At their best, Laymon's cackling horrors (The Stake, 1991; Night
Visions 7, 1989) are the nastiest around - sleek, black-humored,
skirting (if not slipping over) the edge of pornoviolence. Here,
though, he injects them into a floundering picaresque historical
about Jack the Ripper - set partly in the Old West - resulting in
his only seriously dull book yet. Even Laymon's usual thrumming
prose is missing here, replaced by a faux-plucky narration ("It
wasn't a job I could walk away from"; "Right then I vowed to save
her") by 15-year-old Londoner Trevor Bentley, who, one
dark-and-stormy night in 1988, goes searching for a bobby to corral
the lout who's beaten his mom. Wandering the streets, Trevor is
attacked by thugs who strip him; seeking clothes, he breaks into an
apartment but hides under the bed when the occupant returns - a
whore accompanied by none other than the Ripper, who mutilates the
woman while the boy cowers inches below: a wicked beginning that
Laymon soon squanders. Trevor follows "the fiend" only to be
shanghaied - along with luscious young Trudy Armitage - aboard the
Armitage family yacht, which the Ripper has pirated, aiming to sail
to the fresh killing-ground of America. Sundry tortures, mostly of
Trudy, make the voyage pass quickly; arriving in the US, the Ripper
rips Trudy and escapes, trailed by Trevor, who loses his prey but
is taken in by a retired general and his daughter, who tutors the
boy in sex. Long months later, reading of savage murders in
Tombstone, Trevor rides the rails west, where he takes up with
outlaws, dallies with yet another pretty girl, and, at last,
confronts the Ripper in a blood-spouting finale. Laymon dedicates
this meandering mistake to his agent, who, he says, suggested "an
English setting...so this book is your fault." Okay - but Laymon
himself should have known better. And next time, with luck, will.
(Kirkus Reviews)
'If you've missed Laymon, you've missed a treat' Stephen King.
Whitechapel, November 1888: Jack the Ripper is committing his last
known murder and beneath the bed on which he's butchering his
victim cowers a fifteen-year-old boy. So begin the adventures of
Trevor Bentley: a boy who embarked on an errand of mercy and ended
up on a quest for vengeance, a boy who will bring the horrors of
the Ripper to the New World.
General
Imprint: |
Headline Book Publishing
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
September 1993 |
Authors: |
Richard Laymon
|
Dimensions: |
178 x 118 x 28mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Mass Market
|
Pages: |
448 |
Edition: |
New Ed |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-7472-4120-1 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
Genre fiction >
Horror & ghost stories
|
LSN: |
0-7472-4120-1 |
Barcode: |
9780747241201 |
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