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Post by andydecker on May 12, 2024 11:21:56 GMT
Douglas Clegg writing as Andrew Harper – Bad Karma (Kensington Books, 1997, hc, 240 pages)
 Cover: Danilo Ducak After the demise of Dell Abyss, Douglas Clegg was again without a publisher. Horror as a market category was dying. So he wrote this thriller and managed to sell it to Kensington Books, which at the time did fiction of typical midlist writers, the category which has been thoroughly wiped out by global corporation publishing. As it was not another supernatural story he was his trademark, he published it under the pseudonym Andrew Harper. The novel was optioned by Hollywood and made into a not very well received movie. Directed by veteran director John Hough (Legend of Hell House), this is his last movie. Starring Patsy Kensit when her career was already B and C movies only, the rest of the cast are mostly those typical flavour of the day actors like Amy Locane (remember her?). Clegg, being the professional writer he clearly is, used the opportunity and did two sequels with his hero over the years for which is now retroactively called The Criminally Insane Series. It is a straightforward story. Serial killer Agnes alias The Gorgon who thinks her therapist Trey is the re-incarnation of Jack the Ripper, her true love, and has visions of them back in gaslit London, breaks out of the clinic and targets Trey and his family on vacation. It ends exactly as you think. Maybe the novel was more original at the time of publication, especially the ending – wounded Trey and wounded family kill crazy Agnes -, but having seen too much serial killer tv episodes since then blur these memories. At least it is better written as others of its kind, but this is Clegg's thing. He has an engaging style. The original cover is blah, and still it was better than the bland Ebook cover it has today. |
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