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Book Review of After Midnight

After Midnight
After Midnight
Author: Richard Laymon
Genre: Horror
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
sarah5775 avatar reviewed on + 386 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5


Unlike his other books, Laymon writes from the point of view of the murderer. It made the main character very unlikable and it was hard to care what happened to her. Though half-way through I started to sympathize with her. Basically, this "Alice" goes on a killing spree and doesn't get caught (I can tell you that because you learn it on the first page of the book) and the story chronicles her adventures. It starts out where she is house-sitting, kills someone semi-accidentally, and has to hide her crime- then everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. I suppose in a sick way it is sort of funny all the things that happened, but this book surely isn't for the faint-hearted. Also, I thought the ending was very unrealistic. Not only that, I kept thinking that this book just panders to the lowest of the reader's instincts. It doesn't really have much substance or complexity. Just violence and murder after murder. And then, a character comes in, has sex with Alice a number of times, and then goes right out of the story. It was as if Laymon thought to himself "hmmm, this is getting boring, let's throw in some sex, that should keep 'em reading." I don't know. I usually love Laymon. And this was mildly entertaining. But nothing like his other novels, this one was a flop compared to them.