Horror World Book Reviews
July, 2005

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR By Jack Ketchum
Reviewed by Nate Kenyon

Every once in a while a novel comes along that is so well-done, so disturbing and so compelling that it simply demands to be read in one sitting. The Girl Next Door is that kind of book. It will get under your skin, it will both fascinate and disgust you, and it will remain with you long after the last page is gone.

Based loosely on the true story of Sylvia Likens and set in 1950s small-town America, The Girl Next Door begins with 41-year old Wall Street broker David recalling the events in his childhood that have left him emotionally scarred and filled with self-loathing.

Young David lives next door to Ruth and her boys. Ruth is the "cool" parent in the neighborhood, letting the boys drink the occasional beer, swear, and generally do whatever they want. But when young, pretty Meg Loughlin and her sister Sarah are orphaned from a nasty car accident and move in with Ruth's family, things begin to slide slowly into darkness. Ruth and her boys make life miserable for the two girls, and as the true nature of Ruth's madness rises to the surface, David is pulled into the middle of a swiftly escalating series of events that nobody seems willing or able to end.

The Girl Next Door is more than a well-written genre novel; it deserves to be considered among the best fiction of the past fifty years. Ketchum does a masterful job of tearing the wrapping off of "idyllic" American suburbia, serving up some of the most horrific and stomach-churning horror in recent memory without a single supernatural element. The climactic scene in Ruth's basement is both riveting and nearly unreadable, not for the graphic descriptions of violence it contains, but because you come to care for and sympathize with the characters who must try to live through it. This is both a terrific story and a study on human nature and group consciousness; comparisons to Shirley Jackson's masterpiece "The Lottery" come to mind.

Leisure Books

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DEATH SENTENCES: TALES OF PUNISHMENT AND REVENGE by Matthew Warner
Reviewed by James R. Beach

I'm sure a lot of you reading this will probably recognize the name Matthew Warner from his informative, entertaining columns here at Horror World. Some of you might also have read his story, "With the Eyes of God", showcased here a short while ago. Let me tell you, that was no fluke! With Death Sentences: Tales of Punishment and Revenge, he proves he definitely has a solid grasp of storytelling and a sure voice.

Featuring five stories - two previously published, one forthcoming in Cemetery Dance magazine and two brand new tales - there isn't a weak one in the bunch. The stories focus on issues of slavery, religion, divorce and adultery and are intercut with horrific events both supernatural and realistic. Theme anthologies are certainly popular nowadays, but it isn't often we see themed single-author collections. Matt Warner pulls this off very well with five distinctly different tales that focus on the motifs stated in the title of his book.

Gary Braunbeck, himself a master of tales of emotional trauma, is the perfect choice to introduce this collection. An author's notes section following the stories, confirming what you might suspect as you are reading these stories; that many of Matt's own personal experiences bleed through the pages. Deena Warner, Matt's talented wife, provides the great cover art. Coming very soon in a autographed trade paperback, and limited to 250 copies I would grab one while you can!

Needless to say, Matthew Warner is a writer I think we will be seeing a lot more of in the future!

Undaunted Press

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CITY OF THE DEAD By Brian Keene
Reviewed by Nate Kenyon

In this hotly-anticipated sequel to his Stoker winner The Rising, Keene continues the story of Jim Thurmond and his son Danny, as the last remaining humans on earth battle the undead across the dark, smoking ruins of America.

The book hits the ground running, as Jim, the old preacher Martin, and ex-prostitute Frankie reach Danny's hometown. Zombies have made quick work of most of the living, and they are intent on wiping out the few remaining pockets that still exist. In a gut-wrenching, gore-filled opening scene and against overwhelming odds, the crew manages to escape the undead's clutches, and they head to New York City, where an eccentric billionaire has holed up with the last of the living in his supposedly indestructible skyscraper. As the zombie army gathers and the legions of the undead continue to grow, they prepare to make humanity's last stand against an enemy that is relentless, merciless and seemingly unstoppable.

Keene has a gift for fast, lean prose, and in City of the Dead that gift in on full display. This is a 100-yard dash of a book, lightning-fast out of the gate, stumbling just a bit in the middle, and then streaking through the finish line. It reads like a movie unfolding in the reader's mind, a heavy-duty action flick reminiscent of the movie Aliens, where the humans are outmanned, outgunned and struggling to make it through one more day. The action lags only for a moment towards the middle of the book, and that is its weakest point, as Keene tries to juggle and flesh out an increasingly large cast of characters.

Keene's thinking, talking zombies are a welcome breath of fresh air, and his additions to the genre are both innovative and oddly rational (zombie animals--why not?). The sub-plot behind why the zombies exist, and what they hope to accomplish, gives the book more weight than it might otherwise possess. Though City of the Dead seems at times to outrun itself, and the ending will frustrate a few readers, the book is ultimately a thrill ride that is a notch above most other zombie books, and will keep readers flipping pages long into the night. Keene knows what his fans want, and gives them all that they can handle.

Available now from Leisure Books

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BLUE NOVEMBER STORMS By Brian Freeman
Reviewed by Mark Sieber

Slowly, steadily, quietly, Brian Freeman has been sneaking up on the horror fiction genre. He's not stamping his feet or raising his voice. He doesn't need to. Brian does not stir controversy on message boards. In fact, he is unfailingly polite and friendly. His stories do not scream either. Brian has always seemed to be aware that a whisper can be more effective that a shout.

I first became aware of Brian Freeman's short stories in the CD anthology, SHIVERS. It's an excellent collection of stories, yet Brian's stood out to me as the strongest of the batch. Most writers are easily approachable on the Internet, yet I don't often seek one out and write a private email to tell them how much I loved a piece. I did in the case of WALKING WITH THE GHOSTS OF PIER 13. Brian, ever humble, seemed to be genuinely moved by the letter.

MARKING THE PASSAGE OF TIME was the second Brian Freeman story I read; it was in SHIVERS 2. This surpassed WALKING WITH THE GHOSTS OF PIER 13 and remains one of my very favorite short stories ever. As with PIER 13, Brian took a topical issue and put his own slant on it. There is real emotion in both of these tales and an acute sense of loss, mourning and ache.

Brian published some more excellent stories, as well as a pseudonymous novel called BLACK FIRE, published by Cemetery Dance Publications and Leisure Books. BLACK FIRE is a psychological novel of demons from a tragic youth's past that continue to haunt him. It's an astonishing debut, one of the best in recent memory.

I said above that Brian doesn't have to raise his voice with his fiction, or resort to a lot of physical violence to get his points across. Yet in his soon-to-be-released novella, BLUE NOVEMBER STORMS, plays a bit rough. It is a visceral tale that takes no prisoners, yet the emotional resonance that I've come to expect is just as strong as in his previous pieces.

A group of friends that share a dreadful secret from the past agree to meet at their old Summer Place in the woods. One of them, long presumed dead, has contacted them and requested that they get together. It also happens to be the night of a spectacular meteor shower. As they have drinks and catch up, they sit on the roof and await the shower. It arrives, but the meteors glow with a strange blue color. One lands uncomfortably close and it triggers a terrible course of events. There is pain, bloodshed and horror, yet the ominous specter of the past is as dreadful as the grisly events that unfold.

As with any Brian Freeman story, there is more to Blue November Storms than any mere rundown of the plot can describe. His fiction ripples with facets and provides the reader with much to contemplate after the pages are turned. They aren't simple stories and the reader always gets more than his or her money's worth. For the last few years, I've predicted that Brian will be one of the genre's biggest talents and BLUE NOVEMBER STORMS is further evidence of this certainty.

Cemetery Dance Publications

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EVERYBODY SCREAM: A PUNKTOWN NOVEL by Jeffrey Thomas
Reviewed by Patricia Snodgrass

Welcome to Paxton, known by the locals as Punktown. A carnival is in progress; in fact, it's the last night. Walk along the fairway and discover delights both subtle and grotesque. Move amongst the carnival denizens and meet teenagers, gangsters, dimensional travelers, crime bosses, and drug lords, has been rock stars, aliens and mutants. Stroll along the boardwalk and take a peek at the exhibits. If you have the nerve. And of course, you absolutely must peruse the rides. I recommend the Screamer. You can't leave without riding the Screamer at least once.

Jeffrey Thomas tells a great story. Everybody Scream is sensual, slow and easy, like making love on a hot summer afternoon, and comes to an equally fiery climax.

Come to Punktown; have a great time, but make sure you come armed.

Raw Dog Screaming Press

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ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Review by James R. Beach

From Eraserhead Press, the publishers of bizarre, surrealistic works from the likes of Carlton Mellick III, Kevin L. Donihe and others, comes a fitting new entry to their cannon - Jeremy Robert Johnson's first short story collection ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE.

Featuring wonderfully disturbing artwork by Danish artist Morton Bok, ANGEL DUST is a strong first effort by a writer that is just starting to flex his muscles. He also has something sadly lacking nowadays - originality. Some of the disturbing visions he shares with us are: Plastic surgery taken to the ultimate extremes, a cockroach suit defying a nuclear holocaust, self-discovery with Horse tranquilizers and a scalpel, a doctor who takes his work home a little too often, and drug experimentation gone horribly wrong.

Eight of the eighteen tales are brand new stories and a number of the previously published ones are obscure enough that chances are good that most people have not seen them. I had read a couple of his stories and his collaboration with Alan M. Clark, SIREN PROMISED previous to ANGEL DUST, but was not prepared for this. Anybody who might have questioned if Alan carried him on SIREN needs to read this collection. Plain and simple, this boy has chops!

Available in an affordable trade paperback (I believe Shocklines has signed copies as well), I highly recommend ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE, and Jeremy Robert Johnson is definitely a writer to watch!

Eraserhead Press

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PREY by Graham Masterton
Reviewed By Patricia Snodgrass

Prey by Graham Masterson, starts off like a typical haunted house story. But there's nothing typical about it. Once you step into Fortyfoot house and learn its secrets, you find there is nothing common about this type of "haunting."

Masterson poses a dilemma that is as terrifying as the things that happen at Fortyfoot house. It is a dilemma that the protagonist solves in a most unusual and ambiguous way. There is a choice of good verses evil, but Masterson doesn't make it that simple, either for poor David Williams or for the reader.

The story relies upon HP Lovecraft's warped view of the universe, adds a dash of Sumerian mythology, stirs in a demented form of time travel and finishes up with a choice that no human being should make. Then of course there are the murders and the horrible thing scurrying in the attic.

Prey is one of those novels that you begin by lightly scanning the first chapter, then ends up spending the entire night in heart thudding fear. The writing style is the clear precise style of the master wordsmith. The plot is like a wormhole, sucking you into a house that is not a house and in a time that's not a time. When you come out of the wormhole you are not the same. I stayed up all night reading this book and loved every minute of it.

Leisure Books

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TRESPASS By Craig Wolf
Review by Nate Kenyon

In his first novel, a follow-up to his remarkable collection of short stories (Pressure Points), Wolf opens up a killer's skull and shows us the insides. What lives there isn't pretty, and the author pulls no punches. The result is a disturbing, surreal and lightning-quick journey through some very dark territory, indeed.

Charlie is like a lot of lonely men who blend into the shadows, plump, quiet and nondescript, the sort who won't get a second glance from a pretty woman. He holds a lot of rage and grief inside, the buildup from a lifetime of abuse at the hands of his dysfunctional family. But Charlie has an unusual talent; he can steal the minds of other people and trap them inside his own. Once he has them in his world, he is free to engage his darkest fantasies.

Melanie is gorgeous, strong-willed and irreparably damaged from her own history of abuse. When Charlie targets her as his next victim he gets more than he bargained for, because Melanie isn't going to give in without a fight. The battle plays out inside Charlie's mind, where Melanie learns firsthand how depraved this man can be. But Melanie has a secret weapon of her own. She's learning to control this world as well, and she'll do anything to take Charlie down, once and for all.

Trespass is raw, bloody and unblinking as it chronicles the secret thoughts and dark deeds of a vicious rapist and murderer. Placing the bulk of the novel inside a character's mind could have been disastrous, but Wolf handles it with style, anchoring an otherwise surreal situation with the use of a single location from Charlie's memory.

Wolf's is a unique, commanding, and impressive voice, and though he is still learning his craft, Trespass is better than a lot of recent novels from more well-known writers. Expect big things from him. The copy editing from Fine Tooth is a bit choppy, however, and though the overall production values are good, the occasional missing word or misspelling does the writing a disservice.

Fine Tooth Press

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COUPLES WHO KILL: PROFILES OF DEVIANT DUOS By Carol Anne Davis
Reviewed by Patricia Snodgrass

In the non-fiction book, Couples Who Kill, Author Carol Anne Davis does not undergo lengthy psychological speculation that true crime authors are prone to do when writing about the lives and 'careers' of the serial killer. She does not go into lengthy detail describing past childhood traumas, nor does she speculate what caused the individual to choose a life of murder. It isn't necessary.

Instead, Ms. Davis discusses the lives killer duos with the clinical precision of a detective. She unfolds thirteen case studies, each one more bizarre and horrific than the last.

Ms. Davis provides the reader a brief childhood biography, then, proceeds into the killer's adult lives. Afterwards, she gives the reader a frightening but mesmerizing detail into the duo's deeds, how they were found out, and what became of them afterwards.

The thing that makes Couples Who Kill so terrifying is that Ms. Davis does not portray these people as monsters, nor does she treat them as victims of society. Instead, Ms. Davis depicts these people as average, ordinary humans. They are the boy, or the girl next door. They are your friends, neighbors, and in some instance your relatives. And some of the crimes occur where you'd least expect.

And all of it is true.

Couples Who Kill is a deeply disturbing read, and not for the faint of heart. It is, however, an absolute must for any true crime enthusiast's library.

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