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Post by dem bones on Jul 15, 2009 20:36:06 GMT
Michael Slade - Ripper (New English Library, 1995: Black River, 1994) Chris moore Blurb: JACK THE RIPPER IS DEAD, RIGHT? DON'T BET YOUR LIFE ON IT!
Who would slash the body to shreds, then rip the face off America's foremost Feminist - and hang her out to die? Who would take a pair of twin hookers on a terror trip that made death seem innocent and sweet? Who would turn a secluded island gathering of bright and beautiful people into a carnival of carnage? What grim and grisly figure stood, dripping knife in hand, at the end of the most horrifying trail of death and deception Detectives Robert DeClercq and Zinc Chandler ever followed?
A lot of people were dying to find out ...... I'm sure someone on here could do justice to a 'Michael Slade' novel, but it sure isn't me. Want to read Colin Wilson's Criminal History Of Mankind, an Agatha Christie pastiche, a police procedural novel and bone up on Aleister Crowley's possibly mischievous 'Jack the Ripper was a Black Magician' theory without having to remove half a dozen books from the shelf? Try Ripper. The gist of it is that a pair of psychopaths, Skull & Crossbones, have taken Crowley's Ripper revelations to heart and are now carrying out a killing spree with the express purpose of summoning all the demons in Hell. The early killings follow the plot of their recently published horror novel Skull & Crossbones (they hired a mercenary to crush the head of a guy who gave it a bad review). After four impressively shocking slayings - including that of Brigid Marsh, the country's prominent Feminist author who, it turns out, is the key to the whole thing - the killers prepare an epic multiple murder of crime writers on Deadman's Island. Among the fourteen invited, most of whom are to die horribly (wait until you meet 'the Hogger'!); Luna Darke, a sex-mad witch and her teenage daughter Katt. Lou Bolt a randy, laughably macho cop groupie. Elvira Franklen, the lovely old dear who helped Al Flood crack the Headhunter case (and a lot of good it did him); and Zinc Chandler, still invalided by the wounds he received in the previous book, Cutthroat and marked for death by the crazed pair. Can Robert DeClercq and his Mounties crack the case and reach the island before Skull & Crossbones destroy the entire party? I always had Ghoul figured as the maddest of the early Slade's, but now i'm not so sure. This one has Feminist Riots, locked room mystery upon locked room mystery, a mad scientist, an S&M obsessed contract killer and the goriest revamp of the Christie novel with the unmentionable title i've ever read. What i like about 'em is that the Mounties don't always get their man even when they think they have (try Headhunter!) and characters we come to know, and even like, have as much chance of being horribly offed as anyone.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 16, 2009 9:15:39 GMT
Outrageous. I'm stuck somewhere near the end on my second go round with this. Dem's waffle is spot on. It's difficult to categorise but that's what makes it so interesting. The shootout out in the crack den with the tarot cards painted on the walls was fairly mesmerising, as was the black and white silent film Black Mass prologue. Owl pellets, piercings, lice, something for everyone.
I'm also trying to get into Stewart Home's Down And Out In Shoreditch And Hoxton which is vaguely Ripper related.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 16, 2009 11:34:05 GMT
Ripper is the one where the then team of Slade went into overdrive. Compared with it the curent novels are only a pale shadow of its former madness.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 20, 2009 13:21:08 GMT
Huzzah! Actually finished a book! A nice line in sly humour here, what with a pseudo-British public school going by the name of Havelock Ellis, and what happened to poor old Bolt's testes had me laughing out loud...
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Post by andydecker on Oct 5, 2010 14:21:33 GMT
On my desire to re-read the whole bunch in their order, I finished Ripper. What can I say? As perfect as it gets. Here all parts come together like a well-oiled machine. It is relentless in its pacing. Not a boring B or C plot in sight, and all the infos you need about the case of Jack the Ripper you get for free. It manages to sell the reader the most ludicrous character constructions, and even if this book is 16 years old, it still sells its barking mad psychos better than all the serial killer movies and profiler tv-shows since then combined. (I am looking especially at you, Criminal Minds.)It is quite chilling in its portrayal of homicidal madness. This is not a new topic for Slade, but here somehow it works best. The set-pieces are so good, from the house on Deadman´s island and its version of Then there were none, its maiming SAW traps ten years before SAW. The shoot-out with the drug-addled Tarot killers, the gleeful maiming of its own heroes, the expressionist silent movie film with its orgy and blood sacrifice, the trunk of the Ripper and of course Tautriadelta and Crowley (again). Not to forget the little and large jabs at societys problems, here rabid feminism. As my copy is not in its best condition - I got it second hand - I wanted to order it new. And had to discover that Slade is out-of-print both in the US and the UK, with the exception of his next before last, Crucified. The new one you can only get in Canada. This is so wrong Ah well, on to Evil Eye ;D
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Post by dem bones on Oct 5, 2010 20:45:03 GMT
As my copy is not in its best condition - I got it second hand - I wanted to order it new. And had to discover that Slade is out-of-print both in the US and the UK, with the exception of his next before last, Crucified. The new one you can only get in Canada. This is so wrong that's outrageous! God knows, i loved Headhunter and Ghoul but i think Ripper tops even these. its one of few 400 plus page horror novels i could quite cheerfully have suffered another few hundred pages of. spot on about the SAW-style murders - some of which are absolutely unbelievable ('the logger', poor old Elvira Franklen dreadful demise on the toilet, etc.). i'll be interested to hear what you make of Evil Eye aka Zombie, andy. it's the last one i got and, for some reason, it didn't do much for me when i read it.
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Post by erebus on Apr 8, 2011 12:34:12 GMT
Its a travesty that this person/s books are not widely published here. I have read 11 of the books in sequence as they do follow on from each other. Those being, HEADHUNTER, GHOUL, CUTTHROAT, RIPPER, ZOMBIE, SHRINK, BURNT BONES, HANGMAN, DEATHS DOOR, BED OF NAILS, and SWASTIKA. All I have found superb. Even on ebay the books are quite scarce.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2011 12:09:19 GMT
RIPPER was always my favourite of these, with GHOUL a close second (although with the exception of SWASTIKA I haven't read any of the last half dozen of the series). One of the grisliest riffs on Agatha Christie ever. The scene with the poor old lady who gets her intenstine sucked out via the bog particularly sticks in the mind (which, as an aside, was the reason I was mystified when people started supposedly vomiting in the aisles when Chuck Palanhiuk pretty much used the same scenario in HAUNTED about 15 years later). Ah, good old Michael "I have RESEARCHED my novel and thou shalt know the fruits of my RESEARCH" Slade.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 11, 2011 8:45:33 GMT
The Londis at the end of my road often has a pile of paperbacks dumped inside the door on offer at 50p each for the local hospice. I picked up a whole pile of Slade at the weekend - spares of Headhunter and Ghoul, plus Zombie, Hangman, Death's Door and Swastika. Started to read Zombie. It's a good police procedural (with buckets of backstory on virtually every character, plus some rather annoying chunks from previous books which seem to be padding - and the book's not that big) but it does seem to have lost some of the extreme nuttiness of the first four books - however, starting with a psychotic German skinhead stomping two cops to death whilst shouting 'Knochenpolizei!' was rather promising.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 21, 2011 13:35:02 GMT
[quote author=admin board=newenglishlibrary thread=3044 post=24482 time=1286311503i'll be interested to hear what you make of Evil Eye aka Zombie, andy. it's the last one i got and, for some reason, it didn't do much for me when i read it. [/quote]
Seconded. An interesting enough book, but, compared to former glories a distinct let down. A creepy chase in an abandoned asylum plus the pseudo-bonkersness of the dual ending - Zinc in the wilds of Africa fighting mercenaries and the local wildlife intercut with the Red Serge Ball taking place on a ship and the inevitable Poseidon adventure shenanigans didn't manage to save it. It seems to have gone wrong from the off with rather clumsy attempts to shoehorn zombie references in to match up with the original title. Dare I say it - some quite clumsy writing in places, and the unguessable twist ending seemed tacked on and very hurried.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 21, 2011 15:59:27 GMT
Chris moore It's the only one of the first five i've not been tempted to reread. i know the 'Michael Slade' team has changed since the early books so maybe this was the novel where one (or two) of the originals bailed? i can't even remember the 'Poseidon Adventure' moment! Zombie sure came as a disappointment after the inspired lunacy of Ripper.
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sara
Crab On The Rampage
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Post by sara on Jul 21, 2011 20:38:57 GMT
Zombie was the last Michael Slade book I read. Up until then I loved them – Ghoul still being one of my favourite books of all time. As the series progressed they seemed to get more and more research / fact laden but the horror more than made up for it. However, reading Zombie was like reading a textbook at times (and not a very interesting one) so I just gave up about half way through. My other half bought me a copy of Crucified for 50p from a library sale a while back but so far I’ve not been tempted, the back blurb doesn’t even mention the Mounties.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 22, 2011 19:19:54 GMT
Crucified for 50p from a library sale a while back but so far I’ve not been tempted, the back blurb doesn’t even mention the Mounties. Crucified isn´t a Special X novel. It has a new hero.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 26, 2011 7:44:47 GMT
Currently piling through Primal Scream (aka Shrink) at speed. Much better, not least 'cos it's a sequel/continuation to/of Headhunter. Still what seems quite a bit of recycling tho'. Grrrr.
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