H. B. Gilmour - The Eyes Of Laura Mars

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H. B. Gilmour - The Eyes Of Laura Mars (Corgi, 1978)

Blurb:
NO TWO PEOPLE 'SEE' EXACTLY ALIKE. BUT SHE ALONE WAS CURSED WITH THE POWER AND THE VISION OF THE EYES OF LAURA MARS.

SHE is a chic, dazzling, high-fashion photographer whose lens captures fantastic images of silken eroticism and passionate cruelty.
HE is a cop . . . handsome, strong, and fiercely opposed to anyone who glamorises mindless violence.
LAURA MARS and JOHN NEVILLE — two very different people. two very different worlds. Yet only together can they hope to survive the terrors to come. For, through her eyes, they can glimpse the macabre events in the future — her eyes are the psychic connection between life and death.

A NOVEL BY H. B. GILMOUR
BASED UPON THE SCREENPLAY BY JOHN CARPENTER AND DAVID ZELEG GOODMAN FROM A STORY BY JOHN CARPENTER

"There were angry feminists behind the barricades as well. Bad enough that the Rolling Stones and other male rock groups had chosen battered, chained and mutilated women to decorate their album covers, but for the work of a 'sister' - Laura Mars - to have inspired those album covers ... to have surpassed their cruelty on the covers and in the pages of some of the world's most prestigious magazines ... was an unforgivable outrage."

Laura's proto-Redeemer sado-fashion photography has earned her an exhibition at SoHo's prestigious Church gallery to be covered by Bill Boggs for Channel 5. Exciting times. But of late she's been troubled by vivid premonitions that someone is out to slice up her best friend and publisher, Doris Spenser. Can it be that her controversial guns & lingerie images (© Severance) are soon to cross from sexy fantasy to not so sexy stark reality? Early days, but am already finding the fashionista super irritating.

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" ... Elaine hurried after the man, leaving Laura at the mercy of a melon-breasted woman who rushed up to clutch her arm and recite breathlessly "Oh. You don't know me - hi - but I'm your staunchest fan ... I know your pictures in Vogue without even looking at the byline ... because you are so openly kinky ..."

Take two. Opening chapter as above. Our female lead's gory premonition proved correct; Doris Spenser, 61, publisher of the controversial Eyes of Mars, has been brutally slain and her eyes gouged from their sockets.

Amiable homicide detective John Neville is assigned the case. Earlier that same evening Neville attended the exhibition. Laura's work - which he sees as glorifying violence - is not the least to his taste. "It's really tragic that junk like that passes for art now."

The show must go on. Laura bravely presses on with the following days shoot for a cutting edge lipstick commercial involving tooled up dolly-birds and designer suit corpses splayed across a burning car. "it's what Doris would have wanted." Arriving on set, Ms Mars is poleaxed by a second vivid premonition. Elaine Cassell, mega-wealthy owner of the Church gallery, is duly mutilated on a stairwell.

Neville has no shortage of thoroughly unpleasant, up-themselves suspects to work through, not least Ms. Mars herself. Another early front runner her ex-husband, Michael Reisler, whining, bullying, drunken tantrum on legs who has been "working on a novel" since time immemorial. Following the divorce, Reisler hooked up with Elaine Cassell. His meal-ticket gone, Reisler demands Laura give him money to quit town before the cops can take him in for questioning. Laura throws him a skinflint $100 to be rid of the pest. He is not appreciative of the gesture "Maybe I won't go to San Francisco. Maybe I'll stay in New York where I can pick up the paper every morning and see you and your ... crowd ... dropping one at a time." From what we've seen of the Mars entourage to date, this does seem rather an attractive proposition. Potential psycho #2 is poor little rich boy, Robert Stram, nominal boyfriend/ plaything of Michele, a Mars supermodel. Much to his fury, his lover is forever getting off with her fellow starlet, Lulu. Stram, who has the mother of all mother fixations, frequently loses it with Michele, and today is not the first time she has relied upon the makeup artist to conceal a black eye. Then there's Donald Phelps, Laura's current partner, who has a down on her chauffeur, Tommy, a one-time street hood with a hair-trigger temper, a string of convictions, and a handy switch-blade. Bearing in mind we've read a few of these things, Brendan the doorman at Laura's apartment block, is a good outside bet for "least likely suspect who most likely did it."

P. 133 of 224. Might get to finish it this time.

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All done now. Can't quite put my finger on why a short (220 page) novel with no shortage of supernatural horror incident should have had such a sophoric effect on me. The ice pick murders are well drawn, and, fair do's, the killer disposes of a decent proportion of the more irritating characters. In terms of 'spot the psycho' tension, familiarity with the movie is a disadvantage as the final revelation is not easily forgotten.