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Kane
Nothing much happened in the isolated desert town of Tuskett, and with only 23 residents, it was easy to notice the new guy, Kane. He just came strolling into town with no reason for coming--until one night, when all his intentions became clear and the town of Tuskett began dying.
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 3, 1990
11 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Borton
10 books15 followersAka Michael Prescott and Brian Harper.
Douglas Child Borton, Jr. grew up in New Jersey and attended Wesleyan University, then moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as a screenwriter. After working with several independent producers, he eventually switched to writing novels, a much less stressful occupation. He has published eight thrillers, from Comes the Dark (1999) to Mortal Faults (2006), and currently is at work on a new book. Today he divides his time between the Arizona desert and the Jersey shore.
Douglas Child Borton, Jr. grew up in New Jersey and attended Wesleyan University, then moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as a screenwriter. After working with several independent producers, he eventually switched to writing novels, a much less stressful occupation. He has published eight thrillers, from Comes the Dark (1999) to Mortal Faults (2006), and currently is at work on a new book. Today he divides his time between the Arizona desert and the Jersey shore.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 1, 2023
This is the ultimate evil comes to town novel. When Bill sees a man all clad in black coming into his small town he has no clue the terrors soon begin. The stranger calls himself Kane. He's here for one reason: to kill. Will any of the inhabitants survive his stay of terror? Why is he killing all those people? What are his motifs? Excellent portrait of a dying American small town that once boomed. Great characters and fast paced action that let you jaws drop. Kane (the name reminded on Solomon Kane or the Biblical Caine) is one of the darkest and eeriest characters I ever came across in a novel. He also reminded me a bit on John Ryder in the movie The Hitcher... creepy page turner and true highlight. Highly recommended!
May 22, 2025
I’ve always had an unnatural obsession with “small town horror” novels, and you can’t get much smaller than deserty, dying Tuskett, California and its 23 total residents. At first I thought, “Really? 23? How does the gas station/service station owner survive, with no major highways running through town? What does the sheriff do?” But that’s all explained by them mostly all being retirement age, living off their pensions. Borton does an excellent job describing everyday life for the various townspeople, who will soon start dropping like flies once the shadowy, mysterious Kane shows up. He just walks into town, in a long heavy duster despite the heat, even though there’s nothing around but desert for miles and miles, which sets alarm bells off in the town instantly. But could one “man” be that much of a threat?
Turns out, yes he can. Kane is a nasty villain, exceedingly cruel in his killing methods, but I felt his aura of being an evil unstoppable Terminator-like force was neutered a bit when, early on, , but outside of that one scene he was memorably vicious. The townspeople are all very well-drawn, very King-like, and I grew to care about them and hoped they would survive. Well, some of them, at least. Like King’s small towns, this one’s got its share of scumbags as well. This rundown burg of mostly abandoned houses provided an especially creepy setting, particularly during the nighttime scenes, when it’s almost pitch black and eerily silent. Great atmosphere all around.
After the setup it’s pretty much nonstop tension and terror, and the mystery of just why the hell this was happening kept me intrigued. Is he Cain from the Bible, or just a psycho? Supernatural or no? I’m not telling, though I have no qualms recommending this to any and all horror fans, especially “evil in a small town” lovers like myself.
(As an aside, I’ve come across various articles from almost a decade ago referencing the fact that this was being made into a movie called Mark of Kane. There’s even a poster and everything. But the radio silence in the years since doesn’t give me much hope of it actually happening.)
Turns out, yes he can. Kane is a nasty villain, exceedingly cruel in his killing methods, but I felt his aura of being an evil unstoppable Terminator-like force was neutered a bit when, early on, , but outside of that one scene he was memorably vicious. The townspeople are all very well-drawn, very King-like, and I grew to care about them and hoped they would survive. Well, some of them, at least. Like King’s small towns, this one’s got its share of scumbags as well. This rundown burg of mostly abandoned houses provided an especially creepy setting, particularly during the nighttime scenes, when it’s almost pitch black and eerily silent. Great atmosphere all around.
After the setup it’s pretty much nonstop tension and terror, and the mystery of just why the hell this was happening kept me intrigued. Is he Cain from the Bible, or just a psycho? Supernatural or no? I’m not telling, though I have no qualms recommending this to any and all horror fans, especially “evil in a small town” lovers like myself.
(As an aside, I’ve come across various articles from almost a decade ago referencing the fact that this was being made into a movie called Mark of Kane. There’s even a poster and everything. But the radio silence in the years since doesn’t give me much hope of it actually happening.)
June 4, 2021
A man walks out of the Mojave Desert and into a small California town where he begins killing all the residents. It's a simple plot, and one I wasn't sure would be able to maintain itself for 350 pages, but somehow it does.
Sure, it's plenty cheesy and somewhat predictable. The characters, while decently drawn, exude a contrived sentimentality, and their thoughts about each other match up a little too neatly. Certain writing techniques become tiresome. Every time something consequential happens to the characters, they flash back to an earlier moment in their lives that provides another glimmer of background information. And Borton really likes to repeat himself. When speaking of how far away the morning will be, he says, "Far enough, though, Oh, yes, Plenty far enough." This might be all right once or twice, but it's used at the end of almost every section, which is just too much.
But Borton creates some amount of magic because I eventually got caught up in the lives of the townsfolk and felt bad for them when they started dying. He mixes up the murder tactics, so the killings don't become stale. He also provides the right amount of ambiguity, dropping many possibilities as to Kane's motivations without ever settling on any one of them.
The whole ordeal is very Stephen King in its structure and portrayal of small town life, and, to some extent, the story is playing on my nostalgia for the kinds of books I often read as a teenager. It's certainly nothing revolutionary and, in fact, it may be quite derivative, but I'll be damned if I didn't get sucked into the situation and have a lot of fun being there.
Sure, it's plenty cheesy and somewhat predictable. The characters, while decently drawn, exude a contrived sentimentality, and their thoughts about each other match up a little too neatly. Certain writing techniques become tiresome. Every time something consequential happens to the characters, they flash back to an earlier moment in their lives that provides another glimmer of background information. And Borton really likes to repeat himself. When speaking of how far away the morning will be, he says, "Far enough, though, Oh, yes, Plenty far enough." This might be all right once or twice, but it's used at the end of almost every section, which is just too much.
But Borton creates some amount of magic because I eventually got caught up in the lives of the townsfolk and felt bad for them when they started dying. He mixes up the murder tactics, so the killings don't become stale. He also provides the right amount of ambiguity, dropping many possibilities as to Kane's motivations without ever settling on any one of them.
The whole ordeal is very Stephen King in its structure and portrayal of small town life, and, to some extent, the story is playing on my nostalgia for the kinds of books I often read as a teenager. It's certainly nothing revolutionary and, in fact, it may be quite derivative, but I'll be damned if I didn't get sucked into the situation and have a lot of fun being there.
April 8, 2021
A man walks out of the Mojave desert and into a small town of Tuskett, California, a remote place with a population of 23 and already on palliative care since forever. The locals spy the newcomer, named biblically enough as Kane, with well-founded suspicion, and as night falls he starts to help them with guns and knives and bombs to move on from their sad little lives to kingdom come.
As Kane's nocturnal carnage gets underway, Bill the mechanic, Rile the geriatric man and Jenny the single mom, among others, figure out Kane means business and begin to fight back. But Kane always seems to be several steps ahead.
Kane, our mean, tall, blue-eyed main man here, is something of a cousin of Flagg, Stephen King's the man in black, and not only because of similar wardrobe habits or the western milieu. His reasons are mysterious, he's just there to kill and kill again and he does it with great pleasure and skill. Is he Cain as told about in the bible, or something else supernatural, or someone avenging an event in the town's history, or maybe even a federal worker sent to clean up an already disappearing dot on the map? Theories abound but nothing really sticks, the mystery holds.
Borton, also writing thrillers as Michael Prescott, began as a writer of horror, so Kane is one of his earlier works. The writing doesn't show it. The action is tense and taut, and when things get nasty, oh boy, they drip with the good stuff, they are drenched to the core. Some of the kills are noticeably mean, but the writing never becomes callous or uncaring. Notably, all characters are also very well written; there's a degree of difference here between Kane and something like James Herbert's Rats, where the victims were basically triggers for the readers' sympathy. In Kane, every character pushes several buttons at once, like real people might.
The spring-loaded first half, with the mysterious, blink-and-he'll-pounce Kane is the best part, with some of the steam going out towards the end, when the story is reduced to a chase of kill or be killed. Kane's not quite a lost masterpiece, but it's a confident novel which knows and uses its strengths to a great effect. The smart, sharp writing elevates it to a level close to something by the aforementioned Stephen King, in glowing contrast to many of its paperback horror peers. A good one, this.
As Kane's nocturnal carnage gets underway, Bill the mechanic, Rile the geriatric man and Jenny the single mom, among others, figure out Kane means business and begin to fight back. But Kane always seems to be several steps ahead.
Kane, our mean, tall, blue-eyed main man here, is something of a cousin of Flagg, Stephen King's the man in black, and not only because of similar wardrobe habits or the western milieu. His reasons are mysterious, he's just there to kill and kill again and he does it with great pleasure and skill. Is he Cain as told about in the bible, or something else supernatural, or someone avenging an event in the town's history, or maybe even a federal worker sent to clean up an already disappearing dot on the map? Theories abound but nothing really sticks, the mystery holds.
Borton, also writing thrillers as Michael Prescott, began as a writer of horror, so Kane is one of his earlier works. The writing doesn't show it. The action is tense and taut, and when things get nasty, oh boy, they drip with the good stuff, they are drenched to the core. Some of the kills are noticeably mean, but the writing never becomes callous or uncaring. Notably, all characters are also very well written; there's a degree of difference here between Kane and something like James Herbert's Rats, where the victims were basically triggers for the readers' sympathy. In Kane, every character pushes several buttons at once, like real people might.
The spring-loaded first half, with the mysterious, blink-and-he'll-pounce Kane is the best part, with some of the steam going out towards the end, when the story is reduced to a chase of kill or be killed. Kane's not quite a lost masterpiece, but it's a confident novel which knows and uses its strengths to a great effect. The smart, sharp writing elevates it to a level close to something by the aforementioned Stephen King, in glowing contrast to many of its paperback horror peers. A good one, this.
October 5, 2020
A tall man in black came walking out of the desert. This gave me goosebumps and all I could think of was the gunslinger. Population of 23 and one man will spent the evening eradicating every last one of them. Great characters, great build, great kills, this is a well written gem.
December 21, 2018
Everything you'd want from a novel about a mysterious trench coated drifter who comes to a small town to kill the entire populace in one night. It takes a while to get going, but every character gets a proper introduction, and once the murders start happening, there's a solid balance between the fatality and wanting to know what happens next. There aren't many surprises to be found (You'll guess who survives), and while the final moments are so theatrical they almost read like screenplay beats, it's still a mighty satisfying read I plowed through in a few days.
August 22, 2014
This was the first book I've read by Douglas Borton and I was very impressed. It has a bit of the slow burn of Bentley Little, the great detail and characterization of Stephen King and an incredibly dark mean streak I haven't encountered this side of Jack Ketchum. Really frightening, well done horror. This book doesn't play around, its a dark, mean, scary work. I will definitely be reading more Borton. Highly recommended for horror fans.
January 9, 2009
Kane, a satanic traveller, sets out to kill the entire population of a small, dying town in a single night. Several residents work to stop him, but it's not an easy fight.
There's a real Stephen King/Bentley Little feel to this novel, with a great deal of attention given to the characterization of the townspeople in and around combat with Kane.
There's a real Stephen King/Bentley Little feel to this novel, with a great deal of attention given to the characterization of the townspeople in and around combat with Kane.
June 28, 2014
So far it is really good. Keeps me interested.......
August 16, 2014
Another great read by Michael Prescott. The large variety of characters in this book are each unique and individual, thanks to Mr. Prescott's writing talent. Another "you can't put it down" book!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews