Joyride-Jack Ketchum

Joyride
Jack Ketchum
Cemetery Dance, May 2007, $40.00
ISBN: 9781587671579

Wayne and Susan are hiking together when he suddenly starts choking her. He stops just before he kills her. Stunned Susan catches her breath and runs from him. Wayne feels like a failure for stopping his death hold on a human; he has killed animals before, but still has not tasted his first human.

Soon after that Wayne witnesses a man and a woman kill another man. He realizes the female is Carole, who is a regular at the Black Locust Tavern where he works as a bartender. She was using a Louisville Slugger on her former still abusive spouse Howard while her lover Lee watched until she used a rock to complete the kill. Ten minutes and Wayne thought he had the best hard on of his life as a voyeur who wants to play and will with his two new associates. So begins Wayne’s murder fling with his two new shocked buddies.

This is a reprint of a solid psychological thriller that hooks the audience from the moment a euphoric Wayne begins to plot his murderer’s row with his stunned partners. The story line is fast-paced, but the readers never fully learn what motivates Wayne into being a serial killer; whereas Carole’s reasoning for killing Howard is implied that he is a nasty SOB who will never leave her alone until one of them are dead. Ironically the police investigator is understood more than Wayne is. Still fans of Jack Ketchum’s dark look at human nature will appreciate this murderous JOYRIDE.

Harriet Klausner