Endless Night

Richard Laymon

I've been a fan of Richard Laymon's for something in the vicinity of a quarter century by now, and thanks to my tracking down his early works in drugstores and little twenty-five-cent-used-paperback shops in the mid-eighties, it's possible I've read more of Laymon's early novels than most Americans. And I have found myself genuinely surprised, when reading the last two Laymon novels I've read (In the Dark and this one) to find that I think I like Laymon-the-thriller-author better than Laymon-the-horror-novelist.

Now, don't get me wrong. Funland, The Beast House, The Cellar, Midnight's Lair, all that stuff was great. If you're looking for the literary equivalent of the monster movies Joe Bob Briggs holds sacred, you can't do much better than Laymon's early- to mid-eighties horror novels. Later on in his career, though, he branched out some, and started writing books like Endless Night-- straight thrillers with a somewhat sadistic twist to them. The monsters have taken off for parts unknown, but the blood's still there. And the books are still just as good.

This one opens with the brutal murder of a suburban LA family, leaving two survivors-- Andy, the twelve-year-old son, and Jody, sixteen-year-old best friend of the family's daughter. The first part of the book deals with Jody and Andy escaping from the murderers. After that, the book alternates between Jody and Andy's attempts to elude the killers, and a series of taped monologues from Simon Quirt, one of the killers.

As with all of Laymon's novels, you should probably know what you're getting into before flying in blind. Laymon is not an author for the weak of stomach. For those who don't mind getting their hands a little dirty, however, you pretty much can't go wrong with any of Laymon's novels (and kudos to Leisure for re-releasing a number of them over the past few years). Endless Night is a barrel of twisted, brutal fun.