Richard Laymon - Savage

Whitechapel, November 1888:
Jack The Ripper is hard at work. He's safe behind a locked door in a one-room hovel
with his unfortunate victim, Mary Kelly.
With no need to hurry for once, he takes his time gleefully eviscerating the young woman. He doesn't know that a fifteen-year-old boy is cowering under Mary's bed...

Trevor Bentley's life would never be the same after that night. What he saw and heard would have driven many men mad. But for Trevor it was the beginning of a quest, an obsession to stop the most notorious murderer in history.
The killer's trail of blood will lead Trevor from the fog-shrouded alleys of London to the streets of New York and beyond. But Trevor will not stop until he comes face to face with the ultimate horror.

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Readers of the horror genre will be mighty disappointed by this novel even when used to Lamony's view of writing novels. Despite the interesting book description I actually got to read my very first western novel which isn't exactly my favorite genre. All the time while I went from page to page I expected something to happen but all I got was some cheap western dialogues, some love relationships, desperado's and gun fire.

I really liked the first third which actually held the part where Trevor hid under Mary's bed and the beginning of his chase of the gruesome ripper. Without telling too much, after the third part of the book the Ripper vanished somewhere in New York thinking Trevor's drowned but he isn't. Sometime later Trevor reads in a newspaper about some horrible killings in Virgina and begins his long way towards his nightmares. A 15-year-old kid thrown into the wilderness, bound to become a man or die.

He finally meets the Ripper on the last 50 pages of the book.

Absolutely likeable Laymon used the old manner of speaking. Trevor has such a nice way of speaking that I could almost imagine hearing his British accent talking to some desperado's. Lovely !

Rating:
Visit Richard Laymon's webpage.

Note: Richard Laymon died from a massive heart attack on February 14, 2001. His works include more than sixty short stories and more than thirty novels, many of which were published posthumously. Most of his writings were firmly in the horror genre.

Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Leisure Books; Reprint edition (October 30, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0843957514
ISBN-13: 978-0843957518