A review by jcliff
Island by Dean Koontz, Richard Laymon

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

If The Beast House is Richard Laymon's Castle Freak, then this is Laymon's Anthropophagus. Reads like a sleazy Italian horror movie, underscored by our unreliable (see: sex-obssessed) teenage boy narrator. The misogyny is pretty egregious, to the extent that I had to take a week off midway through, but in a way this ultimately benefits the narrative - we spend the book holding our breath to see whether or not the protagonist gives in to his baser instincts while trapped on a tropical island surrounded by beautiful women with a killer on the loose. I think I'll be hitting the brakes on my Laymon binge after this, but still a compelling (if not necessarily fun) read.