ALARUMS By Richard Laymon – Reviewed

Laymon’s plots are normally fairly linear, a group of girls are attacked whilst spending the night in an abandoned building, a family is attacked in the middle of the night and the daughter is the lone survivor and must run from the killers who will stop at nothing to track her down. All good stuff. All nice and simple.

But with this one we get something a little different. A little bit of mystery thrown in, but only a little bit.

Melanie Conway is at a recital when she collapses, having a fit which provides her a vision of her father or sister in a near-fatal accident. She grabs her boyfriend and heads back home from college, wondering who is hurt (visions are such pesky unreliable things!) and what’s happened, not being able to get either of them on the telephone.

Penny Conway receives a horrible message on her answer phone. A man, a pervert, calls three times, each time leaving a nasty, sick message for her. He says he’s coming to get her, to do the things he said he would.

When the Conway sisters and Melanie’s boyfriend meet up at the girls’ father home, they find his new wife might be sleeping with their dad’s partner. Not only that but the lovers may have actually committed the accident that had left their father in a coma.

This novel has much more mystery than most Laymon books. Unfortunately that doesn’t really make it better. Laymon is best when he’s driving us forward at break-neck speed, ploughing on with the action-fuelled plot. This book really only kicks into gear towards the end.

There nothing really wrong with the book, Laymon always writes readable books. But having read a few of his before, he writes fast food horror novels, exciting, fun and entertaining, but leaving nothing memorable behind.

Good fun, but nothing special and not even one of Laymon’s better books.