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Fiction Review by The Gravedigger
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11.30.04
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The latest from the late Richard Laymon is an old-fashioned monster tale involving a 4,000 year old re-animated Egyptian mummy named Amara. She was a princess who had made a pact with the god Set (basically the equivalent of the devil) and was put to death when her child was born with reptilian eyes.Now, in the present day, she escapes her sarcophagus from archeologist/collector Charles Ward, when robbers break into his house and inadvertently break the gold seal on the coffin which keeps her imprisoned. And she is a vicious, biting demon. But she is only animated at night and resumes her inanimate state during the daylight hours.After Ward is killed his collection, including Amara, goes to the local museum, where the night watchman is horribly mutilated. She eventually escapes and wanders the city, killing those she encounters. She grabs a baby, in proxy of her own dead child, and drags it's small corpse along with her.Grace, the museum's curator, does not believe it's the mummy at first. She becomes involved with Tag, the detective investigating the murders, and eventually they come face to face with the horror.As in most Laymon novels, there is a parallel story-- and you wonder how in the heck this will eventually tie in with that of the mummy. This involves both men and women being kidnapped and imprisoned in these cages-and used as sexual objects by their unknown assailant. They find they must comply to their wishes or suffer horribly punishment. When a newly captured guy refuses at first one of the toes is cut off on his foot. When an older, mafia-related man is captured and refuses to cooperate, he is killed. Two of the prisoners befriend each other as they wait for their punishment to eventually end. It does, when the escaped mummy stumbles upon the hidden lair-and makes things even worse.TO WAKE THE DEAD is prime Laymon, a good dose of horror twisted with plenty of sexual perversion.Available from Leisure books at: www.dorchesterpub.com
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Rating: nan out of 10.0 - votes cast total
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