Moonbog By Rick Hautala

Moonbog
By Rick Hautala
1982 Zebra
Paperback, 410 pages

 

                Rick Hautala (1949-2013) was one of the more ubiquitous names on the Zebra roster in the 1980s, but this is the first time I settled down to read his work. No question about it; he is a very good writer, and he tells a compelling story. He manages to go from a setting like a Pepperidge Farm commercial to a violent rape/ murder without really changing tone. Not easy to do, but does that make this a great novel?

 

                New York yuppie David Logan goes back to his hometown of Holland, Maine to settle his family’s estate. He brings along his ever-complaining girlfriend Allison and leaves her in the motel room while he revisits his past. Chief among his memories is the Bog, a huge, dangerous swamp that always had scary stories and tall tales told about it in his youth. It looks no more friendly to him as an adult. Especially when he finds a mutilated dead kid in there with his pecker cut off.

 

                The bog had been blamed for a few missing kids the year before, as well. Then more kids go missing and search parties scour the bog. It seems that Holland has a child killer who is sexually assaulting his victims as well. Can the old sheriff find the perpetrator? Can David be of any help or is he a suspect? David’s Uncle Marshall sure is an odd duck. We, the reader, learn halfway through who is responsible and only then does the real cat and mouse game begin.

 

                The book does feel a bit padded to me, with characters and situations that really add nothing when all is said and done, but I guess that’s fine while trying to keep the secret of the killer’s identity. And I’m sure that having all of the town’s kids have cutesy “ee” names (Bobby, Sammy, Jeffy, Robbie, etc.) is to add to the horror of the brutality when it appears. From loving family values and treacly small-town values to disharmony to violent assault, torture and murder, Hautala manages to keep you from getting whiplash with his deft writing skills.

 

                True to form, Zebra’s cover art and back cover blurb have nothing to do with the actual story inside. If you think you’re getting a supernatural Bog Beast, you are wrong, but that shouldn’t reflect on your opinion of the book. Moonbog goes by quickly and is a satisfying read even if you can’t stand any of the characters and the children’s dialog makes you ill. My first impression of Hautala is not entirely horrible.

Shadow Child By Joseph A. Citro

Shadow Child
By Joseph A. Citro
1987 Zebra
Paperback, 366 pages

                You really never know what you’ll get with an old Zebra paperback. The title and the blurb on the back make it sound like a typical creepy-kid Zebra novel and the cover (by David Mann) makes it look like a creepy clown story. It isn’t either. There is a kid in it (who has a clown-with-balloons nightlight… that’s it) but the kid is really just a catalyst, a plot point to make the evil more evil. As I dug in, it appeared that there would be whimsical “little people” in it and I became wary again. I decided to just shut up and read and I was rewarded with a well-written book that actually gave me a few tingles along my spine.

 

                Suffering from the death of his wife, Eric Nolan accepts an invitation from his cousin Pamela Whitcome to join her and her family at their grandfather’s former house, now owned by Pamela and her husband Clint. The cousins, Clint, and Luke, the kid, all get on very well, even though this is the place where Eric’s brother disappeared all those years ago. Well, a few more disappearances occur, a few deaths and they have all happened since Eric showed up. A historian becomes interested in a stone “root cellar” on the Whitcome property, which also sparks Eric’s interest in the local folklore. Too bad the historian becomes one of the missing. Then Clint thinks he shoots a kid up on the hill and soon he is among the missing. Just what the hell is going on?

 

                This is an excellent folk-horror novel that manages to keep the pages turning, even during slower passages, with a town populated with excellent, full-blooded characters and a sense of impending dread that never lets up until it fully explodes. These stone cairns are littered throughout the Vermont mountains in real life, so that lends an extra layer of creepiness to the tale. While one’s suspension of disbelief has to be turned up to eleven in the third act, Citro’s prose is good enough to make that not so difficult. His “monsters” are pure badassed evil and will do everything to keep their secret. You get some suspense, some gore and plenty of secluded hopelessness.

 

                One gripe, for me, was the character of Pamela. While all of the men in town had full-blown storylines and dimension, Pamela was merely there to be a wife and mother, plan meals and read Redbook. When Clint is missing, she becomes a possible “will they or wont they” incestuous partner with Eric, or am I the only one that thought that? At least local historian Elizabeth McKensie, a wheelchair bound elderly woman, gets to use her brain to help out the troubled family.

 

                Better than a lot of Zebra releases, I have no problem recommending this one, warts and all. Citro is a good writer and I will look for more of his stuff. (I have no idea how I came into possession of this one!) A sequel, Guardian Angels, came out a year later, also from Zebra. I have that one, too but again, I know not from where it came. Maybe the little people dropped them off.

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!

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.

Night Mask By William W. Johnstone

Night Mask
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.

 

               

The Asylum By John Edward Ames

The Asylum
By John Edward Ames
1994 Zebra
Paperback, 303 pages

 

                This one was pretty tough for me to make it through, but I did.

 

                Stereotype detective Reno Sloan (streeee-rike one!) finds himself and his endless annoying quipping embroiled in bizarre plot where teenagers in New Orleans are suddenly losing their minds and winding up in the Cypress Island Clinic, where they receive treatment and a cure. One patient, with psychic abilities, commits a gruesome suicide and her sister (with whom she can communicate, even post-death) hires the detective to get some answers.

 

                It seems the CIC has more to it than meets the eye. The top dog, Dr. Malachi Feldman (I’m not making that up) has created a new drug that will make the user hallucinate and go nutzoid. What better way to fill the clinic than to get the topical drug on to rich families’ teenagers and “cure” them by just keeping them there. His two cartoon-character henchmen infect the kids, and they sit back and wait. Just got to watch out for those pesky psychic kids. There may be more than one.

 

                OK, the premise here is all right and the improbable ending had some excitement to it but overall, if you don’t like Reno (and really, how could you?), you won’t enjoy the book. He is such a caricature, straight out of a 40s dime detective novel. He gets all the women, even though he disrespects them left and right, and every other character in the book is a paper-thin, cookie-cutter person, merely there for Sloan to play off. Some plot twists fail because it gets hard to remember who is who among the lesser players.

 

                Ames obviously sat at his typewriter with a street map of New Orleans (his home at the time) and traced a line around the city and then just gave directions as our hero Reno stalked the city in his dilapidated car. He mentions most of the obvious spots. (I was waiting for Reno to grab a beignet at Café du Monde, but Ames skipped that landmark.) Ames has a few other horror novels to his credit, but he is mostly known for Western Fiction. I do have one of his other horrors in my huge TBR pile, but I’m not hurrying to read it. And I’m not keeping The Asylum.

Water Rites By Guy N. Smith

Water Rites
By Guy N. Smith
1997 Zebra Books
Paperback, 253 pages

 

                This is the last of the Great Scribbler’s horror novels to be released by a major publisher. It is the fourth book from US company Zebra and represents a far more mature writer in Smith than you might be used to if you have only dipped a claw into his early Crabs books. In Paperback Parade #43 (Aug. 1995), Guy announced this then-forthcoming book as The Water Witches.

 

                Phil Quiles hated his job. He tended the underground reservoir in Hopwas. His boss was a dick, his future was in doubt and frankly, his place of work scared him. He was sure something was hiding below the dark surface of the water, watching him. Turns out, he was right. Meanwhile, a nutcase who thinks he met the Queen of the People of the Water as a child, prepares for the flooding of the world as foretold by the Queen. He gathers as many followers as possible that would believe him (or at least pretend they do) to become the chosen few to survive the floods and adapt to an underwater life.

 

                But that’s all just a fantasy. Isn’t it?

 

                This one moves along at a brisk pace and is filled with characters that you will hate, some that you’ll feel sorry for, and some that go through such changes (both mentally and physically) that you will cheer them on. Poor Phil is a real schlub, but his fears are justified, and I could kind of relate to his employee/ boss dynamic. You’d love to quit, but you can’t so you just stand there and take the abuse. Another great character is the shrewish, domineering Jocelyn who lords over her family and even fucks with Phil, too. And let’s not forget Mukasa…

 

                For a story that is essentially about mermaids, el maestro manages to serve up a great deal of creepy atmosphere and chills. No, nobody has a gory demise at the claws of a giant crab, but that reservoir does manage to raise a few hackles and the Quiles family’s plight packs an emotional punch, even though both parents seem a bit dumb compared to their kid.

 

                This one is definitely worth a look and the Richard Newton artwork on the cover is worth the price of purchase alone.

Dew Claws By Stephen Gresham

Dew Claws
By Stephen Gresham
1986 Zebra
Paperback, 335 pages

    Let’s face it. I wanted this book for the cover. Even though my copy is tattered, a skeleton playing a banjo and wearing a to-the-side baseball cap is a fantastic and hilarious image. Thank you, Zebra. Thank you, artist (William Teason?). But will the book be any good?

    I admit that I almost didn’t make it at first. The lead character is a young boy named Johnny Ray. Strike one. Then, there is a lot of spelled out, thick Southern dialect. I don’t like trying to figure out what is being said. But at about 100 pages in, I realized that I was enjoying the book for what it is… a very well-written, quiet slice of folk horror.

    The afore-mentioned Johnny Ray is out in Night Horse Swamp with his uncle and brothers when everybody except JR gets sucked into the muck and disappear. Soon, he is being fostered by a couple (the Merseys) who operate a daycare, and they become a family. But behind the Mersey’s home lie some thick woods and the swamp. Johnny Ray and some of the other workers have seen things. Spirits, barely visible, and they want the children. JR (as Sam Mercy calls him, and so shall I) has seen his brothers among those cantankerous spirits. They are the Dew Claws, and they are to be feared.

    Gresham works up a nice story of the Dew Claws and lays the Southern Gothic atmosphere on thick. Most of the spelled-out dialect stops, except for the maid Melba, who is very difficult to decipher for my old, addled brain. If I’m being honest, the way the African Americans are depicted made me a little bit uncomfortable but there are some very likeable black characters, so I guess it’s all good. As JR starts to develop a Dew Claw of his own, he sets out seeking a cure and meets a slew of oddball characters who may or may not be able to help. The Chokers are a particular delight as they have an Eastern Indigo snake as a beloved family member named Day Lou. (There is, however, quite a lot of hunting and frog gigging that I could have done without. But I guess that’s a part of swamp living.)

    Not exactly in my wheelhouse of blood and guts or animals killing humans novels, but I’m glad I stuck with this one after all. What does that great cover have to do with anything? Not much. JR plays a banjo and wears a cap sometimes. Good enough for me.

Toy Cemetery By William W. Johnstone

Toy Cemetery
By William W. Johnstone
1987 Zebra
Paperback, 412 pages

 
    Old Scratch is running rampant in a small town in the South and it’s up to a rough and tumble Viet Nam vet to stop the madness! It sounds like every other William W. Johnstone book doesn’t it? But wait, there is much more. So much more that I really have no idea where to begin. This is top shelf Johnstone kitchen-sink madness.

    New York divorcé Jay Clute (the war veteran) has inherited his aunt’s fortune down in Victory, Missouri and he and his 10-year-old daughter Kelly take a trip down to his hometown to settle his affairs. As memories flood him, the two notice lots of strange things going on, not the least of which is little dolls running around. They stay in town, meet up with Jay’s old friends and Kelly meets some local kids. But there is an evil grip on the town that has everyone acting strangely and weird creatures skulk in the shadows.

    I’ll let Deva, Jay’s high school sweetheart, and her sarcastic retort to Jay’s suggestion that it must be an explainable phenomenon reveal some of the weirdness… “Grown men and women are thrust into near-incestuous relationships with their kids; creatures roam the night; toys come alive; and the personalities of nearly everyone in town have been altered. Explainable phenomenon. Sure, Jay.” All this and more and yes, Johnstone goes there with a lot of incest, rape and pedophilia in this one.

    Truthfully, this is so chock-full of strangeness that it gets confusing but it’s all good because the gore splats freely and despite the cringey mean-spiritedness of some parts, there is no shortage of intentional humor. My favorite character is old man Milton, Jay’s next-door neighbor who rocks in his rocker, cheerfully calling Jay and his crew assholes every time he sees them. There is an explanation for everything, and it slowly unfolds during the course of this overstuffed tome but don’t worry about logic; this is Johnstone at the peak of his batshit craziness. Just go along for the ride and try to picture the author tapping away at the typewriter, chopping out this stream-of-consciousness prose, wondering himself where it’s all going to end up.

    Johnstone will never be mistaken for a great writer, but his work is fun as hell and this one is as over the top as it gets. And even though good ol’ God is mentioned a number of times, he doesn’t play a huge role in this novel. Thank Him for that!

Cat’s Eye By William W. Johnstone

Cat’s Eye
By William W. Johnstone
1989 Zebra
Paperback, 397 pages

                                                   

    Anya and Pet are back! The huge maggots are back! The Old Ones are back! God and his old buddy Satan are back! William Johnstone strikes again with this, his sequel to Cat’s Cradle. Fasten your seatbelts, you’re in for another ridiculous ride.

    The events that happened in Ruger County, Virginia have not been forgotten so when shit starts going down a few counties over, in the town of Butler, it all had a familiar ring. Carl Garret, the bodyguard to Dee, a writer, also happens to be a self-proclaimed coven-buster. He is a one-man Satan-stopping dynamo, and he recruits police and townsfolk (that have not yet been turned into satanists) to fight for good.

    This book isn’t quite as wacky as the preceding one, but it is pretty nuts. I thought for a moment that we’d actually have a strong female character in a Johnstone novel, but Dee turned out to be really good at making coffee and being protected by Carl. Yes, somehow, the bodyguard runs the whole show because he was familiar with the happenings in the previous book, and he has a chip on his shoulder because he’d lost his father there. But we still have the flesh-eating maggots, possessed cats, rape, living severed heads, people turned into unrecognizable demons and all sorts of evil shit.

    One thing that makes this sequel a little bit of an eye-roller is the mentioning of God on every other page. Yes, I realize this is a good versus evil tale and it’s God versus Satan, but the Christianity is pretty heavy handed. Carl even cries “God, guns and guts!” as the means to beat the devil. That’s just fucking silly. Lots of things, including… wait for it… heavy metal music (!) are signs that one is turning to Satan. And, once again, there are so many characters that I got lost a few times, wondering just who I was reading about at the time. This entry wasn’t nearly as well laid out as the first one, and Anya and Pet are mere bit players here.

    If you dare to delve into the wild world of William W. Johnstone and this sounds like it would tickle your fancy, I suggest you read Cat’s Cradle first as this book refers to that one’s story frequently. By the way, that wonderful, embossed cover image (art by Richard Newton) has nothing to do with the story. That’s unfortunate, but…

    … you do get Satan farting.

Junkyard By Barry Porter

Junkyard
By Barry Porter
1989 Zebra Books
Paperback, 284 pages

    At first, I didn’t think I was going to like this book. The main characters are four teenage boys (not my favorite creatures), and the author was giving them very detailed back stories. I was saying to myself, “get to the horror part!” Then, a side-character got a full backstory and after rolling my eyes, my distress turned to joy. Everything was shaping up nicely after all.

    Four pre-teens built a huge clubhouse/ hideout in the local junkyard. Now, four years on, as their lives and interests are changing, the Pit, as they call it, is pretty much only used by Larry and Mark to watch porn and drink beer. Now one of them, Nick, has asked to use it on Friday night for his date. He wants to lose his virginity to Pauline. The fourth Pit member, Ray, has a long-time crush on Pauline and hates that plan. Larry wants to make a peephole in the Pit to watch live porn.

    Meanwhile, the junkyard owner knows there is something big and hungry on his property; he lost three Dobermans to something savage in there. Larry has an encounter one night, as well. Will the gang believe him? Deputy Gavel would. He’s been leaving the remains of his pedo-sexual murders for the beasts to eat for a while now! All of the characters plan to be in the yard on Friday night. Larry and Mark want to spy on Nick and Pauline, Ray wants to find and slay the monsters to prove his manhood, the owner wants to get revenge for his doggie “children” and the cop needs to get rid of remains that he was unable to earlier. Friday night is going to be a hoot!

    Part Stand by Me, part Food of the Gods and part American Psycho, this book strikes a lot of chords and with patience it really pays off. The clashing friendships of the boys as they wrestle with adolescence adds the emotional layer needed to pull the story off and the slow reveal of the flesh-eating beasties works very well. The pedophile, murderous cop could have been a gratuitous cartoon character, but he isn’t, much to the author’s credit. The Pit, a huge, cavernous construct made of cement, stacked tires and a Buick, is a character in and of itself.

    I thought this book was pretty well-written; I don’t understand the brickbats that some reviewers throw at Porter online. It was a little plodding in the first third but after finishing the book, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. The great cover (Perkins? Barkin?) has nothing to do with the beasties in the book but is also a huge selling point.

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.

Dollies By Pat Graverson

 

Dollies
By Pat Graverson
1990 Zebra Books
Paperback, 288 pages

                I don’t often step outside of my comfort zone of nature-run-amok novels full of gore and entrails, but every now and then I do, and sometimes I get rewarded. While Dollies might look like a typical Zebra scary brat book, it is much more than that.

 

                Real estate agent and divorcee Kit has a tough house to sell; the Bern’s house is an oddity as are the Bern’s themselves. So are the “beautiful and hideous” dolls that old man Bern collects. After he gifts one of his dollies to Kit’s daughter Jodie, Kit’s life, which was already pretty messed up, starts to unravel even further. Kit can’t seem to get rid of the doll. It keeps turning up. And the Berns will not take it back.

 

                Pat Graverson had a few novels under her belt when she wrote Dollies, and she drew upon her own experience in the real estate business to start this book. She crafts a moving story that never sags, and gives us a solid, believable main character. Kit is flawed but overall, a good person who loves her child and would lay down her life for her. The danger she is in doesn’t deter Kit from trying to unravel the mystery that will inevitably save her daughter.

 

                I gotta say, there are some really creepy moments in this one. This scratching and pitter-patter of little dolly feet from the other side of the closed door caused a frisson or two. Between the dolls, her ex-husband fucking her baby-sitter, the insidious Berns themselves, and dying friends, Kit has a really shitty time of it. But she doesn’t quit. I admire her character.

 

                Stepping outside of my comfort zone worked well with this one. I’ll likely give some more of Graverson’s work a shot. This one was good. It also has a nifty embossed cover sporting some nice Richard Newton art.

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Bats By William W. Johnstone

Bats
By William W. Johnstone
1993 Zebra Books
Paperback, 348 pages

                Seemingly out of the blue, massive hordes of flesh-eating bats descend upon a normally quiet parish in the-middle-of-nowhere Louisiana. Luckily for all involved, macho he-man Johnny MacBride, rough and ready military intelligence bigwig, made an early retirement to settle there. With Johnny on humanity’s side, there is a chance, however slim.

 

                OK, yeah… right off I had a hard time with this because the main character is an adult named Johnny, and he was supposed to be badass. Whatever. At least the book starts off right away with the gory bat-attacks and never really lets up. Johnny is pretty much a cartoon, with everyone in law enforcement kowtowing to him and being in awe of his manliness, but there’s enough bat action throughout to keep you going. In addition to the bats themselves, victims of bat bites who do not die quickly become rabid spreaders of the deteriorating disease and lots of smooshy fun is to be had there. If the bats don’t get ya, the rabies-folk will!

 

                I liked the book, but a lot of it bothered me. Firstly, if Johnstone could have kept his politics and classism out of it, it would have been a smoother read. I have no problem with characters having a political preference but too much of it reads like Johnstone’s angry personal agenda. He does it in most of his books, though, so I should be used to it. There is a prevalent sense of humor throughout, which I like, though sometimes it was a bit too “nudge-nudge-wink-wink, aren’t I being funny” ... (a redneck character is named Billy Joe Harry Bob).

 

                Overall, the gore is good, the bats are formidable and despite Johnstone’s eccentricities, the writing is decent. In my opinion, about 100 pages could have been culled and it would be a much more satisfying read. And Johnny? Come on… you might as well have named him The Fonz. Couldn’t he have been called Walter or something?

    As always, a nice cover by Richard Newton.

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Only Child by Patricia Wallace

Only Child
By Patricia Wallace

1985 Zebra

Paperback, 332 pages

    This is another is Zebra’s never-ending line of scary brat books. I usually resist the urge to buy these, knowing they never truly satisfy me but for a few bucks at Savers, I figured what the fuck.

 

    A small plane crashes in Southern California and the only survivor is a young girl who seems almost too perfect to be true. The townspeople all fawn over her because of her plight and her blondeness. It seems that she has amnesia about everything except her first name: Hannah. She’s taken in by the local priest and shit starts going down around town… fires, disappearances and medical maladies begin to stack up. Could it be… young Hannah who is behind these horrors?

 

    Only Child doesn’t pull any punches and as soon as you see the cover, you pretty much know what you’re in for, but it’s not a bad book at all. Wallace makes it super easy to read, with frequent breaks between scenes, a good sense of humor, and enough zest to keep the pages turning. She doesn’t over-write at all, which is a godsend in a book like this. Easy peasy. She churned out a dozen of these books for Zebra and they’re all very readable even if they’re not great. While this one isn’t particularly memorable, it’s an OK way to spend a few nights, reading about other peoples’ creepy children.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #8, July 2021.

 

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