A Book Review - The Cemetery / The Ripper by D.E. Athkins (Point Horror)

Oh Em Gee this book scared me when I was a kid. The British title for this is The Cemetery (US title: The Ripper) and I first read it when my Papa bought me a copy when I was 9 or 10, and sleeping alone on the top floor of my father's gothic Hampstead almost-mansion, right next to - you guessed it, a cemetery.

Yeah, nightmare central. I've never been so glad for my bratty baby sisters to wake me up at 4am.

This time around, it's still a pretty horrific read. I've read it enough times by now, and remember it well enough, that it doesn't shock me the way it did. Yet it is still quite chilling.

On Halloween, a bunch of friends - well, sort of friends - have a private party on the Point (a sort of rock promontory thing) right next to an ancient cemetery. They get the bright idea to have a séance, but then move onto hide and seek - during which one of them is brutally murdered. They don't know whether to suspect each other, or some crazy stranger who might have been lurking around, or if it's something more sinister. Then a second one of them is murdered, and a third, and a house is set on fire. And Charity - the lead character, as much as there IS a lead in this book - has to find out what's happening and how to stop it.

As Point Horrors go, this one is a bit bizarre. For starters, there isn't one single protagonist who the action focuses on - we start with eleven characters, who all get their own sections where we see the action filtered through their eyes and thoughts. This makes for a lot of info-dumping, but as I've mentioned before, I LIKE an info dump - I find it more interesting than conversation a lot of the time. It also make for shallow characters - eleven leads all wanting page time in a short book means that nobody gets explored in depth. Yet, in this particular book, I think having shallow characters works. It keeps the focus on the action and fear. Don't get me wrong, some of them are very likeable. (And others are loathsome - which, to me, is always better than boring.)

These are not squeaky-clean teenagers. They drink and smoke, and allusions are made to sex - even promiscuous sex - although nothing is stated outright. I kind of like this - it makes a nice change, keeps things fresh. The book itself is not squeaky-clean either: the violence is nasty and often graphic. All in all it's a much darker book than most Point Horrors.

There are little details that I like about the book, things that you wouldn't miss if they were absent, but having them present provides that little extra zing. For example, the names really suit their characters. Cyndi Moray - sleek and dangerous, like the eel. Lara Stepford - classically perfect, at least on the surface. Jane Wales - plain Jane, sweet and old-fashioned. Dorian Moray - elegant and handsome and refined, hiding the nastiness underneath. I suppose someone who chooses a nom de plume like D.E. Athkins (Death Kins) knows the importance of names.

Athkins' writing style is often cynical, sometimes humorous, and brilliant at capturing the essence of the character whose thoughts we're hearing. Take this passage from Cyndi's brain:

Her father, who was inexplicably home tonight, would probably keep the guys trapped in the library, pouring out drinks, and weird fatherly charm. And Wills, who was Lara's current entertainment for, oh, the next ten minutes, would drink his, making that careful, idle, polite, endless conversation that boys with names like William Lawrence Howell were so good at making. Dade, on the other hand, who was all lies and laughter, would say no, thank you, he was driving. But the truth was, he just liked saying no. He liked being in control. Dade was very big on control.

I personally find this style of writing to be excellently entertaining, while my friend finds it frivolous and overblown. I guess you need to make up your own minds.

Verdict: As scattered as my review of it - but it makes it work. Pretty darn scary.