Review of the Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

Richard Laymon is one of the greatest horror authors of all time. In fact you may like his books as much or better than those of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice.

This novel starts when a college librarian, Jane Kerry, finds an envelope with a fifty dollar bill inside. The envelope also contains a sheet of paper which provides a clue to where the next envelope is. It is signed by MOG, Master Of Games. She soon finds the second envelope which contains a hundred dollar bill, twice the amount of money that the previous envelope contained. Jane recruits a mysterious man named Brace, a library patron, who is all to glad to help her follow the clues to subsequent envelopes and rewards. They find a third envelope which again doubles the monetary reward but there is some risk involved, not much but some. With $350 in her pocket, Jane she feels she is into a good thing, a very good thing.

The risk to obtain each subsequent reward doubles along with each monetary amount she finds. Knives, guns, close escapes, human and non-human villains become obstacles to be used or overcome as Jane's treasure hunt progresses. She likes the money and the danger.

Who is this mysterious Master Of Games? What does he want from her? Why send her to a house full of trapped and chained women starved so badly they are eating the flesh off their own limbs to survive? How can she free these prisoners with the captors just in the next room? What is the ultimate price she will have to pay when she finally discovers who MOG is?

The book is aptly named because the reader is kept in the dark as much as Jane is. She has changed, has taken unimagined risks, has become addicted to risks. She will never be a simple college librarian again, after all killers aren't ever the same again. Librarians don't sleep naked in coffins in deserted, broken down houses or fight with vicious attack dogs.

This book was first published by Headline Press in the U.K. but has recently been released by Leisure books and on your local bookstore selves right now. Maybe you will find a fifty dollar bill in it, maybe not. What I can guarantee is that you will become an avid Richard Laymon fan and start you quest to read more of his novels and short stories. If you read this book you will be glad you did.

For further Information about Richard Laymon go to his official website Richard Laymon Kills.