By William W. Johnstone
1994 Zebra
Paperback, 350 pages
There have been a few homicides
of late in La Barca, California and the victims’ faces are missing!
That’s right, their faces have been flayed off and taken. This revolting turn
of events has a somewhat familiar ring to it, so detectives Leo Franks and Lani
Prejean start a cross-country investigation to get to the bottom of it. And how
does it tie in to La Barca’s easy listening radio station?
Johnstone really puts the pedal
to the metal in this one, delivering mind-melting gore and over the top
cruelty, but always keeping his sense of humor intact. The body count is staggering,
and the two detectives do everything they can, legal or not, to get to the
bottom of it. It become clear pretty early on that “The Ripper” is likely more
than one person.
Of course, most of Johnstone’s
usual right-wing bullshit is on display here, in fact, he spouts off more than
usual. Guns are good, heavy metal is evil, the gay community are freaks, and
only God can really be trusted. Whereas that usually adds to the camp charm of
a Johnstone book, it gets to be a little too much in Night Mask. Don’t
get me wrong; denouncing heavy metal as the work of Satan is never not fun but
the gay bashing gets quite irksome.
The scope of the book gets a
little too big after a while, as well, and the cozy little killer-thriller
starts to get a little long in the tooth. The kill-pits and the disenchanted
(heavy-metal) teen followers of The Ripper gets silly. He had a nice little,
gory potboiler going but went and made it too big to truly satisfy. Still, I
enjoyed this book a lot. Huge print, lots of breaks, gallons of blood, mounds
of rotting corpses, and a compelling story (to a point) had me blowing through
this one in just a couple of days. There are more twists and turns than needed
but dig in, check your brain at the door, load your gun and genuflect… you’re
in for a fun ride.