Book Review: The Lost

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Lost     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Jack Ketchum
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Horror
Cemetery Dance, 2005, $40.00

A bored or angry Ray Pye is a dangerous person. In June 1965 in Sparta, New Jersey, Ray, accompanied by his girlfriend Jennifer and his best friend Tim, goes camping when he sees two girls touching and hugging one another. He concludes they are lesbians, a sexual preference he abhors. He shoots and kills one and leaves the other in a comatose state. Four years later, the second girl dies.

Neither Jennifer nor Tim snitch on Ray and no other evidence links the sociopath killer to the crime. Tim and Jennifer fear Ray and do anything he demands of them. Jennifer continues to have sex with Ray though he openly cheats on her all the time. When Katherine enters his life, Ray falls in love his style. However, she dumps him leading to a rampage that makes his previous homicides seem like a night at the opera.

Jack Ketchum is a master of suspense and horror of the human variety. With each new novel he writes, Mr. Ketchum’s plots seem to become scarier and scarier. THE LOST is horror at the edge of reality. The story line seems lifted from headlines making it even more frighteningly plausible. Readers deeply believe in what this Bram Stoker winner writes, there is probably a high correlation between installing new security systems and the release of a new Mr. Ketchum chiller.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner