Forget talking about nonstop work to the point of just under a hundred hours in ten days. What free time I had I was writing an essay on cyanide for Salem Press and doing an interview with David Bainbridge for DOORWAYS magazine. See that book cover up there? That was the first time I got killed off, I was a cop named Whitey Sallee. Jerry Williamson, rest his soul, wrote a ton of books and was a decent fellow at conventions in the 90s. This is another book that deserved better notice, as it involved a guy who had a curse put on him so bad shit rained down on him at high noon, not in the middle of the night. Kind of a cool idea, if you think about it. But. I want to talk more about the Caponegro book. I had not finished it when I made the original post, and at the point that Chapter 28 rolls around, it becomes somewhat ludicruous. But only part of it, more involving the main character of the book, Sandy. Or Cassie, depending on who is stalking her. And the book jumps in time, whereas the first half of the book is just a few weeks in July, the ending goes from November into March. As I have said, it can be skimmed, the writing is what was expected in the 1980s and, sadly, even now when you get the WTF? in your head when you find some schlockster won another Stoker award. But there is so much bizarre imagery involving the odd undead and their torture of those stranded on the island. Its the kind of thing Rob Zombie does with bhis remakes of the Herschell Gordon Lewis films like 2000 MANIACS. And the ending is one of the most disturbing and deplorable moments I can recall in anything I've read. Its hard to critique writing of any sort when one writes for a living (insert canned laughter here), but tarnation, mud and thunder. THE BREEZE HORROR, badly named, terribly described in the cover copy, likely given a two week shelf life before one of the Big Four drooled out their next novel, is an experience I hadn't expected to read from start to finish. Something I can no longer say about many of the Big Four's novels....dead on my feet, Wayne
