Dark Mountain

Written by Richard Laymon
©1987 by Leisure Books
ISBN: 0-8439-6138-4
321 pp.

From the book cover: “For two families, it was supposed to be a relaxing camping trip in the California mountains. They thought it would be fun to get away from everything for a while. But they’re not alone. The woods are also home to two terrifying residents who don’t take kindly to strangers – an old hag with unholy powers, and her hulking son, a half-wild brute with uncontrollable, violent urges. The campers still need to get away – but now their lives depend on it!”

I’ve never been much of a camper. A long time ago we had a pickup topper and went to Mt. Rushmore and a few other places but we never tent-camped. To me a tent always seemed so vulnerable and after reading this book, you’ll NEVER find me in a tent.

Buddies Scott O’Toole and Arnold ‘Flash’ Gordon decide to take their families on a backpacking trip. The group includes Scott’s girlfriend, his teenage daughter and his younger son and Flash’s wife, teenage son and younger twin daughters. They’ve all camped before but not together and not in this area. They plan on making a week of it, hiking up the mountain trails by day and camping by different lakes at night. They spend their evenings telling spooky stories around the campfire. Big mistake, right there! LOL Before they know it, they’re living a worse story than any they could have made up.

I didn’t enjoy this Laymon book quite as much as After Midnight (reviewed here) even though it started out great. It was good as far as the spook factor but I thought he was a little short filling out the story. He didn’t give hardly any background on the old woman and her son like where they came from or what they were doing in the mountains. He gave some background on Scott and his girlfriend and the Gordons but I feel he could have told a little more to flesh out the story.

After Midnight

Written by Richard Laymon
© 1997 by Leisure Book
ISBN: 0-8439-5180-X
438 pp.

From the book cover – “Alice has quite a story to tell you. That’s not her real name, of course. She couldn’t give her real name, not after all the things she reveals about herself in this book. All of her … adventures. And all that killing. She wouldn’t want the police to find her, now would she?

It started out so nice. Alice was house-sitting for her friend, enjoying having the whole place to herself, with the sunken bathtub and big-screen television. But everything went wrong that first night, when she looked out the window and saw a strange man jumping naked into the swimming pool. Alice just knew he would be coming to get her, like all those other men before. But she would never be a victim again. Not after she remembered the old Civil War saber hanging in the living room …”

Oh … my… God! This book is one of those that genuinely gives you the creeps and makes you get up and pull your curtains and check your locks. Have you ever gotten up to lock the door and been SURE someone was just on the other side? That’s the feeling I got from reading the first chapter. No spooks, no aliens, no four-legged creatures … just real people who can sometimes be real monsters.

I have to say this author has quite the imagination, even more so than King or Koontz. Alice is her own worst enemy making herself scared which causes the death of the first person. Then she tries to cover that death up and one thing leads to another and another. The methods of death in the book are very graphic and made me squirm at times but I loved the book. I have another Laymon book to read next, Dark Mountain. I hope it’s just as good.

I borrowed the books from my sister who shares my taste in books. Thanks Anne.

What the Night Knows

Written by Dean Koontz

©2010 Published by Bantam Books
ISBN: 978-0-553-80772-1
442 pp.

From the book jacket: “In the late summer of a long-ago year, a killer arrived in a small city. His name was Alton Turner Blackwood, and in the space of a few months, he brutally murdered four families. His savage spree ended only when he himself was killed by the last survivor of the last family, a fourteen-year-old boy.

Half a continent away and two decades later, someone is murdering families again, re-creating in detail Blackwood’s crimes. Homicide detective John Calvino is certain that his own family – his wife and three children – will be targets in the fourth crime, just as his parents and sisters were victims on that distant night when he was fourteen and killed their slayer.

As a detective, John is a man of reason who deals in cold facts. But an extraordinary experience convinces him that sometimes death is not a one-way journey, that sometimes the dead return.

Here is a ghost story like no other you have read. In the Calvinos, Dean Koontz brings to life a family that might be your own, in a war for their survival against an adversary more malevolent than any he has yet created, with their own home the battleground. Of all his acclaimed novels, none exceeds What the Night Knows in power, in chilling suspense, and in sheer mesmerizing storytelling."

This book is pure Koontz – fantastic suspense, horror and lots of gore thrown in to keep you looking over your shoulder. If you don’t like detailed descriptions of torture and murder, this is NOT the book for you. I happen to think it adds a lot to the fright-factor.

Alton Turner Blackwood was a deformed and abused boy who grew up to be the abuser. Only by killing did he feel powerful. John Calvino put a stop to his murderous rampage 20 years ago but now a copycat killing has taken place. Is John right to think his family is in danger, and why? Has Blackwood returned from the dead? The answer is yes AND no – you'll have to read the book to understand what that means.

I purchased this book at the Albia flea market.



Fear Nothing

by Dean Koontz

©1998 by Bantam Books
ISBN: 0-553-57975-4
432 pp.

From the book cover: “Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you’ve ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else can – its mystery, its beauty, its terrors, and the eerie silken rhythms that seduce one into believing anything – even freedom – is possible.

Until the night Christopher Snow witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered secrets of Moonlight Bay and its strange inhabitants. A place, like all places, that looks a lot different after dark.”

Christopher Snow suffers from xeroderma pigmentosum which is a rare genetic disorder that leaves him vulnerable to even brief exposure to the sun or any ultraviolet rays from other light sources. His body lacks the ability to repair any damage from UV rays which will cause cancer, blindness, etc. Any time he leaves the house, it has to be between sundown and sun up, fully dressed, with sunscreen and a hat. Taking these precautions, he has already out-lived all expectations at the age of 28. His skin is extremely white as you might expect but he is not an albino.  His nickname is 'Snowman'.

When the story starts, Christopher’s mother, a scientist, has been dead for 2 years following an auto accident. His father lays dying of cancer in the hospital. Shortly after his father’s death, Christopher’s life changes forever. This is the type of book you don’t want to read alone on a dark night. The people Christopher grew up around are not who he thought. Animals are acting strangely. He doesn’t know who he can trust anymore. Everything seems to lead back to the closed military base where his mother worked. It was truly a frightening book when you think of what genetic testing might entail. I definitely recommend it to any fan of Koontz and others who like a good scary tale.

This is an older book but I buy a lot at flea markets where they’re affordable. I’m sure a lot of other people do, too. Or you can probably find this book at your library.

Absolute Power

Absolute Power
© 1996 by David Baldacci

ISBN: 0-446-60358-9
Publisher: Warner Books
SRP: $7.99
505 pp.

About the book: “ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION - In a heavily guarded mansion in a posh Virginia suburb, a man and a woman start to make love, trapping a burglar behind a secret wall. Then the passion turns deadly, and the witness is running into the night. Because what he has just seen is a brutal slaying involving the President of the United States.

ABSOLUTE DANGER – Luther Whitney is the career break-in artist who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alan Richmond is the charming U. S. President with the power to commit any crime. And Jack Graham is the young attorney, caught in a vortex between the absolute truth – and…….

ABSOLUTE POWER – A tale of greed, sex, ambition, and murder, this is the novel everyone has been talking about….the shattering, relentlessly suspenseful thriller that will change the way you think about Washington – and power – forever.”

This is the second Baldacci book I have read, the other being First Family. That was good but I liked this one even better.

I totally enjoyed this book. It had just the right mix of interesting characters and a suspenseful plot that captured my attention from the start and held it until the last page. It’s not a whodunit because you know from the beginning who commits the crimes and the suspense is in the outcome. It starts right out with a crime being committed by the President and members of his staff and witnessed by a man who just happened to be burglarizing a home at the same time. Knowing no one would believe what he saw and heard the burglar waits for his chance and escapes but not without being noticed. The story progresses with the President and his Chief of Staff trying to keep things quiet and the burglar trying to figure out how to expose them. More and more crimes are committed and people assassinated as the President uses the power of his office to escape detection. Just how far are the Secret Service willing to go to protect the President?

This book was a flea market purchase. The edition of my book is different than the one shown.

The Last Surgeon - Michael Palmer

I’ll start the new year with the review of a really great thriller, one of the best I’ve read in quite a while. I hope you like it as much as I did.

About the book: “Everyone told Jillian Coates that her sister’s suicide was just that – a suicide. Everyone told Dr. Nick Garrity that his best friend, Lieutenant Umberto Vasquez, had simply disappeared, battling the demons of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jillian doesn’t believe it. Nick doesn’t believe it. And soon, they discover a chilling connection between these two seemingly random events…a common denominator that will lead a killer to the next victim…. and the last surgeon.

 The Last Surgeon, like each of Michael's books, is built around a medical ethical issue. Two years ago, Michael met a Marine veteran with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Moved by their conversation, Michael began thinking about weaving a story around this sad, frightening condition.

The result is The Last Surgeon--the terrifying tale of Army trauma surgeon Nick Garrity, working on a mobile medical van caring for vets and the homeless in D.C., while he tries to conquer the fallout from the suicide bomber who killed everyone in Nick's field hospital in Afghanistan except Nick and his best friend Umberto. When Umberto, whose PTSD is even more virulent than Nick's, disappears, Nick is brought into the crosshairs of brilliant psychopath Franz Koller, the remorseless master of the non-kill-murder that does not look like murder."

As I've said before, mysteries/thrillers are my favorite genre. This novel fits that label perfectly. It has a very interesting story line, likeable good characters and a really evil bad one, tie-ins to the current political scene, loads of drama and suspense with a little romance thrown in, and a tense build-up to a great ending. It was interesting in that you knew who the killer was early in the book, but not the reason for the killings. The book will be released on February 16th but you can pre-order the it now from http://www.michaelpalmerbooks.com/. Michael is also releasing exclusive material to his followers via Facebook and Twitter. You can win exclusive prizes for becoming involved. I'll also be having a contest soon for a personalized copy of The Last Surgeon so be sure and watch for that.

ISBN: 978-0312587499
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date of publish: Feb 16, 2010
Pages: 384
S.R.P.: $26.99

Bostick Communications and Michael Palmer provided an ARC of the book to me for review.

Books I've read this week - Evil at Heart

Evil at Heart © 2009 by Chelsea Cain

About the book: Gretchen Lowell is on the loose. A sensationalist media has turned her into a star. Her face graces magazine covers…women get “beauty killer” manicures…there are sightings of her worldwide….even kids wear t-shirts that read, “Run, Gretchen.” Most shocking of all, a fan club has formed – counting the number of days Gretchen Lowell has been free.

Archie Sheridan has hunted her for a decade. He lived and breathed her crime scences, only for her to be right there in front of him, all along. He’s suffered long and hard…and been left near death. After his last attempt to capture her went spectacularly wrong, he’s been hospitalized for months.  When a dead body is found with Gretchen’s signature heart, Archie is forced into action. Has the Beauty Killer returned to her ways…or has the cult surrounding her created a whole new evil?

I won this book from goodreads.com way back on August 1 and had been waiting for it. It arrived this past Tuesday but I didn’t get a chance to read it until Thursday. Once I started, it was hard not to finish it in one sitting. I didn’t realize when I started reading this book that it was #3 in a series. (The others being Heartsick and Sweetheart.) While I wish I had read the others first, there was enough flashback information in this one to fill in the story and it was good enough to stand on its own.

Detective Archie Sheridan is obsessed by the beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell even though she almost killed him, too. The book opens with Archie in a psychiatric hospital being treated for vicodin addiction and attempted suicidal. When bodies start showing up with signs pointing once again to Gretchen, he can’t resist getting involved in the case. Helping him in his search are fellow cop, Henry Sobol, and a journalist looking for a scoop, Susan Ward. Is Gretchen the killer or are there copycats? Is Archie still obsessed with her or can he stand up to her this time? This book was gory, gross, and fascinating. I couldn’t put it down.

This book was an ARC from goodreads.com and Minotaur Books