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Post by dem bones on Sept 2, 2020 15:43:11 GMT
Ed Kelleher & Harriette Vidal - Madonna (Star, 1988; originally Leisure/ Dorchester, 1985) Blurb: BEAUTIFUL.... She is the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth. Her eyes promise eternal ecstasy, her lips speak haunting words of love, her touch drives men wild with lust, In her arms they become her willing slaves, risking everything for a moment's unimaginable pleasure. SEDUCTIVE... Yet beneath the perfumed lushness of the body is the unmistakable stench of death; beneath the flawless skin, the corruption of the grave; and behind the perfect features, perfect evil. DEADLY... She has arisen from the burning pit of Hell, full of fury and thirsting for revenge against those who have cast her into fiery oblivion. All mankind will pay for its sins against... MADONNA A terrifying novel of unearthly sexual obsession. Prologue, Bad Hoffberg, Germany, 1890. Franz the innkeeper's son runs berserk with an axe, hacking indiscriminately. Meanwhile, THE WOMAN participates in an orgy with devotees male and female. The Elder and five colleagues enter in silence while she's buries beneath a mass of writhing bodies. When she next comes up for air, they impale her with a crucifix. Present day. Roger Stern, at 34 the youngest vice president in the company's history, opens fire on the typing pool before hurling himself through a window on the 20th floor. THE WOMAN boards a flight from New Orleans to New York where ... ... A comedy Straw Hat opens on Broadway, gaining rave notices for young Lesley Bloch as one of squabbling sisters. The big time beckons. At the aftershow party, Burt Shulman, the male lead, makes a drunken show of himself and is helped from the premises. When Richard Bloch, proud brother of the rising star, steps outside the restaurant to hail a cab, he's overcome by the awesome presence of far the most beautiful woman he has ever seen .... Off to a lively start. Can the authors maintain the pace? TBC
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Post by andydecker on Sept 2, 2020 16:14:24 GMT
And another one I never heard of.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 3, 2020 17:00:02 GMT
Richard, a devoted teacher of blind children, is compelled to buy a small clay vase from partner, Annie Mulligan's favourite shop, The Treasure Trove Antique Store. "On it was a tableau of a young boy being tortured by two goat-like creatures. The boy's head was thrown back in agony as he was being stuffed into a boiling cauldron." Despite her revulsion at the ornament - so unlike her lover to choose such a hideous piece - Annie dutifully fills it with flowers to keep the peace. Richard's wild mood swings of late are a cause of great upset. Today he stubbed out a cigarette in his breakfast omelette.
Richard is preoccupied with the Woman, who seems to be stalking him.
Annie has the dream job. She works alongside genial Mr. Clark at his Forgotten Lore Books in Greenwich village. This morning on opening up she signs for a consignment arrived from Bad Salrufen. Annie levers open the crate to unearth thirteen dust-laden volumes, all of them devoted to Black Magic and Devil Worship. An atypically rattled Mr. Clark remarks that he ordered them on behalf of a client. Once her back is turned, Clark is on the telephone to person unknown. "The books have arrived from Germany. They're very fragile but quite readable. I think they'll serve nicely at our next meeting."
What can it all mean?
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2020 10:18:45 GMT
"Dead things have a right to live too."
Leslie picks up with handsome hunk Michael Wingate, an out of work actor moonlighting as a cabbie. Lust at first sight. "Would you believe a cross between Warren Beatty and David Bowie?"
Richard, once a walking definition of "placid," has been transformed overnight into world's most belligerent person. When Annie removes the withered roses from his ghastly vase, he retrieves them from the garbage, angrily stuffs them back. No sooner has he apologised for one vile tirade than he launches into another, entirely disproportionate strop over some perceived slight. Verbal abuse fast turns to physical violence. Annie confides in Leslie, who believes her to be over-reacting ... until she, too, suffers a dose of a new, foul-mouthed Richard, now given to cracking sick jokes at the expense of the sightless kids he once adored.
While nosing through Mr. Clark's drawer, Annie is obliged to pocket one of several weird gold discs when the book dealer returns to the shop early. The medallion depicts a beautiful nude woman with a snake crawling up her leg. Annie is desperate for opportunity to return the icon before he discovers it's loss. Events conspire to prevent her doing so. While studying it at home, Annie suddenly has the sensation she is being watched. She looks across to the opposite balcony .... There, naked but for the flimsiest robe, stands the original for the woman of the disc! Smiling, the stranger discards her robe, sending Annie into a masturbation frenzy.
All that exercise has made Annie peckish. She turns on the food processor and feeds in a cucumber ...
The first detective on the scene cannot believe how a woman could have died that way and not been murdered.
TBC
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Post by dem bones on Sept 25, 2020 15:37:45 GMT
Part II introduces The Priest, Father Jimmy Hamilton, thirty-five. Sporty, handsome, cousin of Richard and Leslie. Richard, by now completely under the influence of The Woman, has taken to carrying a pistol to school, training it on the pupils while they rehearse Romeo and Juliet. The Woman goes by the name of 'Laura Zimmer.' She is Madonna, supreme seductress, the Anti-Blessed Virgin and Mother of Satan whose very existence has been denied by a Church fearful of promoting her cult. She's evil to the core and the going is about to get horrible in a very Leisure books way ...
Conclusion hints at a sequel which, to best of my knowledge, has yet to materialise. For me, it's one story best left the way it is. Given the chance, I'd definitely give another Kelleher-Vidal collaboration a go.
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