* Ladies’ Night *
Jack Ketchum’s Ladies’ Night
Imagine watching a normal night scene turn utterly peculiar within hours and you see it all unfold with horrorific events. It’s noted at the beginning that the earth’s tidal waves not only effect the oceans but the human body because of the mass amount of water we’re made up of. Turns out, it effects women and is more severe during a full moon… … …
As we follow Susan, Elizabeth, Mary and Lydia through their ‘normal’ life events those mundane events soon evolve into them each creating odd thoughts, peculiar smells, and dirty, animal-instinctive images…this is when all the excitement takes off!
This is an all out war between men and women with the men outnumbered and the women taking no names, prisoners, and not sparing any use of usable weapons no matter the deathly damage…
Excerpts:
Pg. 22- ‘I look old…oh god I look ugly.’
Pg. 26- ‘Half the men she met were absolute total fuck-ups and the other half were either gay or married. Same old song.’
Pg. 71- ‘There was something else happening that was cold, androgynous, sexless. End-stop. Like death.’
Pg. 112- ‘She was trying to scalp him. With a paring knife.’ (!?)
* City Infernal *
Edward Lee’s City Infernal
It’s back to the Mephistopolis; aka-Hell! This installment of Cassie’s “25 cent tour” through Hell is the first of Lee’s trilogy all about the Mephistopolis (i read the 2nd one already but still worth taking a step back to the beginning). The death of her twin sister is explained in graphic detail and the meeting up of Via, Xeke, and Hush is re-told.
It’s a wonder where Lee gets his plots for his story:
Recycling souls (that can generate enough powder to light a city block forever) , cities that run on horror not electricity, police that exist to maintain terror by maiming and executing, drugs so powerful that addition is eternal and for the 1% who are able to beat their addiction are sent to a re-tox center to get re-hooked onto the drug, creatures that contain anesthesia to knock you out while they consume your flesh leaving only bones, a place where game shows consist of boxing matches with hammers instead of gloves and vices that compress and crush contestants’ heads with a not-so-lucky spin of a wheel, and all in a city that never falls. And the mayhem goes on and on…
So graphic, it’s almost ludicrous…fast-paced…repulsive…satirical…believabley evil…’a walk among the damned that would never be in any tourist guidebook’.
Excerpts:
Pg. 18- ‘Thanks, but no. I’d rather keep my neurons intact. A mind is a terrible thing to baste.’
Pg. 82-’(there are) People living in my house…Dead people.’
Pg. 116-’Shit and rot and pus and stink, atrocity, horror, mindless violence and non-stop sheer fuckin’ terror…it’s all no big deal.’
Pg. 167-’ SICK OF POLTER-RATS EATING YOUR FLESH? TIRED OF BAPHO-ROACHES LAYING EGGS IN YOUR BODY CAVITIES? CALL POP BOYS NOW! THE BEST IN CRYSTALOGICAL PEST EXTERMINATION!’
Pg. 179- ‘Where moments ago, the air had been raining money, it was now raining gore.’
Pg. 219- ‘The old crane won’t be rising again anytime soon…’
* Fractured *
Karin Slaughter’s Fractured
One dyslexic cop with a nose and mind for solving crime by being amazingly clue-smart!
Mixed With …
A quick-tempered, low-patience detective who has the heart and care of a concerned mother in her cases; not to mention very headstrong too.
Result …
One Great Duo!
This was one spell-binding piece of writing! Slaughter has a mind and talent for writing crime novels and knows her stuff when it comes to the details and has a knack for creating a ‘killer’ plot and hurricane of an ending!
Although, at a particular part, she seemed to mirror that GodAwful movie mean girls with some of her instances of high school popular drama, she was able to leave that in the past and recover with her outstanding storyline.
This one really threw me for a loop and gave profound meaning to being fractured!
Wow and Wow!
Excerpts:
Pg. 35- ‘She saw the man who had killed her daughter. He saw the woman who could possibly save them all.’
Pg. 72- ‘She didn’t know what happened to boy between the ages of fifteen and twenty, but whatever it was made them sell like gym socks and Tiger Balm.’
Pg. 103- ‘…maybe he didn’t love her with passion, maybe he wasn’t really in love with her at all, but he felt safe with her, and sometimes that was the one thing that mattered the most.’
Pg. 112- ‘Beautiful women did not like competition, even if it was from their own daughters.’
Pg. 164- ‘It was harder to kill somebody who had a name.’
Pg. 332- ‘…if you love them, they come to you, they choose you. Not the other way around.’
* Hide And Seek *
Jack Ketchum’s Hide and Seek
One pathetic guy who ceased to have the drive and potential to further school, is horrible when it comes to conversation, has no suaveness when it comes to the opposite sex, and has little to no patience.
And a girl who is proud to inch close to danger by stealing cars, breaking and entering, has a strange demeanor, has a sick and wrong relationship with her father (and possibly brother), is unpredictable, and has deadly sexual tastes.
All mixed together with a group of friends who just wanna ‘have fun’ and a house and family rumored to be vacant and dead/mysteriously disappeared.
…turns in an evening game of Hide and Seek…just a harmless, childhood game right?
Excerpts:
Pg. 95- ‘It was black, solid black, and because there was nothing but sea behind it, it seemed to drop right off into nowhere. Like the end of something. ‘
Pg. 101- ‘It’s funny how when you’re a little scared noise helps. Maybe you figure that if you announce yourself, the goblins cut and run. ‘
Final ruling: Not one of Ketchum’s best writings. Not his typical gore, violence, and scare-tactical works…
