The Image

by Charlotte Paul

The gift of sight came to Karen Thorndyke as the bequest of an unknown man. His cornea, willed to the Eye Bank, enabled the beautiful young artist to see and paint again. But with that bit of transparent tissue came an insight into horror. A vision of murder passed from his eye to hers -- and marked her for death!

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller

303 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was actually pretty good despite the average ratings. But it's an old book and not many on goodreads have read it. I'm sure plenty of folks read this book over 40 years ago. It moved at a good pace. I was turning pages pretty quickly here. It ties up very nicely at the end!

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty hamfisted popcorn novel to be sure. Published in 1980 during the 'horror wave', Paul's novel resembles the plot of "The Eye," but proceeded it by at least a few decades. Karen, a young attractive painter is going blind, but receives an eye from a donor, and when she recovers, she keeps seeing the image (hint, hint) of someone about to inject her with a needle. From this, she determines that the donor was murdered, and sets out to find the killer. More of a mystery novel than flat out horror, a cast of wooden characters flesh out the story. The best part of the novel were the depictions of Seattle, especially the 'underground city' part, but overall, the story did not really excite. Perhaps a bit risque at the time, the center of the mystery lay around a gay gigolo (Dickie) and his jealous lovers. If you are really (and I mean really) interested in early 80s pulp horror, check it out, else give it a pass.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed this once I got into it. There was a bit of detailed operation info that bored me a bit but the middle through to the end was great. I certainly didn't guess the "killer" til near the end! Not sure why the reviews are so bad on here for it.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you've seen the movie 'The Eye' or know what its about, you have basically already read this book. Same Premise..

[Rona055 · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a fun quick read the ending wasn't very satisfying to me. It was set in the 80's so you can't think of being concluded like it would be now. I enjoyed the premise and hope to find more books like it.

[Dina Coutu · Rating 3 out of 5]

loved the idea, wasn't a fan of the characters.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total hack writing. It's not totally non-entertaining though. Very similar in plot to The film The Eye.