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Flesh Stealer
"What kind of animal does something like this--eats the skin off a man leaves the meat?"
Cavern City, Kentucky, is a nice place to take the kids in the summer. The caves are cool and only a little bit spooky, and the primitive drawings and Indian artifacts are real educational. Cutter was proud of his job; he loved guiding the tourists through the caves and telling the Indian legends over and over--until the day he slipped in a pool of slimy blood. Until the day the caves became a hell of decay and brooding menace, a fetid, gore-drenched void of evil. Until he came face to face with Flesh Stealer.
The first victim managed to crawl outside the cave to die--skinned alive. Then the foul ancient horror went berserk. Cutter's landlady was flayed and left in a puddle of pulpy flesh. A little boy was next, the Cutter's good buddy. Then two teenagers.
An unspeakable horror was loose in Cavern City. The streets were red with blood. Death was everywhere. And nothing could stop it...nothing...
Cavern City, Kentucky, is a nice place to take the kids in the summer. The caves are cool and only a little bit spooky, and the primitive drawings and Indian artifacts are real educational. Cutter was proud of his job; he loved guiding the tourists through the caves and telling the Indian legends over and over--until the day he slipped in a pool of slimy blood. Until the day the caves became a hell of decay and brooding menace, a fetid, gore-drenched void of evil. Until he came face to face with Flesh Stealer.
The first victim managed to crawl outside the cave to die--skinned alive. Then the foul ancient horror went berserk. Cutter's landlady was flayed and left in a puddle of pulpy flesh. A little boy was next, the Cutter's good buddy. Then two teenagers.
An unspeakable horror was loose in Cavern City. The streets were red with blood. Death was everywhere. And nothing could stop it...nothing...
- GenresHorror
317 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1990
1 person is currently reading
143 people want to read
About the author
Pauline Dunn
4 books2 followers"Pauline Dunn" was the pen name used by sisters Dawn Pauline Hartzell Dunn and Susan Hartzell. They wrote three books under this pseudonym before getting in legal trouble for plagiarizing sections of Dean Koontz's "Phantoms" in their books "The Crawling Dark" and "Demonic Color".
Dawn Dunn continued writing after the scandal, publishing under her own name a number of short stories in different genres. Her last published works were released in 2001. She currently works as a Nurse Practitioner in her home state of Indiana.
Dawn Dunn continued writing after the scandal, publishing under her own name a number of short stories in different genres. Her last published works were released in 2001. She currently works as a Nurse Practitioner in her home state of Indiana.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 30, 2019
William W. Johnstone set the template for the typical Zebra creature feature: a Vietnam vet protagonist at whom women throw themselves without a second thought, either living in or returning to "Smalltown, USA", butts heads with a nightmarish abomination which slaughters its way remorselessly through the population. Finally, through sheer determination, faith in God and the Republican party, and the judicious application of his Second Amendment rights, the terror stalking the small town is sent packing. All that's left is to clean up the bodies, mourn for the dead, and hope something didn't survive. Spoiler alert: something always survives, just in case sales numbers dictate the need for a sequel.
What we have in Flesh Stealer is two women writing under a pseudonym, borrowing the Johnstone formula, filing off the right-wing propaganda and gun fellatio, and turning in a straightforward Creature Feature with an absurdly high body count that works right up until the Epilogue destroys everything they've spent the last 300 pages building up.
Yup. It's a Zebra book all right...
The unimaginatively-named Cavern City, Kentucky is where the evil crops up this time. A sort of analog for the Green River valley in south central Kentucky where Mammoth Cave National Park is located, Cavern City's a one-horse burg kept running by a steady influx of tourists and sight-seers eager to explore the caves. Jeffrey "Cutter" Stone is one of the seasonal tour guides who leads groups through the underground and back to safety. A veteran of Vietnam, where he served as a helicopter pilot, Stone has a rough time staying in one place for too long, but he always comes back to Cavern City and the welcoming arms of Patty who loves him and hates herself for being unable to fix his wanderlust.
Now though, trouble has cropped up in Cavern City. The body of an out-of-towner is found near one of the unused cave entrances, his murder accomplished through the savage stripping of his skin, leaving him to bleed out and die of shock. The death is ruled an animal attack, but no one can figure out what would cause a wolf or a bear to eat the skin off its victim and leave the muscles and internal organs intact. Cutter hasn't seen anything like it since Vietnam: man is the only species that flays others alive.
The next victims are closer to home for Cutter, as the son and husband of the landlady he rents his trailer are attacked by the creature. After that, it's a couple of teenagers down by the lake, and then the landlady herself, who get the treatment, then another one of the Cavern City tour guides bites the dust, and Cutter joins the manhunt in the hopes of finding whatever's doing the killings before it takes any more victims...but this is only seventy pages in and Dunn has plenty more victims on the chopping block. By the time the book ends, we've had scientists from two different parts of the country arrive to help, a deluge of reporters have converged on the area to get the story (including one hotshot asshole who you just know is going to get it in the worst way possible), the state police, and finally the National Guard. Dunn might as well be laying out a smorgasbord for the creature, but as the saying goes, there's no kill like overkill, so come and get it!
Flesh Stealer may be a Johnstone rip-off from start to finish, but it's a more competently-written narrative than anything of Johnstone's that I've ever written...and believe it or not, that's a problem. Dunn makes an effort to build complex characters driven by different emotions, but in a story about a seventeen-hundred-year-old creature running around the Kentucky countryside skinning people alive because it needs flesh, this works to the story's detriment. With Johnstone, one at least has the ability to laugh at the cardboard victims and the equally-cardboard heroes who get ravaged by killer bats or over-muscled products of incest. Dunn wants us to take this story seriously, but the pair of women behind the pseudonym don't have the chops to pull this off the way, say, Gregory Douglas did with The Nest.
The result is a lot of plodding and narrative that slows the book down rather than driving it forward, making this 315-page story feel more bloated than a novel with a body count in excess of twenty-five victims should. There's plenty of action, there's quite a bit of sex (even if most of it happens "off-screen"), and tons of carnage as Dunn puts us in the minds of numerous victims and describes what they're thinking and feeling in their final moments. In some cases, these are odd musings indeed with one character so desperate to make a connection with this creature that he sabotages the efforts of the people trying to kill it, then masturbates about the fantasy shortly before he suffers the death you know is coming for him. It's, uh...well, it's the first time in my memory at least I can remember reading about a grown man furious and shamefully whacking off just before his own demise, so I guess it's got that going for it.
Surprisingly enough, there's no "fake out" moment in the book, where somebody kills an animal which had nothing to do with the deaths and everyone breathes a sigh of relief until the attacks begin anew. This isn't a complaint in the least, as it's one of the most common tropes in "animals attack" stories and it's refreshing to see Dunn's unwillingness to completely follow the script on this front. I was well on the way to awarding this one a solid three out of five, and then...the Epilogue.
Dear god, the Epilogue.
Listen, I'm not going to spoil it, but I need you to promise me one thing. I need you to promise that if you track down a copy of Flesh Stealer, you will stop reading on page 313. I know there are pages beyond that, I know they look like they are part of the actual story, but I assure you, if you read pages 314 - 317, you will hate yourself. More than that, you will hate Flesh Stealer, and you will hate "Pauline Dunn" for having written them, because they make zero goddamn sense in light of what just happened.
Now, if you can promise me this, I can promise you in return that you'll have a decent time with Flesh Stealer. It's not going to blow your mind, and it's not a roller coaster of jingoism and ammosexuality the way Johnstone's tales go, but it's a reasonably competent story hiding between the covers of a Zebra novel which goes completely off the rails in the last four pages.
Three skinned and still-twitching corpses out of five if you ignore the epilogue. Two out of five if you bumble into it and don't have the good sense to stop.
What we have in Flesh Stealer is two women writing under a pseudonym, borrowing the Johnstone formula, filing off the right-wing propaganda and gun fellatio, and turning in a straightforward Creature Feature with an absurdly high body count that works right up until the Epilogue destroys everything they've spent the last 300 pages building up.
Yup. It's a Zebra book all right...
The unimaginatively-named Cavern City, Kentucky is where the evil crops up this time. A sort of analog for the Green River valley in south central Kentucky where Mammoth Cave National Park is located, Cavern City's a one-horse burg kept running by a steady influx of tourists and sight-seers eager to explore the caves. Jeffrey "Cutter" Stone is one of the seasonal tour guides who leads groups through the underground and back to safety. A veteran of Vietnam, where he served as a helicopter pilot, Stone has a rough time staying in one place for too long, but he always comes back to Cavern City and the welcoming arms of Patty who loves him and hates herself for being unable to fix his wanderlust.
Now though, trouble has cropped up in Cavern City. The body of an out-of-towner is found near one of the unused cave entrances, his murder accomplished through the savage stripping of his skin, leaving him to bleed out and die of shock. The death is ruled an animal attack, but no one can figure out what would cause a wolf or a bear to eat the skin off its victim and leave the muscles and internal organs intact. Cutter hasn't seen anything like it since Vietnam: man is the only species that flays others alive.
The next victims are closer to home for Cutter, as the son and husband of the landlady he rents his trailer are attacked by the creature. After that, it's a couple of teenagers down by the lake, and then the landlady herself, who get the treatment, then another one of the Cavern City tour guides bites the dust, and Cutter joins the manhunt in the hopes of finding whatever's doing the killings before it takes any more victims...but this is only seventy pages in and Dunn has plenty more victims on the chopping block. By the time the book ends, we've had scientists from two different parts of the country arrive to help, a deluge of reporters have converged on the area to get the story (including one hotshot asshole who you just know is going to get it in the worst way possible), the state police, and finally the National Guard. Dunn might as well be laying out a smorgasbord for the creature, but as the saying goes, there's no kill like overkill, so come and get it!
Flesh Stealer may be a Johnstone rip-off from start to finish, but it's a more competently-written narrative than anything of Johnstone's that I've ever written...and believe it or not, that's a problem. Dunn makes an effort to build complex characters driven by different emotions, but in a story about a seventeen-hundred-year-old creature running around the Kentucky countryside skinning people alive because it needs flesh, this works to the story's detriment. With Johnstone, one at least has the ability to laugh at the cardboard victims and the equally-cardboard heroes who get ravaged by killer bats or over-muscled products of incest. Dunn wants us to take this story seriously, but the pair of women behind the pseudonym don't have the chops to pull this off the way, say, Gregory Douglas did with The Nest.
The result is a lot of plodding and narrative that slows the book down rather than driving it forward, making this 315-page story feel more bloated than a novel with a body count in excess of twenty-five victims should. There's plenty of action, there's quite a bit of sex (even if most of it happens "off-screen"), and tons of carnage as Dunn puts us in the minds of numerous victims and describes what they're thinking and feeling in their final moments. In some cases, these are odd musings indeed with one character so desperate to make a connection with this creature that he sabotages the efforts of the people trying to kill it, then masturbates about the fantasy shortly before he suffers the death you know is coming for him. It's, uh...well, it's the first time in my memory at least I can remember reading about a grown man furious and shamefully whacking off just before his own demise, so I guess it's got that going for it.
Surprisingly enough, there's no "fake out" moment in the book, where somebody kills an animal which had nothing to do with the deaths and everyone breathes a sigh of relief until the attacks begin anew. This isn't a complaint in the least, as it's one of the most common tropes in "animals attack" stories and it's refreshing to see Dunn's unwillingness to completely follow the script on this front. I was well on the way to awarding this one a solid three out of five, and then...the Epilogue.
Dear god, the Epilogue.
Listen, I'm not going to spoil it, but I need you to promise me one thing. I need you to promise that if you track down a copy of Flesh Stealer, you will stop reading on page 313. I know there are pages beyond that, I know they look like they are part of the actual story, but I assure you, if you read pages 314 - 317, you will hate yourself. More than that, you will hate Flesh Stealer, and you will hate "Pauline Dunn" for having written them, because they make zero goddamn sense in light of what just happened.
Now, if you can promise me this, I can promise you in return that you'll have a decent time with Flesh Stealer. It's not going to blow your mind, and it's not a roller coaster of jingoism and ammosexuality the way Johnstone's tales go, but it's a reasonably competent story hiding between the covers of a Zebra novel which goes completely off the rails in the last four pages.
Three skinned and still-twitching corpses out of five if you ignore the epilogue. Two out of five if you bumble into it and don't have the good sense to stop.
June 28, 2023
Review to come.
July 9, 2018
Real quick. Two days from now and I will have been running this blog for a year. I just wanted to say thank you to all of my readership, the authors and publishers who send me books for review, all the suggestions made by fellow readers. It makes doing this more meaningful than I ever hoped it would be. Here's to another year of reading and reviewing!
And with this, I have come to a conclusion. So far, in my experience, if Zebra puts it out, it's just not good.
A fellow reader and reviewer whose opinion I honor and trust, Leon, the paperback maniac, (if you haven't checked out his YouTube channel, it's a must see... check it out here), referred to this book as the best Zebra offered in its heyday of putting out an endless supply of horror reading.
If this is THE BEST, and I do believe it is, I am hesitant to do much more exploration of their titles.
It's fine, honestly. Nothing is absolutely awful here. The artwork is particularly awesome. I will say it's endlessly better than Johnstone...
But holy hell, this has got to be some of the most cookie cutter reading I have experienced yet in the blog. And that makes total sense, as the sister duo writting under the 'Pauline Dunn' pen name were popped for plagiarism of entire passages of Dean Koontz' breakthrough novel, Phantoms in their subsequent books.
This one may not be as blatantly ripped, at least not word-for-word, but, I'll be damned if you haven't read this exact story countless times. Or maybe you haven't. And you'd probably find this much more enjoyable than I did, if you hadn't.
This is essentially a more linear, competently written version of the Johnstone formula. Oh, and without the awful right-wing propaganda...
You've got the slightly weathered manly man of a Vietnam Vet...named Cutter, of course. He's got a pile of troubled women weeping all around him and eager to sleep with him. He's a simple, tough guy who is straight to the point, with some traumatic experiences under his belt, to ya know, enrich his character. The hero.
We've got an ancient Indian mummy woman creature who is...you guessed it...stealing flesh every twenty pages or so. The first few times this occurred, it's appropriately gross and fun. After a while, you want someone to get dispatched in a different way.
Cutter and his crew of small town stereotypes, in conjunction with a couple of sciencey know-it-alls from the nearby university with a specialty department on flesh stealing mummy women, chase her around, get picked off, and we get a half assed version of why this is all happening thrown in the last few pages. Followed by the most WTF ending I can think of that has almost nothing to do with the story.
Sure, it's got some nasty, gory moments...an unintentionally funny highlight being when one of the collegiate types, who has never been with a woman, attempts to realize his lifelong fantasy of banging a 1000+ year old decaying one and it goes exactly how you'd think it would.
But there in lies one of the major problems I have with the book. The characters are hollow, dumb caricatures who do things either only to keep the reader alert or exactly what you'd expect. The story veers towards nothing exciting, just the standard deviations of "oh, we are writing a horror book, so let's do all the things we're supposed to."
All in all, it's an empty, repetitious exercise in the the standard of the day, with a little extra blood on top. A purely middle of the road experience.
I must admit, my curiosity is piqued by the widely publicized case (read all about it here) of 'Pauline Dunn' stealing Dean Koontz' literary flesh, so I intend to read "her" other two books, I'm just in no rush at all.
Also, Leon, I still trust you. Because, I am fairly convinced this is, in fact, the best Zebra can offer.
2.5/5
Maybe a 3 on account of the gnarly cover art.
originally posted on my blog at http://UndivineInterventions.blogspot...
And with this, I have come to a conclusion. So far, in my experience, if Zebra puts it out, it's just not good.
A fellow reader and reviewer whose opinion I honor and trust, Leon, the paperback maniac, (if you haven't checked out his YouTube channel, it's a must see... check it out here), referred to this book as the best Zebra offered in its heyday of putting out an endless supply of horror reading.
If this is THE BEST, and I do believe it is, I am hesitant to do much more exploration of their titles.
It's fine, honestly. Nothing is absolutely awful here. The artwork is particularly awesome. I will say it's endlessly better than Johnstone...
But holy hell, this has got to be some of the most cookie cutter reading I have experienced yet in the blog. And that makes total sense, as the sister duo writting under the 'Pauline Dunn' pen name were popped for plagiarism of entire passages of Dean Koontz' breakthrough novel, Phantoms in their subsequent books.
This one may not be as blatantly ripped, at least not word-for-word, but, I'll be damned if you haven't read this exact story countless times. Or maybe you haven't. And you'd probably find this much more enjoyable than I did, if you hadn't.
This is essentially a more linear, competently written version of the Johnstone formula. Oh, and without the awful right-wing propaganda...
You've got the slightly weathered manly man of a Vietnam Vet...named Cutter, of course. He's got a pile of troubled women weeping all around him and eager to sleep with him. He's a simple, tough guy who is straight to the point, with some traumatic experiences under his belt, to ya know, enrich his character. The hero.
We've got an ancient Indian mummy woman creature who is...you guessed it...stealing flesh every twenty pages or so. The first few times this occurred, it's appropriately gross and fun. After a while, you want someone to get dispatched in a different way.
Cutter and his crew of small town stereotypes, in conjunction with a couple of sciencey know-it-alls from the nearby university with a specialty department on flesh stealing mummy women, chase her around, get picked off, and we get a half assed version of why this is all happening thrown in the last few pages. Followed by the most WTF ending I can think of that has almost nothing to do with the story.
Sure, it's got some nasty, gory moments...an unintentionally funny highlight being when one of the collegiate types, who has never been with a woman, attempts to realize his lifelong fantasy of banging a 1000+ year old decaying one and it goes exactly how you'd think it would.
But there in lies one of the major problems I have with the book. The characters are hollow, dumb caricatures who do things either only to keep the reader alert or exactly what you'd expect. The story veers towards nothing exciting, just the standard deviations of "oh, we are writing a horror book, so let's do all the things we're supposed to."
All in all, it's an empty, repetitious exercise in the the standard of the day, with a little extra blood on top. A purely middle of the road experience.
I must admit, my curiosity is piqued by the widely publicized case (read all about it here) of 'Pauline Dunn' stealing Dean Koontz' literary flesh, so I intend to read "her" other two books, I'm just in no rush at all.
Also, Leon, I still trust you. Because, I am fairly convinced this is, in fact, the best Zebra can offer.
2.5/5
Maybe a 3 on account of the gnarly cover art.
originally posted on my blog at http://UndivineInterventions.blogspot...
October 12, 2020
An ancient cave-dwelling creature that skins it's victims alive? Why yes, please, don't mind if I do!
This was another fun read for the local horror book club that I belong to. It's a classic dose of the late '80s paperback horror, full of blood, guts, and stereotypes. Although it dragged it's feet in some parts, I generally enjoyed this one, and there were parts of it that I totally loved. The creature was really cool, the kills were pretty gnarly, and the small town setting made it a great, old school horror read for me. If you enjoy books like Toy Cemetery, or other wacky Paperbacks From Hell, then you'll probably dig this. I'm not sure if it deserves a cult following, but it's not a waste of time either, at least it wasn't to me. :)
This was another fun read for the local horror book club that I belong to. It's a classic dose of the late '80s paperback horror, full of blood, guts, and stereotypes. Although it dragged it's feet in some parts, I generally enjoyed this one, and there were parts of it that I totally loved. The creature was really cool, the kills were pretty gnarly, and the small town setting made it a great, old school horror read for me. If you enjoy books like Toy Cemetery, or other wacky Paperbacks From Hell, then you'll probably dig this. I'm not sure if it deserves a cult following, but it's not a waste of time either, at least it wasn't to me. :)
August 20, 2020
This was one that I had a hard time putting down...I HAD TO KNOW HOW IT ENDED! The murders were gruesome and scary which is what I was looking for in this book. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more suspense built in the text. After the first two murders happened so early in the text (literally the book opens with a horrific murder), I wanted that suspense and terror to really continue. On the whole, book was great, and weird (sometimes a little too weird) but I have to admit, with ten pages left to go I wondered about the ending. However, Dunn gives a great ending that made me want to actually start reading the book all over again!
A hard book to find, but a great read if you can find it.
A hard book to find, but a great read if you can find it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2025
"Tick. Tick. Tick.
Time was running out. She glanced at the stop sign on the corner and drove right past. What the hell did it matter? If anyone tried to stop her, she'd blow them away. She was out for revenge. The more, the merrier. Come on, let's have a party. They'd remember Marilyn Wilson in this town, just the way the world did Norma Jean. They were both beautiful, sorrowful blondes, both taken advantage of. The difference was that Norma had died alone in her room. Marilyn would not die alone."
I really enjoyed how developed the characters were and how the author was able to get me into their headspace at critical times, even if I didn't particularly like the characters or think they were the best people.
I don't know why, however, I laughed out loud and enjoyed the dark humor of Marilyn's Norma Jean rant and general madness.
I thought the story was intriguing and was interested in how it would all play out. I was disappointed there wasn't more explanation and the ending especially didn't make sense.
Time was running out. She glanced at the stop sign on the corner and drove right past. What the hell did it matter? If anyone tried to stop her, she'd blow them away. She was out for revenge. The more, the merrier. Come on, let's have a party. They'd remember Marilyn Wilson in this town, just the way the world did Norma Jean. They were both beautiful, sorrowful blondes, both taken advantage of. The difference was that Norma had died alone in her room. Marilyn would not die alone."
I really enjoyed how developed the characters were and how the author was able to get me into their headspace at critical times, even if I didn't particularly like the characters or think they were the best people.
I don't know why, however, I laughed out loud and enjoyed the dark humor of Marilyn's Norma Jean rant and general madness.
I thought the story was intriguing and was interested in how it would all play out. I was disappointed there wasn't more explanation and the ending especially didn't make sense.
January 6, 2013
Picked this book up for 50 cents at a junk shop.I was thoroughly suprised at how much I enjoyed it.The ending suggested a possible sequel...would be interested if there was one.
February 23, 2017
Reading this really takes me back, back to
when Zebra was churning out those cheesy pulp
horror books right and left.
Although this would never make a best seller list
like books from many of today's big name authors
I have to say I enjoyed it thoroughly. Plain and simple
horror that does deliver some decent shivers.
The characters are developed just enough to draw
your interest and the story line flows nicely to
create an eerie atmosphere. The descriptive
writing is done in a manner in which you can almost
feel the sun bleaching heat or the damp chill
of a sudden downpour.
A unique creepy creature adds to the suspense and
tension as it unfolds and turns this quaint little town
into a seething hotbed of mounting horror.
When you're at a loss for something to snatch up
and read, you can't go wrong by taking a little trip
back in time with some of these moldy oldies.
when Zebra was churning out those cheesy pulp
horror books right and left.
Although this would never make a best seller list
like books from many of today's big name authors
I have to say I enjoyed it thoroughly. Plain and simple
horror that does deliver some decent shivers.
The characters are developed just enough to draw
your interest and the story line flows nicely to
create an eerie atmosphere. The descriptive
writing is done in a manner in which you can almost
feel the sun bleaching heat or the damp chill
of a sudden downpour.
A unique creepy creature adds to the suspense and
tension as it unfolds and turns this quaint little town
into a seething hotbed of mounting horror.
When you're at a loss for something to snatch up
and read, you can't go wrong by taking a little trip
back in time with some of these moldy oldies.
April 27, 2016
Great to read the old horror stories from the 80's and 90's. So much fun, and this book is no exception. Great characterization and plotting with a mash-up of complete mayhem at times.
September 13, 2020
The book started off great. In Scott Sigler's Earthcore, the book starts with a glimpse of the creature as a teaser, then has a time jump to go back to slow story-building. I like how Flesh Stealer didn't fake us out with the teaser. The deaths start coming right from the beginning.
Some of the writing bothered me, like on page 83 where the author keeps switching between "Jeff" and "Cutter". The third-person narrator needs to stick to one name! But chapter 6 was the turning point for me. Halston has some weird sexual fantasies with the creature, and that's when I slowed down. When I picked up the book again, I was rewarded with some pseudo-incestual scene. "Lisa stood silhouetted in the yellow light, clad in a short, pink satin robe with black lace. Jeff sucked in his breath. He'd never seen her this way. Before she had always appeared sisterly to him, but now... (249)". I put it down for another month before I was able to finish 50 or so pages.
I read Michael's helpful review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and decided not to read the epilogue.
Some of the writing bothered me, like on page 83 where the author keeps switching between "Jeff" and "Cutter". The third-person narrator needs to stick to one name! But chapter 6 was the turning point for me. Halston has some weird sexual fantasies with the creature, and that's when I slowed down. When I picked up the book again, I was rewarded with some pseudo-incestual scene. "Lisa stood silhouetted in the yellow light, clad in a short, pink satin robe with black lace. Jeff sucked in his breath. He'd never seen her this way. Before she had always appeared sisterly to him, but now... (249)". I put it down for another month before I was able to finish 50 or so pages.
I read Michael's helpful review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and decided not to read the epilogue.
April 21, 2025
flesh ripping woman
steals various townies' skin
a boring zebra
steals various townies' skin
a boring zebra
July 25, 2014
I've made it a point to purchase books by this company because they're the quintessential of the good ol' horror books of the 80's and early 90's. This story about a presumably immortal native American woman ( of approximately 1700 years of age ) who is dying - make that killing - for new skin starts out well enough. But as the body count grows, we witness the ineptitude of the local police force to stop her easily rivaling that of the " Police Academy " series. After that a recruited task force can't even shoot her down. So bomb her or bury her !! Further slaughter elicited a sardonic smile from me as pure ludicrous events mounted up. To top it off, we're forced to believe that an anthropologist who meets up with her fulfills his dreams of a lifetime, and we're talking in the context of a sexual fantasy. If you don't take this novel seriously, you very well could get a barrel of laughs out of it. Personally, this is not what I was bargaining for. Whether the absurdity of it all was intentional or not, I was relishing good cheesy old school horror and did not get it.
January 18, 2019
I liked this book more than I thought I would. First book I've read by Pauline Dunn, I would love to read more by her. The writing reminded me of John Saul, straight to the point and fast-paced, no dilly-dally. If made by the right people, this story would make a good gruesome horror movie 👍
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews