two killer pig novels, (The Farm reprint was released in Spring 2026 by Valancourt Books!), we can dream about what James had in mind for the third book. The ending of The City is a cliffhanger set up for it, but apparently it was never written. James died in 2000. Perhaps, one day, the manuscript for The Continent or something will be found in a drawer and the killer pigs will return. Until then, get and enjoy the first two. Essential reading.

 

                An amazing full view of Les Edwards’ cropped cover painting for this book can be seen in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell (Quirk, 2017). (Update 2: The full cover is also on Carboard Coffin Press’s upcoming release of The City!!!!!!)

Night of the Living Dead By John Russo

Night of the Living Dead
By John Russo
Based on the screenplay by George Romero and John Russo
1974 Warner
Paperback, 191 pages 

                                    

                          Warner Books 1974                                                                            Pocket Books 1981 

                I remember seeing this book listed in the back of Famous Monsters and The Monster Times and lusting after it but I never nabbed a copy until 1981 when I found the Pocket Books reprint at Gary Drug on Charles Street in Boston. Unfortunately, it had the less effective shiny silver cover, not the grabbing hands. I still have that book but I never read it. I recently found the original 1974 Warner book at a reasonable price and acquired it and finally read it. Now, I’m not going to go into the plot because everybody has seen the film dozens of times and know it by heart. I will, however,  mention a few things about the novelization that I liked and some that I was disappointed by.

 

First off, Russo gets to add plenty of things to flesh out some characters. Ben has two kids, for instance, making his quest for survival that much more tense. In the opening graveyard scene, the ghoul eats Johnny’s face. I like that. There is a lot more action from Sherriff McClellan and his posse, which is great because he is a highlight of the film. Sadly, Russo didn’t include any of George Kosana’s improvs from the film as they are some of my favorite lines (“Beat ‘em or burn ‘em, they go up pretty easy.” “Yeah, they’re dead, they’re… all messed up.”). He seemed to be working pretty much from the script and that produced some inferior results in some instances.

 

The main thing that bothered me was Ben’s dialog. In the script phase, they had no idea that they’d land  such an intelligent and refined actor as Duane Jones, so the Ben character is a bit rough around the edges, saying “I ain’t going to hurt you.” and “They ain’t that strong.“ which made me bristle a bit. It was hard picturing Duane Jones speaking like that. Also, Judy, who wasn’t in the original script, is glossed over, not even getting the lines she gets in the film.

 

It is a fun read, for sure, with plenty of gore (decapitations are a must in the book) and action but this has been a favorite film for most of my life and, like so many horror fans, I know almost every line and every camera set-up by heart. Is there really a need to read this? No, not really and in the end, it really just made me want revisit the movie again. So I did. It is perfection.

 

Incidentally, there are credits for the Warner cover. Cover design by Gene Light and cover photo by Paul Weller. (Must have been a photographer before forming The Jam! I kid, I kid!) There are 16 pages of photos from the film, as well.

The Wolfen By Whitley Strieber

The Wolfen
By Whitley Strieber
1979 Bantam Books
Paperback, 275 pages

                This is another one of those classic horror books that I’ve seen the movie of, but I never got around to reading. I took the bait recently when I found two different copies in thrift stores. I bought them both, if only to assure myself that I had to read it. Well, I did and I’m glad. It is pretty great.

 

                Two cops are found mutilated in a remote autobody yard in New York. The city’s finest homicide detectives are put on the case; George Wilson, an older, slovenly, misogynistic, racist curmudgeon who makes up for his lack of social skills with a keen detective’s eye, and Becky Neff, a young but proven cop. This odd couple has the unenvious job of trying to figure out who or what killed these two. The bodies look eaten. There are paw prints. Dogs? Could there have been wolves? Werewolves?

 

                The bodies keep piling up and the duo are starting to lean towards the latter, even though they know such things don’t exist. But something is out there, and they are as smart as man, stealthy and incredibly fast. Ferguson, a doctor at the Museum of Natural History is starting to believe them. He has extrapolated what they might look like from a plaster cast of a pawprint. The Medical Examiner is also on board. But how could it be?

 

                Strieber’s werewolf history works for me here. These canids have been around for a long time and yes, the werewolf legends probably derived from them. But they are so stealthy, and they cover their tracks so well that they have gone almost unnoticed for thousands of years. Passages of the book are told from the Wolfen’s point of view, so we understand a lot about their intelligence and the laws of the pack. I buy it implicitly. This species is so smart, they think of wolves as vacant and dumb. And they know that they have to find and remove the two detectives who could reveal their secret.

 

                Everybody has an opinion on older books and this one gets slammed for being misogynistic. Yes, Wilson certainly is. He’s an old-fashioned dope, but Neff is such a strong and capable character that to me, she erases any negativity that the reader might (incorrectly) surmise. In fact, not mentioned in any of the dozens of online reviews that I compared my own thoughts to, is that Wilson and Neff’s relationship changes and corresponds with that of the leaders of the Wolfen pack that is terrorizing New York. (Though Wilson’s revelation of his romantic love for his partner is unneeded.)

 

                The book blows the movie away. The movie could never touch on the inner working of the Wolfen mind, nor could it have survived with the police procedural layout of the book. The film (Michael Wadleigh, 1981) added in extraneous bullshit that takes the souls of the Wolfen away, and that’s one of the book’s most relevant aspects. Good movie, excellent book.

Kingdom of the Spiders By Bernhardt J. Hurwood

Kingdom of the Spiders
By Bernhardt J. Hurwood
Based on the screen story by Jeffrey M. Sneller and Stephen Lodge
1977 Ace Books
Paperback, 180 pages

                Since I adore nature-strikes-back books and movies, I figured I’d better just stick to the novel of this one since I’ve heard that real spiders get injured and squished in the movie. Thousands of Mexican Red-knees were brought to the production and they were not taken care of. I will not watch that. But I do want to read about spiders killing humans, so I grabbed the novelization. I got more- and less than I bargained for with this book. The writing is absolutely abysmal, which caused a few bristling moments but quite a few moments of mirth as well.

 

                Camp Verde, Arizona is readying itself for an upcoming County Fair and the living is easy. Except that a few farm animals have turned up dead. Local veterinarian Rack Hanson and entomologist (rather than arachnologist) Dianne Ashley are on the case and they discover they are dealing with spider bites that are five times more venomous than usual. As the spider population grows, the human population dwindles and the entire town is in danger of becoming tarantula meat. The spiders are hunting in packs (not typical behavior) and are intent on decimating the town. There’s really not much more to the story than this.

 

                OK, first off, Hurwood repeatedly says that the spiders stand there “waving their antennae”, a body part that spiders do not have. Then again, he calls them insects a few times, too, which is also incorrect. It’s hard to know if this gaffe came from the original script by Sneller and Lodge or if it is Hurwood’s non-research. Also, Rack (whose nickname is explained) is played by William Shatner in the film and it reads as though the part must have been written for him. There’s no way to read the character of this bullshit-macho, womanizing letch with a heart of gold in any voice other than Shatner’s. At least he has some sort of characterization; nobody else does.

 

                So, it turns out that I’ve read another Hurwood masterpiece, the cat-horror of Claws written under the pseudonym of D. Gunther Wilde. I enjoyed that one a lot more but this one has its moments, even though Hurwood’s descriptions of the spiders rarely get any more ambitious than “ugly”. The writing is very lazy, perhaps because the author’s scary stories are more suited to children’s books and he isn’t used to flexing his horror muscles. At any rate, this book is pretty crappy but it’s easy to blow through (then forget) in a day or two. There are 16 pages of photos from the movie in the book.

Pitfall By Ronald Kelly

Pitfall
By Ronald Kelly
1990 Zebra Books
Paperback, 320 pages

 

                Don’t be fooled by the lackluster cover. (Whut up, Zebra?) This is a top-shelf animal attack book full of characters that really need to be murdered in the most ghastly ways possible! When a dog-fighting ring is broken up, the lowlife scum that run it go to Mexico to purchase some “pit-devils”, ferocious little killing machines, to bring back to the USA and breed for fights. What could possibly go wrong?

 

                Sulphur Springs, Texas has a whole lot of shitheads for such a small town. Number one asshat is the sheriff who is a letch, a racist, and a potential pedophile. The main pit-devil keeper is a wife- beating drunk with no redeeming qualities. There are a handful of decent folks, however. Bowie Kane, a native American, gets a lot of heat from the small-minded citizens. But not from Lynn Sykes, mother of two, who feels bad for Bowie. Their platonic friendship is, of course, very misunderstood, especially by Lynn’s husband.

 

                Naturally, the pit-devils cannot be contained. What are they? Well, technically, they’re Tasmanian Devils, but Bowie suspects they are more than that, thanks to a fragment of undeciphered Indian parchment. Was this whole thing foretold? Forget anything you might know about Tasmanian Devils. These guys chew through leather, steel, skin and bone and are all but indestructible. The gore flows heavily and with so many shitty people to eat, it’s hard not to cheer for the devils. One thing they don’t eat: eyeballs. Leftover eyeballs sitting in bloody skulls are used a few times to good effect for corpse ID.

 

                This is Ronald Kelly’s second novel, and I give it a huge recommendation. His deep South leanings are on full display here, and you can practically taste the dusty land in and around Sulphur Springs. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of animal violence in this, as you might expect. The devils are hard to kill but with enough firepower, they can be exploded into mush. Snake collecting and skinning is in there too. It is a sad fact in the real world.

 

                That said, my very favorite part of the book is the opening of Chapter 18, when Lynn’s young daughter Becky is off searching for her missing puppy… “Ruffles! Here, girl! Here, Ruffles!” I literally laughed out loud.

 

                Pitfall was finally reprinted by Macabre Ink in 2023 with a much better cover and a bonus short story, “Last of the Chupacabra”. Since the Zebra original is getting a bit pricey, this is a good way to go.

Mania By Guy N. Smith

Mania
By Guy N. Smith
1988 Sphere Books
Paperback, 234 pages

 

                Another excellent book from the Great Scribbler with another excellent cover by Les Edwards. You just can’t go wrong with that potent combination.

 

                Suzannah Mitchell and her 14 year old daughter Rose are caught in a massive blizzard and have to abandon their car and seek shelter. They wind up at the Donnington Country House Hotel, formerly the Donnington Nursing Home, which was a looney bin, a head farm. The thing is, since the name change, the clientele has remained pretty much the same. Suzannah and Rose feel very uncomfortable the moment they step inside and with good reason. There are loonies living in and running the hotel. Luckily for the Mitchells, Owain Pugh, a young man who is also stranded in the storm, shows up seeking shelter as well.

 

                The cast of characters is the best part of this book. You get a drunk, a flasher/ religious zealot, a chronic masterbator, and a pregnant virgin, among other eccentric and potentially dangerous tenants. The pregnant girl is of the most interest as she is either carrying either the second coming of Christ or the Devil’s spawn. Evil things are afoot in the hotel. A shadow of a beastly hand crawls across the ceiling and warnings of Satan’s presence are proof of that evil. But is there real evil in the hotel or is it just the collective madness of the unfortunate people who call the hotel home, the power of suggestion? And that is the crux of this story to me; is it real or is it craziness?

 

                GNS is ever the romanticist. Once again, he has Suzannah and Owain developing feelings for each other in record time. It works here because it gives them some sort of motivation. You see, with all of the wonderfully wacky hotel inmates, the two leads are pretty dry characters. They hope to save Rose from being a pawn in the plans of the bad guys, like anyone would, but offer little color to the proceedings. The story works much better for this. Also, despite being fourteen, I was reading Rose as much younger.

 

                Top shelf GNS right here; fun, fast paced, ambiguous and nerve-wracking. As an added bonus, one character is a picky book collector and has received a shipment from Black Hill Books, Guy’s own real-life mail-order book business at the time, and mentions that “the bloke was bleating for his cheque”. I always appreciate a little in-joke to lighten the proceedings.

Labyrinth By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb

Labyrinth
By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb
1979 Hamlyn
Paperback, 239 pages

 

                You know that I love me some Hamlyn Horrors! I’ll grab any one that I can find at a reasonable price. This one was unknown to me when I stumbled across it and I couldn’t resist a nice swampy horror. I didn’t really get that with this book but it had a lot more to offer, for better or worse, than a hackneyed ol’ swamp monster.

 

                Tom Davison is taking his University students on a field trip into the Okefenokee. While on the trip, one of his male students, Kirby, is taking core samples and comes up with a couple of Confederate coins (the origin of which is in the prologue) while a female student, Helen Garson,  unsuccessfully throws herself at the teacher.  After the trip, Davison takes the coins to be appraised in Miami and hears about their history and their worth. Upon returning to the University, he learns that Helen had told her father, a rich local businessman, and the authorities that Davison had assaulted her. Good time to head back to the swamp. End of part one.

 

                In part two, we learn more about Helen’s father, how he got rich and the unsavory ways he runs his business. Conveniently, the coin appraiser also deals in illegal migrant workers which Mr. Garson has been hiring and the gig is up. Garson’s top man is also a ruthless killer.  After snuffing the old man while Helen watches, things get crazy. With a heavy heart full of regret, Helen heads out to find Davison in the swamp. Kirby and a friend head to the swamp to find Davison while the gay killer and his gay henchmen head in to find Helen. The swamp is going to be hoppin’.

 

                There is a lot of good stuff in this book. The killer is particularly ruthless and Davison’s reptile knowledge is scientifically accurate. We get lots of native fauna behaving correctly which is a welcome change from a lot of books of the era. And how can you not love a book that goes into great detail about rare coins? But making the bad guys all homosexuals seems like a pretty broad stroke of prejudice. It turns out that Mackenzie-Lamb’s real-life father (explorer and botanist Elke, formerly Ivan, Mackenzie) transitioned in 1971 so I guess the author was still working out some acceptance problems. Women don’t fare a lot better though what Helen lacks in brains, she makes up for with balls.

 

                This is Mackenzie-Lamb’s only novel and it is a fast paced thriller with good points and despite its flaws, I’d have to recommend it for Hamlyn fans. It’s more of an adventure/ crime narrative than a horror, but it should satisfy your bloodthirsty needs.

Feast By Graham Masterton

Feast
By Graham Masterton
1988 Pinnacle Books
Paperback, 448 pages

                Graham Masterton’s cannibal classic has a lot of fans and a lot of detractors. I consider myself a fan, though with some reservations. Masterton is, of course, an excellent writer and storyteller and keeps the narrative flowing forward at a decent tempo. There are portions of the book, however, that slow down a bit and feel like padding, especially in the middle. Some pacing problems and repetition (and dozens of annoying typos in the Pinnacle edition) get in the way of this being a perfectly enjoyable experience. And I say that with the main character being kind of a dickhead. He wasn’t a problem for me.

 

                Charlie McLean (the dickhead) is a traveling restaurant critic going through small town Connecticut with his estranged son, 15 year old Martin, trying to spend some “get to know you” time together. Charlie learns of a secret dining club called Le Reposoir and desperately wants to get into it. All of his attempts are squashed and eventually, he gives up. Until his son goes missing and he learns that Martin has joined a cult, the Célèstines (at Le Reposoir), one that believes that the way to Jesus and spirituality is self-cannibalism. The cult is well-protected legally, as the “victims” are willing participants and there is little that Charlie can do. His attempts to “rescue” Martin get him nothing but trouble. With Journalist/ instant love interest Robyn in tow, he heads to New Orleans to the Célèstines headquarters to try a different way to gain access to his son.

 

                For me, the book got a little overlong while still in Connecticut and as the story became a road trip, but once they reached the Big Easy, things really started to pick up. Charlie’s effort to join the cult by practicing their ways is an unforgettable scene that even had me squirming and the sights and sounds of the New Orleans complex are horrifying yet shown with a spirituality and calmness that makes it feel twice as bad. You see, the Célèstines think that with Martin’s offering, they will bring about the Second Coming and nothing will stop them from making this come to pass, especially not Charlie’s harassment.

 

                So we have a great story by an excellent author but perhaps the scope is too big, dragging things down a bit. There are also a lot of convenient characters in on the whole plot to capture Martin that in retrospect were very much in the right place at the right time. Still, my suspension of disbelief is very strong so I just went with the flow. While the book could have lost 100 pages and should have had an actual proof-reader, I still enjoyed this and will hold it in high regard. Bob Larkin’s step-back cover art is a thing of rare beauty and that alone is worth the high price tag that Feast often commands. That the story is good, all quibbles aside, is icing on the cake.

    In 1989, Sphere released the title as Ritual with a less exciting (but still cool) step-back cover.