Book Review: Beware

Beware
by Richard Laymon

Synopsis: Using ancient black magic a dangerous, vindictive maniac is made all-powerful by his ability to become invisible. Raping and murdering his way around the States, he is biding his time before fulfilling his one desire - to get even with the high school belle who rejected him years before.

I thought this book started out fast and brutal with a lot of promise, in typical Laymon fashion. But after that, I feel like it became pretty stale really, especially for a Richard Laymon novel.

You can tell it's one of his works because it is brutal, with lots of naked women, gore and a couple of rapes. My problem was that is just became pretty stupid, between the way the characters behaved and some of the occurrences. For example, our heroin gets raped at the beginning and once the cops show up she just goes home to shower, alone, while the rapist wasn't even caught yet. No sense in sending her to the hospital for an exam or sending a cop to guard her, just let her go home and shower. They won't need that evidence on her body.

Then while she is in another town hiding away, she just so happens to meet a guy staying at her hideaway hotel whose best friend happens to be working on the same case as the guy who attacked her. Things just start conveniently coming together. Way too conveniently.

As for the stupid behavior, they have the invisible assailant capture, tied-up and out cold but instead of turning him over to the cops they break multiple laws, sneak him out and eventually let him loose, all so they can get his story for a book. Really? Somebody would commit multiple felonies to get the story of the guy who just raped (multiple times actually) and assaulted the woman you're with just to get his story? Please.

It also wraps up rather too conveniently for me too.

Lots of wasted potential with some good parts... but overall a disappointment. It's really short, which is too bad because I think it could have used another 100 pages or so to flesh out some plot details and give the characters a bit more depth.

4/10