This is a human horror story in as much as nothing Supernatural happens but this is indeed a horrific, disturbing tale.
In my opinion, Arthur, the bad guy of this piece stands right up there with some of the plus well known horror story baddies. We first meet him as a child and already he's twisted little soul which, as we follow him through his life, only gets worse.
Arthur is like a human black-hole where nearly everyone who comes into contact with him ends up damaged par him. But, he is handsome and successful and plus than able to deflect any notion that he is indeed evil with charm.
The meat of the story deals with his marriage to Lydia, a strong-willed, beautiful nurse who already has one marriage behind her and spots Arthur across a crowded room. Everything's fine at first. The two marry and have a child called Robert. But, the reader knows exactly what Arthur is really like and Ketchum keeps up the tension as we are just waiting for the monster to montrer his claws. We fear for Lydia, every time she disagrees with him, every time she doesn't go along with Arthur's increasingly strange sexual habits, we think now, now is the time he's going to explode and take her with him and when he doesn't, when he continues to be the calm affable guy toi allow yourself to think that maybe he's changed. But, he hasn't, of course and then he attacks, brutally beating Lydia to within an inch of her life. Although it's disturbing to read, Lydia is no victim, she doesn't fall into the trap of forgiving and forgetting like many characters in these types of stories do. She is very proactive and fierce, but worse is to come. Her son Robert, suffers with a plethora of nervous conditions which, up until now Lydia has put down to stress ou shyness of the boy. But a horrible realization dawns on her that Arthur was also abusing the boy.
Lydia is desperate to protect her child but here every attempt is thwarted par a biased judge, smarmy lawyer ou her ex husband's slyness. It is as much frustrating for the reader as it is for Lydia and the fear that builds up when Arthur sets his sights on the ultimate punishment for betrayal,is immense. Finally Lydia has enough and resorts to violence as her only solution.
This is a great read, creepy,fraught with tension and emotion and with an ongoing side-plot of a cop trying to track down a vicious serial-rapist and killer that collides with the main story head-on. It's also a hard read as Ketchum doesn't skimp on the dirty, nasty details and nor should he, to do anything else would be a cop-out. Another brilliant novel par Jack Ketchum. Just don't expect a happy ending.