Der Käfig

by Richard Laymon, Marcel Häußler (Translator)

An ancient beauty . . .

Amara was one the Princess of Egypt, the beautiful wife of Mentuhotem the First. Now, 4000 years later, she and her coffin are merely prized exhibits of the Charles Ward museum. Her lovely face and strong, young body are no more. If you were to look at her today, you would see only a brittle bundle of bones and dried skin. But looks can be very deceiving. . . .

A missing mummy . . .

Barney, the museum's night watchman, is the first to make the shocking discovery that the mummy's coffin has been broken open. He immediately assumes it's the work of grave-robbers who care nothing about the sanctity of the dead. But Barney doesn't have a chance to do anything about it. Then two security guards come upon the open coffin and they too believe that the mummy has been stolen. What else could sane men think? By the time they realize the unbelievable truth, it's far too late for them to do anything . . . ever again.

The walking dead!

Now Amara is once again freed from the cramped confines of her coffin, free to walk the earth, free to stalk her prey. Free to kill. Nothing can satisfy her deadly bloodlust. And no one can stop her. You cannot kill what is already dead.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Splatterpunk, Thriller, Audiobook, Mystery, Horror Thriller

512 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2003

About the author

Richard Laymon was born in Chicago and grew up in California. He earned a BA in English Literature from Willamette University, Oregon and an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, and a report writer for a law firm, and was the author of more than thirty acclaimed novels.

He also published more than sixty short stories in magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Cavalier, and in anthologies including Modern Masters of Horror.

He died from a massive heart attack on February 14, 2001 (Valentine's Day).

Also published under the name Richard Kelly

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

richard laymon, idiot savant, ladles out another another tasty helping of fast-paced horror, amusing & ridiculous banter, inexplicable character motivation, bloody mayhem, sexual torture, horny juveniles, and eye-rolling coincidence. this rich stew is chock-full of laugh-out-loud (or gasp-out-loud) moments that are berserk, bizarre, and often hilarious. why do i keep returning to his novels? they must be like crack to me. he is a terrible writer in so many ways, but a person cannot fault his expert ability with pacing or the overripe fecundity of his imagination. he's one of a kind.

this is a surprisingly ambitious novel in some ways, mainly in its structure. To Wake the Dead juggles multiple narratives that of course come together in the end - but those narrative strands are absorbingly different from each other. and there are a heck of a lot of them! a curator and her cop boyfriend deal with break-ins and murders at a museum while indulging themselves in romance and margaritas. a semi-mindless mummy snarls her way across various neighborhoods, ripping throats out and searching for babies. a mopey, rich blind girl sighs on the rooftop of her mansion, constantly dreaming of lovers appearing to comfort her. a horny high school teen is kidnapped and wakes to find himself in a room of cages, cages full of captives who must yield to complicated physical torture and sexual abuse each time the lights go off. three teen runaways flee to california and must deal with a range of predators, bickering the entire way. a repulsively-depicted drug addict and combo sexual predator/prey forms a crush on a gentleman who was kind to her. an egyptian emigre tries to figure out the mystery of the mummy while engaging in a series of sexual hijinks, one of which goes terribly awry. all of that, and then right in the middle of the book we get an old-fashioned, multiple-chapter flashback delivered quaintly through the journal of a young archaelogist finding a mummy's tomb. of course the journal graphically depicts a bit of wish fulfillment sex-with-twins, but hey that's richard laymon for you.

it is impossible to defend the author or the book. i usually feel like showering after reading one of his novels and i roll my eyes the entire time. it is an unclean sort of fun. but still, well, fun.

[Brendon Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so bonkers even compared to Laymons' usually bonkers writing.

It has a lot of plots in this, which all circle around at the end to make sense. The main one is of a mummy at a museum which is stolen. The Mummy is named Amara and has come alive to wreak havoc on the world. We also have a plot of a group of people who have been captured and kept in cages and used as sex slaves. This plot was really cool and had some very sleezy scenes and a lot of mystery to it. The conclusion to this plot was bloody, gory, and gross. It was awesome.

We also follow a stalker plot line with a lady named Mable who is freakish, disgusting, and won't stop till she has her man. There is the typical Laymon writing of rape, teenage girls objectified, ect, but all the plots wrap around and make sense at the end of the book. Laymons longer books always seem to be his better ones in my opinion.

What I think worked so well was that it was so out there. So much was happening, so many stories going on at once, but it all worked. This is pure sleeze and gore. If that's your thing, this is the book for you.

4.5 stars.

[Jon Von · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the subject of mummy boobs, philosophers have been suspiciously silent. Until Laymon, that is! Yes, Laymon does a mummy novel and I was surprised how much I liked this one. The story juggles multiple plot lines as a killer mummy breaks loose from a museum seeking babies to call her own and kill anyone who gets in her way. It’s a fun update of the old narrative with some unexpected twists and various scenes of mummy violence. But where does this fit with the authors penchant for rapiness? Well, I’d say roughly sixty-percent of book revolves around sexual and rape anxiety. But this one somehow seemed a little more compassionate, maybe because it’s one of the author’s later books. Some of the scenes are very suspenseful. A road trip leaves a pair of teen girls vulnerable to roadside predators with only the window glass to protect them. A deranged female drug addict takes a shine to a police officer and will do anything to possess him. A young stud is kidnapped and held against his will where he’s forced to perform through a partition. The story is composed of several long sequences which wring every ounce of suspense from the premise, dipping its tow in the comedically politically incorrect along the way. It’s kind of a perverse comedy for a lot of it, until it isn’t. There’s also a long sequence in an old diary when the mummy was first discovered that’s pretty creepy. Some scenes really grossed me out (in a good way). And others were like an off-putting sex comedy. It’s an original take on the subject and you’re not likely to see too many “horny mummy books” pop up if that’s what your looking for. There’s also a scene where a character mentions a fondness for the band Grandaddy which had me going, “huh?!”. Full of surprises that Richard.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Laymon novel and I call myself a horror fan!?! Laymon has been writing his brand (and it is a very distinctive brand) of horror books since the 80's and it is only now, in 2017, that I have read one of his books. I got this hardcover from a second hand bookshop and it was the mummy hand creeping out of the tomb cover that caught my attention. The story of a mummy coming back to life to kill certainly appealed to me.

However, there was more going on in this book then a mummy killing spree. There were a number of sub plots which did all come together at the end and it was an ambitious move by Laymon to write so many stories in one novel. Each sub plot embraces Laymon’s brand of horror which is plenty of gore and sex but there were too many and at times I felt like I was not reading about a killer mummy but another story.

The sub plots were not essential to the killer mummy story and there are too many characters and stories crammed into the book.

Having said that, the book is great to read if you like loads of sex and gore in your horror. The main killer mummy story was well told with its history explained and its modern day killing spree. The sub plots also piled on the sex and gore, with one being the very definition of “torture porn”.

At last, I have experienced Laymon’s horror. This may not be the best Laymon book to read first but I do have another of his books on my shelf, Savage, which I am looking forward to reading.

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might start sounding like a broken record describing Laymon's books every month as part of the Richard Laymon Book Club, but my god! This might be his most unhinged yet! We've been working our way through all of the man's output (excluding his children's books) and we only have a handful left to get to, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that this might be his most insane effort to date. Structurally it's pretty awful, and certainly feels cobbled together from two or more stories, but there's just so much nuttiness to love. From an undead Mummy on a killing spree, to humans locked in cages by mysterious (and sleazy) captors, to a very unappealing stalker, to the grime of L.A.'s nightlife, this one has it all. And it might be his horniest book too, which if you've read the man, is really saying a lot. I had a tremendous time with this one, viva literature!

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the better Laymon novels I have read! If you have read Laymon, you know his penchant for horny teenagers as characters, and while that is here, Laymon introduces here a wide range of other characters which takes this beyond his typical outing. All the leads start on their own story arc and for me the biggest puzzle of the book is how they will all eventually converge. Oh, and we have a mummy-- Amara-- who at night tends to go on a feeding frenzy! As to main characters: a rich but lonely blind woman; a museum curator and her cop boyfriend; an American Egyptian whose 'father' brought Amara to the USA; a runaway teenager and her boyfriend (and her 16 yo sister); and Ed, our horny teen, whose is abducted and used (with others) as a sex slave. We also have a wealth of secondary characters, many of whom are introduced shortly before their demise...

Laymon is something of a guilty pleasure for me; he writes well and often has interesting plots and twists, but can be oh so juvenile at the same time. Definite grade A pulp fiction when it works, like this one, but do not expect much more and you will not be disappointed. TWTD is a quick, fun read, with (of course) some sleazy sex scenes and gratuitous mummy violence. I really liked the development of the character arcs and the final denouement really hit the spot. Some nice, dark humor along the way kept me laughing as well. 3.5 stars rounding up.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

TO WAKE THE DEAD, by Richard Laymon had a great premise: Amara, once the princess of Egypt, was put to death and mummified after rumors that she had been granted eternal life. With only the seals of Osiris to keep her from walking each night, she remained in her coffin. Later, an American uncovers her and brings her back to his private estate.

That alone would have made for a terrific story. The background, killings, gore, and carnage surrounding Amara was a great read. However, there were several parallel stories running through--concurrently--that really didn't have anything at all to do with the mummy. While the other "scenes" were all what I'd consider to be "vintage Laymon", I couldn't help being disappointed each time the tale strayed from the main storyline.

Overall, I loved the parts dealing with Amara, both her origins and her current position, but just felt that the other stories injected took away too much of the focus.

[Jo_Scho_Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

After being a big Laymon fan in the 00s I’m revisiting his work and I think Amara may be my favourite so far.

Amara was once the wife of Mentuhotep the First, 4000 years ago. She now lies undisturbed in a coffin in the Charles Ward Museum. But when Barney the nightwatchman discovers her coffin has been broken into, all hell breaks loose. Literally.

Amara is free and she wants something. And no one is going to stop her…

As usual with Laymon the drama starts pretty much instantly. I was gripped from the off. There are characters galore; the obligatory cop, some sex crazed tramp who wants ‘pronging’, teenagers on the run, a lonely blind girl, to name just a few. And of course a terrifying straggly haired mummy who glides through the streets intent on killing anyone who gets in her way.

It sounds crazy right? It is crazy! And I absolutely loved every single page. I laughed, I winced, my heart raced, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Laymon definitely isn’t for everyone, but he is for me.

[Robert Reiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading more than a dozen Laymon books Ive determined that you have to go into one of his novels with a few rules in mind:

#1 Do not take his novels too seriously. Just...don't.

#2 Expect unnecessary sex in his books

#3. Don't judge the author on his literary skills. He's no Shakespeare

#4 Expect a ton of unnecessary sex. (Yes I'm aware that I've already listed that as #2)

If you can get past these rules and accept them. You are going to love just about anything this guy writes. This book was his twist on the Mummy character and given that very few authors have taken on this subject matter I think Amara is by far the most frightening and interesting monster of its kind out there in the world of horror fiction.

While I wouldn't recommend this as the first book you ever read of this author, it certainly holds its own as a Laymon classic.

[Jon Recluse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Laymon's best work, but still a fun read by a master.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

She has lain, untouched, for centuries, confined to a tomb where the walls have been painted with pigs' blood, her name excised from the hieroglyphs. She is Amara: wife to Mentuhotep the First, consort to an underworld god, now little more than a desiccated corpse bereft of wrappings, her name lost to history, her body consigned to collect dust in the Callahan Collection of the Charles Ward museum.

The man who has imparted her to the museum has but one demand: the golden seals which hold closed her sarcophagus must never be broken. Amara's body must not be disturbed. To do so is to invite disaster. To do so would be to wake the dead.

Or so the story goes.

Naturally the idea of a mummy waking up and walking around is absurd. But then the seals are broken. The night watchman and two other security guards are killed. Amara's body keeps showing up in places other than her coffin when morning rolls around. If she isn't the one doing the killings, then who is responsible? On the other hand, if she is, how on Earth can curator Susan Connors possibly stop something that has been undead for over four thousand years?

* * * * *

Richard Laymon may have died in early 2001, but the man was a hard-working writer who always had several manuscripts going at the same time. Thus, despite his February passing, he left behind enough work that his wife and daughter were able to piece together to provide several posthumous publications. To Wake the Dead (also known as Amara in the UK) was one of these.

By 1999/2000, we saw a shift in Laymon's style. His early and middle works were thoroughly grounded in the pulp shock of the 'Splatterpunk' movement, where the sex and violence were raw and uninhibited. Then came titles like Among the Missing, The Traveling Vampire Show, and Night in the Lonesome October, which all felt like Laymon upping his game, writing to a bit of a higher caliber, and enjoying it. Characters became more well-rounded, the sex and violence became less prurient, and the tone shifted -- Laymon became seemingly less interested in exploring monsters, and more interested in exploring characters.

I loved it.

That's not to say everything written pre-1999 was a blood- and semen-drenched, cardboard-cutout-filled schlockfest, but these later works felt like they were, dare I say it, aspiring to something greater. Compare early works like The Woods Are Dark and Allhallow's Eve to After Midnight and Come Out Tonight, and it's impossible not to feel the difference. Was Laymon...mellowing with age?

Well, if To Wake the Dead is any indication, the answer is, "Not on your life."

[Edit: In my research into Laymon and his work, I've discovered that To Wake the Dead was actually one of Laymon's "trunk" novels: one he wrote early in his career and shopped around to various publishers, none of whom were interested. It was published after his death thanks to a renewed interest in Laymon and his works, but the story itself was written all the way back in the 1980s, which explains the massive shift in style from the stories he completed prior to his demise.]

I'll say this much: To Wake the Dead might be the most ambitious novel Laymon ever attempted. Not in terms of the story -- writing a book where a long-dead mummy comes back to life and starts killing people, especially a couple of years after 1999's The Mummy with Brendan Fraser updated the concept, doesn't take any special talent -- but rather in terms of the sheer number of characters involved in the book. Throughout the story, we are subjected to an entire smorgasbord of main characters, some of which seem to have little if anything to do with the main story at hand. Because of this, To Wake the Dead feels disjointed and out-of-kilter, like a real corpse struggling to rise and walk around after a few thousand years of slumber.

To wit, we have:

- Susan Connors, curator at the Charles Ward Museum and our main protagonist, who has been put in charge of cataloging the new additions to the Callahan Collection, including the mummy Amara.

- Tag Parker, a police officer and Susan's boyfriend, trying to keep Susan safe from a nutcase named Mabel who has decided that she should be Tag's girlfriend and is jealous of Susan.

- Robert Callahan himself, whose memoirs of traveling through Egypt with his father and discovering Amara form a sort of book-within-a-book smack-dab in the center of the story.

- Imad, the live-in helper/bodyguard to the now-deceased Callahan, who is the only one with the information necessary to understand what Amara is and why waking her up is a terrible idea.

- Ed Lake, a high school kid who gets dumped by his date out in the middle of nowhere and then kidnapped, who wakes up in a cage with two other victims and is forced to perform increasingly degrading and humiliating acts for his unknown captors on penalty of torture and/or death.

- April Vallsarra, a young blind woman who lives alone in a beautiful mansion and dreams of one day finding a companion to take away her loneliness.

- Cody, a teenage runaway who has taken his girlfriend Grace and her younger sister Pix away from an abusive home life and headed for California, where Grace dreams of becoming an actress.

- Byron, an elementary school kid who stumbles across Amara's body while out playing and decides to take it home for himself, so he can show it off to the neighborhood kids and make a bit of money.

Laymon's no stranger to stories with multiple point-of-view characters, but there's a reason why most writers generally limit themselves to one or two main ones, and it's because juggling so many disparate plot lines leaves less room for each one to develop. And those eight are just the main focus: there are many other minor characters who get POV chapter of their own, like the robbers who break into Callahan's home and steal Amara; the luckless night watchman Barney who is among Amara's first victims; and the subsequent two security guards hired by the museum who also die violently at her hands.

In the end, of course, Laymon ties everything together, but To Wake the Dead still feels like a ten-course meal where few of the dishes compliment one another, and each new plate diminishes the effect of the whole. It wouldn't surprise me to learn it was published with little editorial oversight. Despite being only a bit under 400 pages, there's quite a bit of bloat which could have been excised to make way for deeper characterization. The plot with Cody, Grace, and Pix especially stands out here, since they aren't introduced until more than 1/3rd of the way into the book, and their presence and actions don't really contribute anything to the main story until the last few pages. Likewise, several of Imad's chapters exist only to show him seducing and sleeping with different women -- this isn't out of place in a Laymon novel, but they could be cut without losing one bit of the plot, thus tightening up the story that much more and allowing more room for expanded main characters when they aren't having sex.

Speaking of the sex...hooo boy. I'm no prude, and Laymon's never been one to shy away from characters knocking boots, but holy cow does To Wake the Dead push it up to eleven where the sex is concerned. From an incestuous pair of deaf-mute twin girls who seduce one character, to the various situations encountered by Ed and the others imprisoned with him, to your standard vanilla 'the babysitter is getting it on with her boyfriend while the kids are asleep' boffing, to Mabel's increasingly grotesque descriptions of not only what people do to her but what she wants to do to Tag, to Imad's exploits, it's almost harder to find a random page where someone is not getting laid. To Laymon's credit, even he was wise enough to 'turn the camera away' when a guy pulls a gun on an underage girl and demands a blowjob, but there's enough sexual hyperbole that even de Sade would have told him to put a cork in it and calm down.

I might not have been so hard on this angle, except that the ending couldn't have been more rushed if Laymon had tossed it in an envelope for "Next Day Delivery". Laymon takes one chapter to wrap up every one of the plot threads described above, including dispatching the main antagonist, and that's just not enough time. Given another chapter or two to do the wrap in a less-sloppy way besides killing half the cast, this could have been at least satisfactory. As it is, it just feels like he hit 386 pages and was like, "Well, at least I've got the story finished, I'll revise and tighten it later." To be fair, that might be exactly what happened -- as a posthumous publication, there's no telling how much of any work was done, either by Laymon's family or Leisure themselves, to get it into shape for publication. That it reads like a partially-revised first draft, especially when compared to the rest of Laymon's pre-death output, may be because that's just what it is, and if so, I shouldn't complain too much because at least we got to read it, right? I would go along with that...if it wasn't for one critical disappointment.

One of the reasons I dig Laymon's stories is that even when they take a turn into the supernatural, such as with his vampire books like The Stake and The Traveling Vampire Show, his take on those hoary tropes is always unique. They aren't "vampire stories", they are "stories which might or might not contain vampires", often left until very late in the book, even the final chapter, to let the reader in on the gag. But To Wake the Dead promises a mummy up front, and delivers just that within the first few pages. What's more, there's really nothing to differentiate this mummy from other mummies of either print or screen fiction. Amara is like every other mummy you've ever seen or read about: she's basically indestructible, she kills without remorse, and she wants one particular thing to the exclusion of all else. To Wake the Dead is disappointing because Laymon plays straight to the reader's preconceived notions, when it's clear he is capable of so much better.

Ordinarily I'm a generous sort, and because there's nothing technically 'wrong' with To Wake the Dead, I'd give it a three out of five: competent, if average. But there's no mystique to Amara -- this is a book about a mummy through and through, where you know she'll be defeated in the end. When that end comes, it comes entirely too soon and entirely too quickly, with one character who goes entirely against everything she's been built up to be over the course of the last few hundred pages. That's disappointing.

I still finished it, and almost everything I finish gets at least a 2/5, because if I finished it there's a good chance I didn't hate it. I was rather indifferent about it, and perhaps that's worse than being angry. I completed To Wake the Dead, but feel nothing for having done so.

More's the pity.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Laymon is one of my guilty pleasures. His novels are for the most part ridiculous and are always filled with lots of sex and gore, but I can't help turning the pages when I get into one of his gore-fests! This one was typical Laymon, but was a little more ambitious in some ways. In this one, Laymon structures his novel with multiple storylines that all come together at the end. The stories are really varied but they all seem to suck you in. First there is a museum curator and her boyfriend who happens to be a cop dealing with apparent burglaries at the museum; then there is the focal point of the story, a mindless mummy named Amara who is wrecking havoc across nearby neighborhoods looking for infants and tearing out throats; there's a story filled with sex about a teenage boy who is kidnapped and finds himself in a cage where he and other captives must perform various sex acts or end up with their throats slit; then there's a rich blind girl who is wishing for love and hangs out on the roof of her dead father's mansion; and there's three teenage runaways from North Carolina who are running from an abusive stepfather and who must deal with a range of predators in California. In the middle of the novel, Laymon tells the story of how Amara was discovered in Egypt in the 1920s and why she walks after death. And of course, Laymon throws in some kinky sex with a pair of deaf-mute twins as part of the 1920s narrative. Like I say, typical Laymon! Laymon passed away a few years ago and there are still quite a few of his books that I haven't read so I'm sure I'll be reading more.

[Ms. Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice in-between read where your brain can relax and you can just have fun. The multiple storylines didn't blend so well together, but I got the gist. There were a couple of what-the-hee-haw moments even with my brain on shutdown. Ed, Marco, and Virginia being held captive were the best parts.

[Mariana · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 estrellas. Pudo haber sido mi favorito de Laymon pero tengo varias quejas de las cuales ya hablaré a detalle después.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining as always, though some of the interconnecting storylines didn't make a lot of sense and one wasn't resolved.

[Mylene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am constantly looking to find authors like Richard Laymon, to no avail. He truly was one of a kind. All his books are like watching a 1980s horror movie. SO MUCH FUN!!!!! Yes, he is absolutely a guilty pleasure and you will absolutely enjoy yourself reading all his stories.

It is rare for me to read a book twice, but I have gone back to several Laymon books to gauge whether I like them as much the second time around. I initially read all of his novels back in the late 1980s and finished them all circa 2002-2003. I read Amara: To Wake the Dead some time ago, so the only part that was very vivid in my mind was the mummy herself and the torture of Ed Lake. This is not on my list of top favorites from Laymon, but this is still an entertaining read.

Let me put it this way, if you read any of Laymon’s novels, and you like his style and you have a blast… KEEP READING!!! All his novels are unique, distinctive, page turning, and are a rollicking good time.
HE WAS A GEM!!!! I read a lot and although I love all the greats in horror, to me, Laymon stands at the top.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first time reading Laymon. To be honest I almost DNFed this due to the first half of this book having little to do with the mummy, Amara. The author introduces way too many characters and sometimes made you wonder just what was the purpose of so many characters with so many sub-plots. If you are looking for a great mummy book check out Stoker or Rice's mummy fiction over this. I found this mummy to be somewhat boring and not too interesting as it was just a reanimated corpse that awakens at night time. The sex scenes were the only thing that made this worthwhile reading, and those were not that spectacular either. I may check out one more book by this author before I give up on him entirely.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Amara the rampaging, blood thirsty mummy has very little to do with the over all plot of the book, save for killing off a bunch of otherwise pointless characters late in the book. The bulk of the story is actually a bunch of poorly written, ill-conceived erotica. There's a house with a basement where kidnapped people (of both genders) are being raped through plastic barriers but the experience is so pleasurable that they actually enjoy their situation (um, yeah, sure) and there's an Egyptian Copt who is apparently God's gift to womankind. So in between the Copt's sexual exploits and the torture in the basement, the actual plot of the curator and her detective boyfriend tracking down Amara before she can kill again lumbers along.

Frankly the book bored me to tears. Erotica. just isn't my thing and the sex in this book seemed to be the only point. Of all of the books I've read this year, Amara is one of the worst.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was browsing my local bookstore when the title caught my eye. Mummies and Ancient Egypt WOOHOO! but what sealed the deal was seeing the positive reviews, one of which by the master of horror himself, Stephen King. This is the first book I've read by Richard Laymon, but I'm already planning a trip back to the book store for more titles.
It's so rare for me to say a book is cringe worthy, but at one point I had to set the book down because of its shudder inducing content. Brr. Just thinking about it... Definitely not for the weak of heart. Great storytelling, unique and interesting characters, Laymon has all the skills of a great horror writer. Definitely interested in reading more.

[Ceejay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have chosen not to finish this book.I got about half way through and I decided there are just some authors whose styles don't match up to my tastes. Also, if you check out the cover,front and back, all indications are that this is a novel about the return of a mummy.I would say that only about 1/3 of the book (at the half way mark)does so.And finally, I was just bothered about the excessive use of sex.I'm not a prud. It's just that it didn't fit into the story.So it's on to my next novel.

[Judith Sonnet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laymon always delivers. This is probably one of my least favorite Laymon books and it's still getting a solid four stars. It's absurd, sleazy, action packed, and fun! I think the main two characters are a bit weak but the side characters all made up for it! Especially the "captives". That storyline was fantastic.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yey. Laymon writes a mummy tale. Fun fun fun.

[Nathan Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mummy!

too many side stories detect from the main thrill. Would have bee nice if a few characters where chopped out. It was like reading two books at once.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one and debated between 2 and 3 stars.

[Joshua Dodd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one, as I do a lot of Laymons work. Good novel and very entertaining. Lots of twists I did not see coming.

[Nicholas Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was something else.

I know Richard Laymon’s writing isn’t for everyone, but I will give him his props. Laymon is a great storyteller who can craft a really intriguing plot and write characters you love.

Unfortunately, for me, this wasn’t one of his best books.

I had some issues with this book, but I won’t get to them all here.

The mummy aspect of this book is great! Unfortunately, there’s other side stories going on that just makes this book wackadoodle crazy! I wish Laymon focused more on the mummy than the whole weird sex cell thing.

And this book has one of the most annoying characters of all time in it. Grace’s sister is so annoying that I was wishing for her to die. She was so hard to listen to.

Oh, by the way, I listened to Gene Engene narrate this and he did a great job. Unfortunately, this story wasn’t for me.

It had some exciting moments, but overall I give this one 3 stars.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long been a lover of horror books, but only recently have I decided to step up my horror game. I have been getting more involved with instagram and facebook groups, and have learned about tons of horror books and authors that I didn't know about. Richard Laymon is one of those authors.

I picked up To Wake the Dead at a used book story. I thought it would be a good story about a mummy running amok. Boy was I wrong. This book is crazy! So many plots that only loosely come together at the end. It was like reading several books in one. I described this book to my friend as the one that has a mummy and a crazy sex dungeon. Those were the two most striking subplots to me. There is also a really annoying bit about some runaway teens trying to get to Hollywood. Blech. The little sister was awful. I could have done without this bit.

I really enjoyed the flash back, in the form of journal entries, to the discovery of the mummy, Amara. That part was fascinating. I loved reading about the archeological digs in Egypt.

It is hard to describe my feelings for this book. I read it quickly, in just over one day. It was very entertaining, and full of WTF moments. I really wasn't expecting so much sex, and the sheer kinkiness of it all. But I guess that is one of Laymon's trademarks. I am looking forward to reading more books by Laymon in the near future.

[Caleb Golden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was debating on whether or not to give this 1 or 2 stars. I think to really get this book, you have to first understand the circumstances surrounding its existence. This book was published from a previously unpublished manuscript by Richard Laymon that was left behind after his death, and while the book showed great potential, it is basically just a rough draft with a good looking cover. One of my bigger issues with it was the number of typos in the text was very distracting. True, this is basically a first draft and therefore mistakes are to be expected, but it's like the people who actually published the thing didn't put forth an ounce of effort toward editing. All that aside, and keeping in mind that the book itself is simply a manuscript, it wasn't too awful bad. Putting it in book form probably wasn't the best decision, but I can applaud the effort.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMARA - 5/5
By Richard Laymon

I started reading book and just couldn’t put it down.

This was a brilliant blend of Egyptian mythology and horror. It was gruesome, gory and full of some
particularly nasty deaths.

Initially I was confused about some of the relevance of some of the additional characters in this book (mainly Mabel) but as you read on you realised they were all part of the cleverly constructed plot.

I have always had a fascination with ancient Egypt and the thought of something long dead stalking the streets makes me quite uncomfortable!

I would definitely recommend reading this one!