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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Ghoul By Mark Ronson

Ghoul

By Mark Ronson

1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 202 pages

 

                My wife was reading The Plague Pit by Marc Ronson at my recommendation. That was a pretty good book. One day, I was looking at vintage horror paperbacks online (as I am wont to do) when I stopped on Les Edwards’ cover of Ronson’s Ghoul for Hamlyn Books. Great cover, indeed. So, I called Andrea over to see the cover and she said, “It looks like he missed arm day.” Skinny arms… he missed arm day at the gym. For some reason, I thought (and still think) that is the funniest goddam thing ever. I immediately found a cheap copy and bought it, if only to enjoy the cover.

 

                While not as fully satisfying as The Plague Pit, this one is still very enjoyable. It is about the unearthing of a tomb in the Valley of Jinn in the Middle East. The archaeological team digging it (led by a woman, not a common thing is 1980s pulp horror) encounters hiccups in the form of a nearby hippy cult, scared locals, and the titular ghoul. A dozen moderately interesting characters weave throughout the story, keeping the pages turning if only to find out why they’re there at all. That’s not a knock, just an observation; this is pretty ambitious for a 200-page book.

 

                One thing that slows me down in a book of this sort is the exotic names of people and places. I hope I don’t sound xenophobic when I say that I tend to sound out the exotic Arabian names in my head, decide it’s too hard, then mumble the name as I read… “Rmm-nn-mmm”. I’m lazy. I found relief when the archaeologist’s father Max was around, though his character is far less interesting than the locals of Abu Sabah.

 

                Still, this is a fun, quick book with plenty of intrigue, claustrophobic horror, a love triangle, and deceitful characters making the ol’ opening of a tomb premise sparkle a little bit. One gripe… not enough ghoul. He isn’t in it as much as I’d like. We need more ghoul. Maybe he was at the gym, trying to work up those arms.

 

                The abrupt ending all but promises a sequel, but that never materialized. Mark Ronson (Marc Alexander) passed away in February 2020.

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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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Nightmare Train By Karmellah Howlett

Nightmare Train
By Karmellah Howlett
2021 Self-published
Paperback/ E-book

 

This is a tough book for me to review. The author is my daughter. I’ll try to be fair.

 

What if an entire town’s worst nightmares all became reality at the same time? Nightmare Train is a short, fast-moving novel that explores that very concept. The author holds back nothing, killing characters in vivid, brutal detail and taking an unblinking shot at some taboo subjects. All the while, the emotional bond between the main character and her son remains real and believable despite all of the craziness going on around them. You really feel the love and desperation. The horrors are many and varied, a smorgasbord of terror tropes, some tried and true and some unique and different.

 

Like many self-published books, this one would have benefitted from an outside proof-reading; there are a few typos and punctuation errors, but it’s never something that should distract even the most critical reader. The story flows neatly and builds to a satisfying climax with many imaginative passages and ideas throughout. Howlett’s story-telling continues to improve from book to book.

 

Hey, the kid done good. I’m proud of her. This is a good one.

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Quarrel with the Moon By J.C. Conaway

 

Quarrel with the Moon
By J.C. Conaway
1982 Tor Books
Paperback, 319 pages

 

What a pretentious fucking title for a werewolf novel! But despite a few overly florid passages, the prose doesn’t get too purple in this book and it’s really pretty darn good.

An anthropologist and his fashion model girlfriend (!) travel to the mountains of West Virginia, he to study some human-like bones found at a dig and she to try to rekindle their troubled relationship. But ol’ Josh, the anthropologist, grew up on that there mountain and it is a kind of homecoming for him as well. Naturally, their relationship doesn’t improve with all of his kin in the way, and his kin are weird, and a little deformed. ..and a little hairy. And then there are the bloody murders.

It should be noted that Josh and Cresta, the model, are both pretty shitty people and it’s hard to root for or feel bad for either of them. In fact, only Josh’s Aunt Avvie has a decent soul. But this is a horror novel, and we only want blood, guts and incestuous family relations, and there is plenty of that to go around.  It’s kind of a long book but it reads quickly and doesn’t get boring, even when the characters do incredibly dumb and frustrating things. There are plenty of twists and reveals along the way to keep you pleasantly satisfied.

                It’s pretty easy to guess some of what is going to happen, but Conaway (who seems to be primarily a romance author) keeps it moving at a good pace and writes well enough for you to admire the story’s construction and telling. And some of it gets batshit crazy, pushing this one into “recommended” territory.

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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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The Brain Eaters By Gary Brandner

 

The Brain Eaters
By Gary Brandner
1985 Fawcett
Paperback, 278 pages

 

This book is good. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief too much during this one as it involves a fast-spreading global pandemic. Much to my delight, it all started in Milwaukee. Not New York, not LA, not London. It’s about time Wisconsin got the horror-pulp recognition it so richly deserves!

An accidental (or is it?) mix-up releases a dangerous chemical into the air in rural Wisconsin. Just a little. Surely it was remote enough and there was so little… but then people start going a bit crazy; just a few locals and some folks who went through the Milwaukee airport. They get murderous. They kill. They break out in festering, bursting sores. Things get gooey and it spreads quickly.

Our main character here is a newspaper man who is looking for the big scoop to get out of the Midwest and back to the big city. Maybe even a Pulitzer. He seems to have found the story. (Ever notice how many books have zealous news guys as the leads? It must be a novelist’s wish fulfillment fantasy!) Between him and the scientists who are responsible for the deadly contagion, they unravel a tale of sabotage, murder and a pandemic that threatens to shut down the world. Now, that couldn’t possibly happen, right?

Brandner is no stranger to horror fiction. He is responsible for The Howling and its literary sequels as well as a handful of other horrors. He ladles on the gore and disgusting unmentionables with a heavy hand in this one while still keeping an emotional bond between his characters and the reader. This book comes highly recommended, from me to you. With love.

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

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