Into the Fire
Richard Laymon
Leisure, Sep 2005, $24.00
ISBN: 0843956151

Rodney Pinkham tells his captive handcuffed Pamela that he has loved her from the moment he first saw her at Sally's thirteenth birthday party, but he figures she was like the others calling him piggy behind his back. Since his obsession took hold, he calmly as a matter of fact, informs her that he has killed fifteen females and her husband Jim to get to her. No one, but he is to have her, as she will be his slave for life. He takes her into the Mohave.

She tries to escape, and in the subsequent brawl Rodney is about to kill her when the shot is fired and he falls off her with a bullet in his forehead. Pamela is on a strange bus filled with mannequins, and a driver who insists on nobody talking to him while he is at the wheel. When he stops to dump Rodney's corpse, he introduces himself as Sharpe. Quiet Norman picks up Duke and Boots, but soon the trio meets up with the glory bus that Sharpe is driving to Pits, California. Not all will ever leave the bus; those who do cannot leave town, which has a population in single digits; Pamela knows she has jumped INTO THE FIRE.

Richard Laymon writes a weird horror tale that leaves the audience wondering what eerie escape will occur next, forcing the beguiled stunned fan into a one sitting read. The storyline never slows down from the moment Rodney informs his prisoner of his fixation, until the final mannequin count. INTO THE FIRE is a dark grim tale that stars fully developed characters in nightmarish environs, with judgment day occurring in the Mojave Desert, and with sentencing being an eternal bus ride.

Harriet Klausner