Cat’s Eyes By Lee Jordan

Cat’s Eyes
By Lee Jordan
1983 Signet
Paperback, 216 pages

                Lee Jordan is mystery writer Alan Scholefield and his wife, author Anthea Goddard. Together they wrote a handful of books under the Jordan pseudonym and this one is a taut thriller that keeps up a quick pace for the entire running time. Even necessary flashbacks to fill in plot points do not slow down the narrative and I blew through this short book in just a few sittings. Don’t forget, I’m an extremely slow reader. Not really a horror book, more of a thriller/ mystery, but the authors manage to convey the characters’ fear and discomfort in a way that should please horror buffs.

 

                American Rachel Chater returns to her and her husband’s new home in Sussex Downs, England after a hospital stay, recovering (mostly) from a car accident. She is plagued by dreams featuring a large black cat peering through the window, the cat she swerved to avoid, causing her accident. Her husband has to go to the US for work, leaving Rachel alone with their infant and a part-time caregiver in the secluded house. Strange things happen, like scary phone calls, broken ornaments and the ever-present black cat that keep Rachel in constant anxiety. With a damaged, painful leg and very few friends to help her, every acquaintance becomes a possible threat and Rachel feels that her and her daughter’s lives are in danger. Especially after a suspect near fatal accident with the baby.

 

                Rachel is an extremely paranoid person. She thinks the impossible of the cat and she suspects all of the humans in her life, including her husband, of being out to get her. Of course, she has every right to feel some of that. She harbors guilt for the death of the town fix-it man who she was driving home the night of the accident. As well written as Rachel is, I still got mad at her for being such a cat-hater. The poor cat, also injured in the crash, is just trying to survive and I felt so bad for it. Of course, I had a large black cat resting on either side of me as I read this one. But the authors really did crank up the suspense and Rachels terror felt very real in certain spots.

 

                Despite a slight lapse in credibility at the ending (do villains really ever reveal the entire scheme with convenient exposition as they go in for the kill?), I have no problem recommending this book. It’s a page turner with plenty of suspenseful passages and an easy to absorb writing style. A nice cover (by Shaw? Looks like it) completes the package and this book can still be found fairly cheap. It’s a good way to spend a few hours.

Night-Shriek by Michael Wolfitt

Night-Shriek
by Michael Wolfitt

1983 Granada
Paperback, 223 pages

                I swear I thought I was reading a William Johnstone novel except there was no right-wing agenda and it took place in London, not Louisiana! But holy hell, it’s just as batshit crazy as anything in the Johnstone oeuvre!

 

                A couple, Roger and Hilary, get into an accident on the way home from their friends’ house and wind up in the hospital. Hilary was pregnant and loses the baby. The fetus was a weird looking thing, so the doctor saved it to examine later. The fetus breaks out of the storage cupboard. Cats start spying on people. Nurses die. Everyone involved with the case start dying violently. It seems Hilary had the bloodline of the ancient Cat Goddess Bast. See what I mean?

 

                You know me. I can’t resist cat-horror. There is plenty of feline fear in the pages of this book, be it a sleek black cat staring a victim down through a window or a person actually becoming a cat. The more convoluted the storyline became, the more I had fun with this absolute mess of a book. Egyptology often loses my interest in books but this time, it all worked for me because of the laughably over the top audacity of the story.

 

                I’m not saying this is a terrible book. I found it thoroughly entertaining. Yes, it is batshit crazy, but it never dragged and kept me smiling throughout. And if the cover art by Tim White (actually credited on the back cover!) doesn’t grab you, then I don’t know what will. Filled with kinky sex, mutilations and mind-control… they just don’t publish books like this anymore.

 

Online sources say that Wolfitt is actually Mystery writer/ poet Mike Fredman but I haven’t seen Fredman himself admit that anywhere. I won’t be searching out his recent poetry or any of his Willie Halliday detective novels, but I will cherish this strange little piece of pulp forever.

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.

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 this review? 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.

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 Uncanny By William Lauder

 

The Uncanny
By William Lauder
1977 Arrow Books
Paperback, 140 pages

 

This is a novelization of the 1977 Amicus anthology film of the same name. If you like the movie, you’ll like the book. I, as a crazy cat person and a horror freak, love the film. The book is a hoot, too, though I have to recommend it with reservations.

 

The writing is just terrible, but comically and endearingly so. Lauder repeats himself frequently, especially with phrases that he seems to like. “The silence was total.” is a good line… once, but he uses it at least three times in the first story alone. Poor Donald Pleasance: when describing a character played by him in the prose, Lauder uses the term “thyroid eyes” countless times. Not much is added to the screenplay, though he does delve into some back story here and there, but at 140 pages, you pretty much get the film in words. By the way, Lauder is Allen Harbinson, who wrote (under his own name) some sci-fi and some Elvis books. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that he ever combined those two topics.

 

Being a tie-in for a somewhat obscure film, this title can get fairly pricey on the secondhand market. I paid more than I usually do for a paperback (over $20) but it’s worth it to add it to my collection. Moreover, reading about evil cats while my own two felines lay upon me, purring, lazy as sacks of shit, is priceless.

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Claws By D. Gunther Wilde

 

Claws
By D. Gunther Wilde
1978 Leisure Books
Paperback, 173 pages

 

                OK, so this isn’t a well-written book by any means but that is not to say that it wasn’t worth my time. Y’see, I don’t care if the author is cleverly manipulating the English language and creating a work of art as well as a story. It helps, but I really read for the story. And this one is fun.

 

                New York City. The Big Apple. Fun City. There have been some odd deaths of late in some of the seediest sections of the city and cops can’t seem to figure out what is mutilating and partially eating the victims. Policewoman Darcy Ryan has taken an interest in the case, even though her superiors think a woman’s place is behind a desk. So, she gives the department a big fuck you and takes a few weeks off for vacation; a vacation spent tracking down the killer.

 

                So, that is one thing I enjoyed about the book. A strong woman main character. 1978 horror pulps weren’t exactly bulging at the seams with them, so this is a welcome surprise. Also, I love cats. The reader knows right away (from the cover, if nothing else) that cats are doing the maiming, but it is still rewarding to watch Darcy unravel the mystery. Much to my own amusement, I had a cat on either side of me while I was reading this book every night. Never once did I fear for my life.

 

                The non-ending is very abrupt, and nothing ever really says that the terror is over, but I had fun with this quick book while it lasted. It is said that D. Gunther Wilde is a pseudonym for Bernhardt J. Hurwood, a prolific author of soft erotica and ghost stories. I have a number of books edited by him in my anthology horror collection. He also wrote the Man from T.O.M.C.A.T. books for Arrow in the Sixties as Mallory T. Knight. A well-rounded individual, I say.

                This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #10, Spring, 2023

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