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No Sanctuary
Rick would do anything for his girlfriend, Bert. He'd even spend his vacation in the wilderness with her, hiking the trails around Fern Lake, even though it's the last place on Earth he wants to be. But Rick would follow Bert to hell and back - which is just what he's about to do.
Gillian is on vacation too, but her pastimes are decidedly weirder than Rick and Bert's. She likes to break into people's homes and live there while they're away. Too bad for her she picked the home of a serial killer - a particularly nasty one who likes to take his victims out to the wilds of Fern Lake so he can have his fun without being interrupted. Rick and Bert have no idea how wild the wilderness can be. But they're about to find out.
Gillian is on vacation too, but her pastimes are decidedly weirder than Rick and Bert's. She likes to break into people's homes and live there while they're away. Too bad for her she picked the home of a serial killer - a particularly nasty one who likes to take his victims out to the wilds of Fern Lake so he can have his fun without being interrupted. Rick and Bert have no idea how wild the wilderness can be. But they're about to find out.
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
81 people are currently reading
1534 people want to read
About the author
Richard Laymon
162 books2,268 followersRichard 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
July 15, 2020
Bert pointed to a finger of pale gray smoke curling skyward. It came from a cabin, halfway down the other side of the ridge. "Who'd live in a place like that? Kinda isolated don't you think?"
They stared at the cabin. It was a dilapidated place, sprawling in an untidy heap, part hidden amidst the tall dark pines. It looked like a good place not to visit.
The crazy hermit sub-plot was completely unnecessary and you need to suspend disbelief to fully believe characters in this book are going to: 1) intrude inside a serial killer's home, 2) meeting an endless number of potential rapists, 3) going back to camping after your step-mom was brutally killed while you was hiking with your family years ago, without running away.
Besides that I really enjoyed the characters in this novel, the disturbing home invasion prologue, the Three Thugateers red herring twist, and how the two parallel storylines intertwined in the bloody gore-fest ending.
Not best work I've read from Laymon and Gillia's compulsion to enter other people's houses was a theme already and better explored in Night in the Lonesome October, but if you are in the mood of a summer read filled with the usual sex, gore and silly characters taking one bad decision after another trademark of the late author this is just a perfect page-turning one.
And thanks to it I'm just never going to let my daughter go camping, hiking or else in the future.
Never.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 19, 2017
Another great Laymon read! Check out my full review on my booktube channel at http://youtube.com/peterlikesbooks
September 10, 2014
I have read a lot of Laymon and this is one of my favorite novels simply because it proves that Laymon can write a book without relying on the usual amounts of sex and gore. You either like Richard Laymon or you don't. There is no middle ground.
This is a Laymon novel so of course it has that b-movie feel to it but that certainly isn't a bad thing. I loved the slow pacing as well as the fact that it felt as if you were getting two separate stories. Laymon is able to keep both plots strong and as the novel reaches the end you'll see what these two plots have in common.
While it is a different side of Laymon and possibly released after his untimely death No Sanctuary is a very solid Laymon novel that is really meant for the diehard fans. We know just how sick and nasty he could be but what happens when you strip that away? You get No Sanctuary which does have some violence towards the end and a bit of the usual sex but it's nothing like the shit we expected from Laymon.
This is a Laymon novel so of course it has that b-movie feel to it but that certainly isn't a bad thing. I loved the slow pacing as well as the fact that it felt as if you were getting two separate stories. Laymon is able to keep both plots strong and as the novel reaches the end you'll see what these two plots have in common.
While it is a different side of Laymon and possibly released after his untimely death No Sanctuary is a very solid Laymon novel that is really meant for the diehard fans. We know just how sick and nasty he could be but what happens when you strip that away? You get No Sanctuary which does have some violence towards the end and a bit of the usual sex but it's nothing like the shit we expected from Laymon.
January 9, 2024
Massively longer than it had any right to be. Mashes together two unconnected plots clumsily. Excessive rumpage.
Still fun though, somehow!
Still fun though, somehow!
April 12, 2021
I had to mull this one over. There are some really descent scary moments in this book. I especially enjoyed Gillians descriptions of what she would find in the houses she would stay at. I really didn’t enjoy the action in this book or the characters. Rick and his girl were a bit shallow and the ditzy twins Bonnie and her girl were just unremarkable and stupid. The crazy man in the woods was predictable and there is always some weirdo in Laymon’s books chasing after naked women. The ending was ok. I kind of wish the book focused more on Gillian. She was far more interesting. The main thing is that I finished it which is hard for me to say these days...lol
January 13, 2020
Laymon always delivers and No Sanctuary is no different. Camping horror porn at its suspenseful finest; within these woods awaits horrors no character is immune to. Fast paced and a hell of a ride.
June 10, 2013
This was a really great book. There were times where it seemed to drag on and I'd put it down for a few days, or a week. BUt the more I read, the less slow it got. It really picked up and had Laymon's signature gore and sex. I thought it had great character development and one of the best and most shocking endings I've read yet in a Laymon book. I would absolutely recommend it to others. I would love to see this book as a movie someday, but I fear Hollywood is only interested in creating ANOTHER Fast and the Furious and stuff like that.
September 17, 2017
Loved this book, but I'm a big fan of Laymon. Was surprised to find I had not read it! There are a couple stories running concurrently in this book, and I love this style of writing! Well worth the read :)
December 12, 2024
The Wilds
This book was selected for my December read. Although I have read many of Richard Laymon books this is my first. The story is about a couple named, Bert and Rick they venture out to the woods on their vacation. Nothing like being in the great open outdoors and being free. Little do they know how quickly their trip will change. Gillian a woman that has an unorthodox method with taking her vacations. This last vacation home she encounters will lead her in a situation where time is of the essence.
Overall this book was good it was very fast pace in some areas of the book. I enjoy how Laymon writes multiple stories and point of views, and how their stories intersect.
This book is a great read.
This book was selected for my December read. Although I have read many of Richard Laymon books this is my first. The story is about a couple named, Bert and Rick they venture out to the woods on their vacation. Nothing like being in the great open outdoors and being free. Little do they know how quickly their trip will change. Gillian a woman that has an unorthodox method with taking her vacations. This last vacation home she encounters will lead her in a situation where time is of the essence.
Overall this book was good it was very fast pace in some areas of the book. I enjoy how Laymon writes multiple stories and point of views, and how their stories intersect.
This book is a great read.
January 4, 2025
3.5/5, rounded down.
A solid, if unremarkable entry in Laymon's ouevre. Does a writer like Laymon have an 'ouevre'? In any case, I was never exactly bored during this short novel, but he does save all the real crazy action for the last chunk of the book. Whether or not you're personally invested in the story up to that point, will depend on how taken you are with two seemingly unrelated narratives, and waiting for those to converge at some point. Old, Dick does get a little bit tricksy with his surprise here, and his seeding of a possible twist, and that helped things along. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time with this one, but I don't think it's S or even A tier Laymon. That ending does get pretty nuts though.
A solid, if unremarkable entry in Laymon's ouevre. Does a writer like Laymon have an 'ouevre'? In any case, I was never exactly bored during this short novel, but he does save all the real crazy action for the last chunk of the book. Whether or not you're personally invested in the story up to that point, will depend on how taken you are with two seemingly unrelated narratives, and waiting for those to converge at some point. Old, Dick does get a little bit tricksy with his surprise here, and his seeding of a possible twist, and that helped things along. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time with this one, but I don't think it's S or even A tier Laymon. That ending does get pretty nuts though.
April 19, 2013
Definitely not Laymon's best work. This one was published the same year he died, and I wonder if maybe he never got the chance to do a final draft. Some of the subplots seem sketched out, unfinished, and sometimes totally unnecessary to the plot, and the whole thing just doesn't feel as refined as his normal work.
On top of that, the Kindle conversion of this book is HORRIBLE. Probably the worst I've ever seen. It's obvious someone did an OCR scan of a hard copy and published the book without even a cursory read-through. There are constant errors like "comer" instead of "corner" and odd symbols, punctuation, and bolded words where there shouldn't be. Very, very sloppy. If the publishers hadn't already gone out of business, I'd tell them they should be ashamed of themselves.
If you can get past all that, it's an okay read full of classic Laymon tropes. If you're a Laymon completist, go ahead and check it out, but if you're looking for your first book by this great author, start with In the Dark or Island instead.
On top of that, the Kindle conversion of this book is HORRIBLE. Probably the worst I've ever seen. It's obvious someone did an OCR scan of a hard copy and published the book without even a cursory read-through. There are constant errors like "comer" instead of "corner" and odd symbols, punctuation, and bolded words where there shouldn't be. Very, very sloppy. If the publishers hadn't already gone out of business, I'd tell them they should be ashamed of themselves.
If you can get past all that, it's an okay read full of classic Laymon tropes. If you're a Laymon completist, go ahead and check it out, but if you're looking for your first book by this great author, start with In the Dark or Island instead.
May 8, 2014
This was not the best Laymon novel. I picked this one up at my library for fifty cents, so it was well worth the price... but it was a disappointment for me. I've read quite a few of his works, and this one was the first that just bored me to tears. I think that it's because I've read some of his best ones already. I've seen other reviewers point out this one was released the year Laymon died, and perhaps it was not a final draft. I could believe that. It didn't feel complete. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend reading this one first if you've never experienced a Laymon book. Check out Island or After Midnight for some raw unbridled Laymon.
January 7, 2025
4.5 stars. Rick & Bert (don’t ever call her Bertha) are hiking round the trails at Fern Lake. Rick’s a little nervous of the great outdoors due to past circumstances, but he’s putting on a brave face for Bert. Meanwhile Gillian is also having a little holiday of her own, staying in empty properties while the owners are out of town, without the owners’ consent.
In both of these storylines, things are about to get a little messy, as you’d very much expect from a Laymon novel. This has been one of my favourite rereads, I loved the outdoor setting, the usual additional creepy crazy extras were particularly good - and the explosive finale was one of his better ones. An exhilarating read!
In both of these storylines, things are about to get a little messy, as you’d very much expect from a Laymon novel. This has been one of my favourite rereads, I loved the outdoor setting, the usual additional creepy crazy extras were particularly good - and the explosive finale was one of his better ones. An exhilarating read!
September 21, 2008
If you plan on reading this book, and you have never read a Laymon book before, please notice that there is generally heaps of gore, really stupid characters, and lots and lots of sex. His literary cannon is likened to the early 80's slasher films... and that's a pretty good comparison. But if most of his books are close to "Friday the 13th" or "Halloween" or even "Sleepaway Camp" this one would be a lot closer to you bargain bin find, you know the type... no one has ever heard of it, there's a busty blond on the front of the case with a look of terror, and it appears that the whole movie was filmed for the price of a keg of beer.
There are two different stories going on simultaneously in this book. First you have Gillian who has a habit of breaking into people's houses while they are away so that she can snoop, eat their food, and pretend she lives there. This habit is rather odd considering she owns her own home and has plenty of money. Still apparently she's quite pretty and has been doing this for quite some time. If you have read the back of the book, then you'll know that this time she's picked a serial killer's house...
Then our second story, Rick and Bert (she's a girl, and of course she has huge boobs and a nice booty which Rick spends almost all of his free time staring at) well they are out camping in the middle of nowhere. Rick is a bit paranoid about the whole thing since the last time he went camping the woman he was with (his step-mom) was raped and killed. But he's back in the wilderness with a new found paranoia, a gun, and a bottle of whiskey.
These two stories have nothing to do with each other until the very end, and even that's a shaky connection. The jumping back and forth between the two is very jarring, and although they all end up at the same place at the same time, you can't help but think that there was no reason to bring them together at all and that these should have been completely separated into perhaps two novellas. Because they end up together at the end, that puts seven, count them SEVEN psycho rapists/killers in this book if you don't count the local cougar population. This put me in the mind set of "Dear Lord, how many times are we going to go through this?" I also felt that this book had a striking similarity to Laymon's "Darkness, Tell Us" it even contains a fur wearing mountain man. On the whole I felt that this book could have used a few less bad guys and a little more umph. There is actually very little gore in this book, and the bit that is there is all seen after the fact. Sorry to all of Laymon's fans who are used to actually getting to "see" the murders, it doesn't happen in this one.
So since the gore level is way down, that leaves the sex... and of course everyone is as horny as a teen. Laymon even threw in a few Lesbians for some reason, even though it had nothing to do with the story, but when does the sex in a Laymon book have anything to do with the story. On the whole our male lead "Rick" is a whiny paranoid who does nothing other than envision bad things happening, or stare and fantasize about the women he sees. He's quite boring. Bert is slightly more interesting, at least she has some energy... but we only get to see her through Rick's eyes so we're stuck staring at her boobs the whole time. Gillian was such a weirdo to me that I had a hard time reading about her... I mean after you break into a house and discover snuff films and torture devices, do you really hang around? Her sheer stupidity, combined with her constantly asserting how smart she was, made her a very obnoxious character.
The overall body count in this was very low... and the book really doesn't kick into gear until after the first 200 or so pages, on the whole this was a very unsatisfying Laymon book, it almost seemed as if he were simply going through the motions. If this had been the first of his books I had read, I probably would not have picked up a second. If you are an avid Laymon fan and have run out of his other works, then you might as well read this one, but don't expect it to be the same quality.
There are two different stories going on simultaneously in this book. First you have Gillian who has a habit of breaking into people's houses while they are away so that she can snoop, eat their food, and pretend she lives there. This habit is rather odd considering she owns her own home and has plenty of money. Still apparently she's quite pretty and has been doing this for quite some time. If you have read the back of the book, then you'll know that this time she's picked a serial killer's house...
Then our second story, Rick and Bert (she's a girl, and of course she has huge boobs and a nice booty which Rick spends almost all of his free time staring at) well they are out camping in the middle of nowhere. Rick is a bit paranoid about the whole thing since the last time he went camping the woman he was with (his step-mom) was raped and killed. But he's back in the wilderness with a new found paranoia, a gun, and a bottle of whiskey.
These two stories have nothing to do with each other until the very end, and even that's a shaky connection. The jumping back and forth between the two is very jarring, and although they all end up at the same place at the same time, you can't help but think that there was no reason to bring them together at all and that these should have been completely separated into perhaps two novellas. Because they end up together at the end, that puts seven, count them SEVEN psycho rapists/killers in this book if you don't count the local cougar population. This put me in the mind set of "Dear Lord, how many times are we going to go through this?" I also felt that this book had a striking similarity to Laymon's "Darkness, Tell Us" it even contains a fur wearing mountain man. On the whole I felt that this book could have used a few less bad guys and a little more umph. There is actually very little gore in this book, and the bit that is there is all seen after the fact. Sorry to all of Laymon's fans who are used to actually getting to "see" the murders, it doesn't happen in this one.
So since the gore level is way down, that leaves the sex... and of course everyone is as horny as a teen. Laymon even threw in a few Lesbians for some reason, even though it had nothing to do with the story, but when does the sex in a Laymon book have anything to do with the story. On the whole our male lead "Rick" is a whiny paranoid who does nothing other than envision bad things happening, or stare and fantasize about the women he sees. He's quite boring. Bert is slightly more interesting, at least she has some energy... but we only get to see her through Rick's eyes so we're stuck staring at her boobs the whole time. Gillian was such a weirdo to me that I had a hard time reading about her... I mean after you break into a house and discover snuff films and torture devices, do you really hang around? Her sheer stupidity, combined with her constantly asserting how smart she was, made her a very obnoxious character.
The overall body count in this was very low... and the book really doesn't kick into gear until after the first 200 or so pages, on the whole this was a very unsatisfying Laymon book, it almost seemed as if he were simply going through the motions. If this had been the first of his books I had read, I probably would not have picked up a second. If you are an avid Laymon fan and have run out of his other works, then you might as well read this one, but don't expect it to be the same quality.
January 10, 2014
Another impressive book from Richard Laymon. To be honest, I had no idea how he'd tie this one up. There is a lot of build-up in this book, and I didn't really know where he was heading with it. There are two main stories here. The first involves Rick and Bert, a loving couple on a hiking trip, where they run into all sorts of problems, like, for example, a crazy preacher bent on feeding sinners to cougars. And then there's Gillian, who likes to break into people's houses when they're on vacation so she can live in their private lives for a few days. Too bad her most recent selection belongs to a serial killer . . . The characters are all classic Laymon, and the situation is high octane Laymon. I'm surprised more movies haven't been made out of his work. This one could have made for a great slasher flick.
August 24, 2020
In 2 eventually linked stories, Rick and Bert decide to face Rick's fears, and answer Bert's call to the wild, and go away for a couple of days hiking and camping in the wilderness of California. Meanwhile, Gillian breaks into houses and lives in them for days on end, currently on her 66th house and it seems her luck of not getting caught is about to wear thin...
This book has 2 almost separate narratives running through it, which do eventually link together near the end. I really enjoyed this book, it's the 6th Laymon book I've read and although not my favourite so far, it's definitely up there! This book has the gore and sex that Laymon is known for, as well as his trademark 'rumps' - but I do feel it's lighter on the sex & gore than his usual writings!
This book has 2 almost separate narratives running through it, which do eventually link together near the end. I really enjoyed this book, it's the 6th Laymon book I've read and although not my favourite so far, it's definitely up there! This book has the gore and sex that Laymon is known for, as well as his trademark 'rumps' - but I do feel it's lighter on the sex & gore than his usual writings!
January 15, 2015
I gotta say this book was far tamer than any of his others, but you know what it really did not take away from the story at all, not for me anyway. And it totally changes my mind about ever wanting to hike or camp in the mountains. There was a lot of action in this book and I barely put it down and again was a very fluid book to read. This is why I love Laymon books.
Again I did not really connect to the characters but he built some very strong women in this tale. They seemed to be the ones that had to take the bull by the horn so to speak. I did have a couple of favorites, Gillian and Bert. They, in my opinion were the strongest of them all.
One thing that I found very interesting was that Laymon ran two seperate tales along side one another and had it all come to a head together in a burst of wild excitement that had me on the edge of my seat. Overall it was very good and easily recommendable. Giving it 4.5 rating.
Again I did not really connect to the characters but he built some very strong women in this tale. They seemed to be the ones that had to take the bull by the horn so to speak. I did have a couple of favorites, Gillian and Bert. They, in my opinion were the strongest of them all.
One thing that I found very interesting was that Laymon ran two seperate tales along side one another and had it all come to a head together in a burst of wild excitement that had me on the edge of my seat. Overall it was very good and easily recommendable. Giving it 4.5 rating.
March 14, 2022
DNF'D.
I was probably 70 pages away from finishing, but you know what? I really couldn't care less about what happened.
I enjoyed reading from Gillian's point of view, I found her quite interesting.
But Rick, oh my god, his perception comes across as women are just sexual objects. I would go into further detail about how much I hate this guy, but fuck it.
The pace was also very slow, and a lot of the story is quite pointless.
I'm very disappointed.
I was probably 70 pages away from finishing, but you know what? I really couldn't care less about what happened.
I enjoyed reading from Gillian's point of view, I found her quite interesting.
But Rick, oh my god, his perception comes across as women are just sexual objects. I would go into further detail about how much I hate this guy, but fuck it.
The pace was also very slow, and a lot of the story is quite pointless.
I'm very disappointed.
August 12, 2015
Another great read! I enjoy so much reading this author's books, that I can hardly wait to receive the next one! The feeling of having a crisp, new book or books in your hand and finding a special place in my home to be alone and begin to read. The saddest thing that I can think of is never learning to read and enjoy that special world!
November 23, 2016
I went camping in the Sierras with Uncle Dick.
There was babes, booze, and bad decisions.
There was a grimy, babbling old coot.
And a killer.
I guess it wasn't quite as crazy and dangerous as some other weekends I've spent with Uncle Dick. But all in all, we had a pretty good time.
There was babes, booze, and bad decisions.
There was a grimy, babbling old coot.
And a killer.
I guess it wasn't quite as crazy and dangerous as some other weekends I've spent with Uncle Dick. But all in all, we had a pretty good time.
November 28, 2023
I’m surprised no one really talks about this book. This seems to be one of Laymon’s lesser known works, but it is a solid read.
It has a simple premise. Killer in the woods with a vibe you’d expect from such a story. But it was done well. Don’t sleep on this book if you like Richard Laymon.
It has a simple premise. Killer in the woods with a vibe you’d expect from such a story. But it was done well. Don’t sleep on this book if you like Richard Laymon.
September 30, 2015
Die Rezension dazu :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn866...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn866...
September 4, 2018
I think this would make a great film.
June 25, 2021
If I had to pick one word to describe "No Sanctuary", I'd go with 'schizophrenic'. Instead of one story with one main focus like most of his works, this is Laymon balancing three plots (two major, one minor) that start off having nothing to do with one another, yet all come to a head in the final pages. Laymon's gone down the multi-plot route before, most notably with "Quake" where his omniscient narrator swaps between three major focal points, but while "Quake" tells the story of three different groups on the day of a major earthquake, the string tying them all together is the family unit: a father at work, a daughter at school, and a mother trapped under some debris at home. The tie-in for "Quake" is immediately obvious: family seeking reunification after disaster. The tie-in for "No Sanctuary" is a mystery up until the climax, and Laymon includes a couple of nice red herrings, head-fakes, and weirdos that will make you wonder if there isn't more going on in the hills of California than meets the eye.
The book starts with a home invasion: pretty young Rhonda, alone in the house on Saturday night while her parents visit Aunt Betty, is abducted from her bedroom by a man who promises he won't hurt her if she just does what he says. Either she doesn't follow his instructions or he's not good at keeping promises, because three days later her body turns up a long way from home.
We jump to Rick's bedroom where he's awakened by a phone call from Bert (call her 'Bertha' and die), his girlfriend. The hour is early, but vacation waits for no one, and they've got a long drive ahead of them. Rick hates camping because he broke his leg hiking with his family when he was fourteen, but Bert's got the outdoors on the brain, and rather than see her hike the wilderness alone and unprotected, Rick's going to push down the nightmares and try to make it through with a little help from his two other friends: a fifth of bourbon and a loaded revolver. Neither of them were on Bert's packing list, but he's not leaving the city without them, and with any luck he won't need either one, but this is a Laymon story so you know the chances of that are slim to none.
Once Rick and Bert get underway, we meet Gillian O'Neill. Landlady for a twenty-unit apartment building, she receives some bad news: her office manager Odie and his wife Grace are leaving, heading back to the country to take care of Odie's invalid father and a soon-t0-arrive baby. The stress of having to find a new manager triggers Gillian's compulsion, and she goes out house-hunting...but not in the traditional sense. Gillian's hobby is finding homes where the family's gone away for a while, break in, live there for while, then skip out before they return with no one the wiser. She's got cover stories galore, she takes all the precautions, and she's only been surprised twice in all the years she's been doing it. By now she has the routine down pat for canvassing the neighborhood, picking a target, and making herself at home.
The house she selects (purely on the basis of it having a nice hot tub) belongs to one Frederick Holden, and if anyone should happen to ask, she's just house-sitting for her dear Uncle Fred while he's out of town. It doesn't hurt that Holden's neighbor, Jerry, is a good lookin' dude with a fine swimming pool...good looking enough to make her start breaking rules about not fraternizing with neighbors.
Unfortunately for Gillian, 'Uncle' Frederick has an obsessions with slasher films, horror novels, True Crime books, S&M sex, and serial killers that would make even Albert Fish or Edmund Kemper tell him to dial it down a notch...and after discovering this, Gillian realizes she has no idea when he's coming back. Naturally she packs her stuff and leaves immediately, because she realizes she's become the inadvertent final girl in a horror story, and no, sorry, just kidding, she doesn't because this is a Laymon novel and did I mention what a nice swimming pool Jerry has...?
Gillian isn't the only glutton for punishment in all this though. Rick and Bert find the camping trails and paths far from deserted, and their first encounter with Jase, Luke, and Wally, a trio of male hikers, is enough to bring the awful memories of what really happened to Rick on that earlier vacation crashing back into his brain, especially when Jase, the leader of the group, starts admiring Bert's landscape a little too closely. Instincts on edge from the encounter, the pair discuss heading a different direction from the three young men, but the arrival of Bonnie and Andrea, a pair of pretty university students from Santa Cruz taking the same trail, changes their mind. Unwilling to leave the girls to face the obnoxious guys alone, they become a party of four, driving a nice wedge of sexual tension between Rick and Bert once it becomes clear Andrea's got her eyes on him.
As luck would have it, this isn't their last encounter with The Three Thugateers. But there are even crazier lunatics out in the wilderness, and darn it if Rick and Bert aren't going to find them all before their vacation's over.
Laymon gets a lot of things right with this book. It's still a fast read in Laymon's trademark style, but it doesn't carry the relentless, breakneck packing of some of his other reads. My paperback copy clocks in at 333 pages and I burned through it in about four hours (with periodic breaks due to a need for food or other interruptions). In addition, both Gillian and Rick are reasonably well-developed as main characters with interesting back-stories explaining their neuroses. We don't spend any time in Bert's head so it's harder to get a handle on her except through what Rick sees, but we do spend a little time later on getting to know Andrea and Bonnie. Too little, really, but it's nice to see it there at all.
This book was published after Laymon died, so my assumption is that it was one of the last manuscripts he was in the process of working on or had finished prior to his death. I think this shows: much like "The Travelling Vampire Show" and "Night in the Lonesome October", Laymon keeps his trademarks of horny, nubile protagonists and splatterpunk-delighting gore, but they're more restrained here. A lot of what you imagine goes beyond what's on the page, at least up until the final twenty or so pages where everything he's been building towards explodes like a grotesque, literotic discharge across the paper. Sure there's plenty of girls running around in nothing or next-to-nothing, and guys ogling the flesh on display or almost on display, but much of the sex and the violence take place 'off screen'. Laymon works this in to tease and tantalize, because he wants that final act to be an all-consuming payoff where everybody gets what they came for, whether it was graphic violence or carnal sex, and good lord is there plenty of both to go around.
The other thing Laymon gets right I'm hiding with spoiler tags. Not because revealing it would truly spoil the book, but because it's a nice surprise revelation that most people won't see coming:
The book isn't so good that it escapes the three-star rating however. The book's largest weakness, in my opinion, is that we know who the villain of the story is from the get-go, and while we learn about his likes and habits from Gillian's little tour of his home, and later her confrontation with him when he arrives back unexpectedly, we still finish the book knowing almost nothing about him, and that's disappointing. Laymon's very good at designing villains, getting us inside their heads, and helping us understand what drives them to do what they do. Books like "Quake", "Island", "Endless Night", and "Come Out Tonight" all feature well-rounded antagonists, so I know Laymon's capable of writing them, and that's what's so disappointing about Frederick Holden. He's your basic, run-of-the-mill serial killer with good looks who gets off on killing young girls and dumping their bodies out in the middle of nowhere. Reasonably intelligent, wealthy enough, obsessed with body building and kinky sex, and well-read on other serial killers...these traits are all well and good, but his excuse for why he does what he does is that other men have these desires, but he's macho enough to act on them. Umm...OK. That's all? I mean, the idea is kind of creepy, but we already know people behave like this because we live in the real world. There's no new ground broken in "No Sanctuary" with Holden's character, and one simple change could have taken everyone by surprise and fixed this: make 'Uncle Fredrick' and Jerry one and the same.
If Laymon had gone this route, I'd have dropped five stars without even thinking about it. As it is, Holden's simply a cliche of the horror genre. He's intelligent and dangerous, but not particularly memorable, and if the villain in your horror story isn't memorable then you've done something wrong.
There's also the matter of the completely pointless, but almost unintentionally hilarious, sub-plot featuring Angus, another whack-job hillbilly out in the middle of nowhere who's been doing the Lord's work in the wilderness now for fifty years. Angus winds up being more than meets the eye, and when he's first introduced, we're not even sure if Rick hallucinated him or if he's legit. His eventual encounter with Rick and Bert, however, comes as one of those moments where you're yelling at the people on the page to just keep walking, and it adds nothing to the story except aggravation that the two haven't yet turned around and gone home. I'll buy a certain level of dumb-headedness from my characters, but their second encounter with Angus is the sort of thing that could only happen in a cheesy horror film because characters were following the script. Laymon's better than that for the rest of the book, and the book would have lost nothing had this part been excised.
All told, I liked "No Sanctuary" enough to give it this long-ass review. It's not Laymon's best, but it shows that even at the end, he was still improving as a writer, still trying new tricks, and still doing what Dick did best: entertaining the hell out of his fans.
The book starts with a home invasion: pretty young Rhonda, alone in the house on Saturday night while her parents visit Aunt Betty, is abducted from her bedroom by a man who promises he won't hurt her if she just does what he says. Either she doesn't follow his instructions or he's not good at keeping promises, because three days later her body turns up a long way from home.
We jump to Rick's bedroom where he's awakened by a phone call from Bert (call her 'Bertha' and die), his girlfriend. The hour is early, but vacation waits for no one, and they've got a long drive ahead of them. Rick hates camping because he broke his leg hiking with his family when he was fourteen, but Bert's got the outdoors on the brain, and rather than see her hike the wilderness alone and unprotected, Rick's going to push down the nightmares and try to make it through with a little help from his two other friends: a fifth of bourbon and a loaded revolver. Neither of them were on Bert's packing list, but he's not leaving the city without them, and with any luck he won't need either one, but this is a Laymon story so you know the chances of that are slim to none.
Once Rick and Bert get underway, we meet Gillian O'Neill. Landlady for a twenty-unit apartment building, she receives some bad news: her office manager Odie and his wife Grace are leaving, heading back to the country to take care of Odie's invalid father and a soon-t0-arrive baby. The stress of having to find a new manager triggers Gillian's compulsion, and she goes out house-hunting...but not in the traditional sense. Gillian's hobby is finding homes where the family's gone away for a while, break in, live there for while, then skip out before they return with no one the wiser. She's got cover stories galore, she takes all the precautions, and she's only been surprised twice in all the years she's been doing it. By now she has the routine down pat for canvassing the neighborhood, picking a target, and making herself at home.
The house she selects (purely on the basis of it having a nice hot tub) belongs to one Frederick Holden, and if anyone should happen to ask, she's just house-sitting for her dear Uncle Fred while he's out of town. It doesn't hurt that Holden's neighbor, Jerry, is a good lookin' dude with a fine swimming pool...good looking enough to make her start breaking rules about not fraternizing with neighbors.
Unfortunately for Gillian, 'Uncle' Frederick has an obsessions with slasher films, horror novels, True Crime books, S&M sex, and serial killers that would make even Albert Fish or Edmund Kemper tell him to dial it down a notch...and after discovering this, Gillian realizes she has no idea when he's coming back. Naturally she packs her stuff and leaves immediately, because she realizes she's become the inadvertent final girl in a horror story, and no, sorry, just kidding, she doesn't because this is a Laymon novel and did I mention what a nice swimming pool Jerry has...?
Gillian isn't the only glutton for punishment in all this though. Rick and Bert find the camping trails and paths far from deserted, and their first encounter with Jase, Luke, and Wally, a trio of male hikers, is enough to bring the awful memories of what really happened to Rick on that earlier vacation crashing back into his brain, especially when Jase, the leader of the group, starts admiring Bert's landscape a little too closely. Instincts on edge from the encounter, the pair discuss heading a different direction from the three young men, but the arrival of Bonnie and Andrea, a pair of pretty university students from Santa Cruz taking the same trail, changes their mind. Unwilling to leave the girls to face the obnoxious guys alone, they become a party of four, driving a nice wedge of sexual tension between Rick and Bert once it becomes clear Andrea's got her eyes on him.
As luck would have it, this isn't their last encounter with The Three Thugateers. But there are even crazier lunatics out in the wilderness, and darn it if Rick and Bert aren't going to find them all before their vacation's over.
Laymon gets a lot of things right with this book. It's still a fast read in Laymon's trademark style, but it doesn't carry the relentless, breakneck packing of some of his other reads. My paperback copy clocks in at 333 pages and I burned through it in about four hours (with periodic breaks due to a need for food or other interruptions). In addition, both Gillian and Rick are reasonably well-developed as main characters with interesting back-stories explaining their neuroses. We don't spend any time in Bert's head so it's harder to get a handle on her except through what Rick sees, but we do spend a little time later on getting to know Andrea and Bonnie. Too little, really, but it's nice to see it there at all.
This book was published after Laymon died, so my assumption is that it was one of the last manuscripts he was in the process of working on or had finished prior to his death. I think this shows: much like "The Travelling Vampire Show" and "Night in the Lonesome October", Laymon keeps his trademarks of horny, nubile protagonists and splatterpunk-delighting gore, but they're more restrained here. A lot of what you imagine goes beyond what's on the page, at least up until the final twenty or so pages where everything he's been building towards explodes like a grotesque, literotic discharge across the paper. Sure there's plenty of girls running around in nothing or next-to-nothing, and guys ogling the flesh on display or almost on display, but much of the sex and the violence take place 'off screen'. Laymon works this in to tease and tantalize, because he wants that final act to be an all-consuming payoff where everybody gets what they came for, whether it was graphic violence or carnal sex, and good lord is there plenty of both to go around.
The other thing Laymon gets right I'm hiding with spoiler tags. Not because revealing it would truly spoil the book, but because it's a nice surprise revelation that most people won't see coming:
The book isn't so good that it escapes the three-star rating however. The book's largest weakness, in my opinion, is that we know who the villain of the story is from the get-go, and while we learn about his likes and habits from Gillian's little tour of his home, and later her confrontation with him when he arrives back unexpectedly, we still finish the book knowing almost nothing about him, and that's disappointing. Laymon's very good at designing villains, getting us inside their heads, and helping us understand what drives them to do what they do. Books like "Quake", "Island", "Endless Night", and "Come Out Tonight" all feature well-rounded antagonists, so I know Laymon's capable of writing them, and that's what's so disappointing about Frederick Holden. He's your basic, run-of-the-mill serial killer with good looks who gets off on killing young girls and dumping their bodies out in the middle of nowhere. Reasonably intelligent, wealthy enough, obsessed with body building and kinky sex, and well-read on other serial killers...these traits are all well and good, but his excuse for why he does what he does is that other men have these desires, but he's macho enough to act on them. Umm...OK. That's all? I mean, the idea is kind of creepy, but we already know people behave like this because we live in the real world. There's no new ground broken in "No Sanctuary" with Holden's character, and one simple change could have taken everyone by surprise and fixed this: make 'Uncle Fredrick' and Jerry one and the same.
If Laymon had gone this route, I'd have dropped five stars without even thinking about it. As it is, Holden's simply a cliche of the horror genre. He's intelligent and dangerous, but not particularly memorable, and if the villain in your horror story isn't memorable then you've done something wrong.
There's also the matter of the completely pointless, but almost unintentionally hilarious, sub-plot featuring Angus, another whack-job hillbilly out in the middle of nowhere who's been doing the Lord's work in the wilderness now for fifty years. Angus winds up being more than meets the eye, and when he's first introduced, we're not even sure if Rick hallucinated him or if he's legit. His eventual encounter with Rick and Bert, however, comes as one of those moments where you're yelling at the people on the page to just keep walking, and it adds nothing to the story except aggravation that the two haven't yet turned around and gone home. I'll buy a certain level of dumb-headedness from my characters, but their second encounter with Angus is the sort of thing that could only happen in a cheesy horror film because characters were following the script. Laymon's better than that for the rest of the book, and the book would have lost nothing had this part been excised.
All told, I liked "No Sanctuary" enough to give it this long-ass review. It's not Laymon's best, but it shows that even at the end, he was still improving as a writer, still trying new tricks, and still doing what Dick did best: entertaining the hell out of his fans.
September 29, 2021
I don't get the hate. NO SANCTUARY is another fine Laymon read, this one published posthumously though it was written sometime in the '80s. It's another Laymon-does-camping slasher, akin to DARK MOUNTAIN, however NO SANCTUARY also features an intriguing character who likes to break into people's homes while they're on vacation.
What's interesting about the posthumous Laymon books is that people have created a conspiracy theory where Richard Laymon didn't write the books, or at least didn't write every single bit of them. Normally I don't put much stock in those theories, however there was a bit of description that jumped out at me in NO SANCTUARY.
"faded blue chambray shirt"
For those who've read Stephen King, a blue chambray shirt in a King book is like a Dean Koontz book with a super-intelligent dog or a Ford Explorer–driving protagonist. Not always there, but there more often than not.
Did King give the draft a final look-over and insert his calling card? Probably not! But it would make a great story.
What's interesting about the posthumous Laymon books is that people have created a conspiracy theory where Richard Laymon didn't write the books, or at least didn't write every single bit of them. Normally I don't put much stock in those theories, however there was a bit of description that jumped out at me in NO SANCTUARY.
"faded blue chambray shirt"
For those who've read Stephen King, a blue chambray shirt in a King book is like a Dean Koontz book with a super-intelligent dog or a Ford Explorer–driving protagonist. Not always there, but there more often than not.
Did King give the draft a final look-over and insert his calling card? Probably not! But it would make a great story.
February 20, 2021
This one was published after Laymon's death in February of 2001, and the last part of it reads somewhat like a draft. It's the weakest of the Laymon books I've read so far, but it still held my interest. The writing is smooth, except for one weird scene near the end that featured a mad mountain hermit and some panthers. Laymon's characters always hold my interest, though the interactions he describes between men and women seem subtly off to me. I can't really explain it. All in all, I enjoyed it and will certainly read more by Laymon.
August 11, 2022
This was definitely a slow burn. He had a lot of build-up to the actual excitement. Some was good. Some not so good. Very transparent. But when it got exciting, boy, oh boy, did it get exciting. The end was perfect!
April 14, 2024
Was a pretty good book until the crazy preacher with giant cats.
Then dum dum dum dum…,,dum.
Then dum dum dum dum…,,dum.
May 29, 2025
Bert and Rick are a couple, spending some time hiking along a wilderness trail. They meet up with a few other travelers, a group of obnoxious boys and two women. This book makes me never want to go camping. Too many bad things happen. This felt like a Laymon book. Most of the men are sex obsessed, and we have to listen to their thoughts. Parts of this book made me pretty uncomfortable. Still, I give it 4 stars, because I like this author.
May 15, 2015
This book was just one cheesy horror cliche after another, mixed in with ridiculous sex scenes. It was like a bad movie--you really want to leave, but the next part shouldn't be as bad, right? So you stick around and wait to see if it does indeed get better, or if it will reach another a whole new level of face-palming that you had hoped wouldn't exist, but you kind of saw coming. Then when everything's over, you stare sadly into space and say to yourself, "Did I really just do that to myself? Why? Is there something seriously wrong with me?" If you own this book, you might just want to save yourself the effort, skip the actual reading of this story and place it directly in the trash, all while staring angrily at a picture of the author and muttering, "YOU...YOU DID THIS..."
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