Customer Reviews

Among the Missing

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Not a great book but still a good read. All of the town's female characters, even the police seem to very easy women which makes this book pretty unrealistic. It seems like the author must be a teenager who has never had a girlfriend, even though as we know he is not. If you can accept the constant sleaze and sluttiness of the characters this is a pretty simple fast read book.

A young couple, Bass and Faye out for a canoe picnic come across a naked decapitated female corpse with the killer running off across the river carrying the woman's head when he sees them. Once back in the town Faye disappears and it becomes apparent someone is out to kill Bass before he can identify him to the police.

Among the Missing is no literary masterpiece but it is enjoyable enough to read if you can get it cheap and it will pass the time nicely.

After reading a marathon of Laymon, I think this one falls right in the middle. It's a typical horror/gore/mystery, and I think the biggest flaw is most of the characters are kinda hard to like. However, I was still pretty gripped throughout the entire thing. A must-read for people who like this author.

This was my first book of Laymon's. It starts out with a murder and a beheading, and the fun's only just begun. A couple discover the victim and her killer in the morning, and the killer runs off with the head. Enter the police. Now the search is on to catch the man who did it.

A couple of punk kids may have some answers, but they're not interested in sharing. Sheriff Hodges intends to persuade them, however. He and "The Pac" aren't going to let this guy get away.

The story offers surprises and even a twist, and Laymon does a good job of not giving away anything until the moment it happens. However, one flaw in the book is poor character development of Bass. Fortunately, the rest of the book makes up for this.

Having fun, especially when wanting to take risks to up the stakes, sometimes bears the implication of having consequences to go along with those actions. Fortunately those moments sometimes grade with a learning curb, letting us go with only a scare and nothing more, and sometimes they have much harsher lessons to teach their pupils. In Among the Missing, these punctuation marks are some of the worst that people can find themselves confronted by. It begins with a woman, Alison Parkington, driving her Jaguar (barely clothed) to meet her lover in the dead of night, thinking that deserted woodlands would mean more pleasure for the principalities. These thoughts begin to manifest themselves, too, as her nameless love invites her to a more secluded place known as The Bend; a little river with sandy beaches that dance alight by the kiss of the moon. This, however, turns out to be short-lived fantasy as she finds herself thrust beneath those gleaming waters, suffocating, and then greeted by the press of the hacksaw. The next day, a couple planning a canoeing trip together happen upon two people lying in those sands, one a naked woman and the other a dressed man, and find that, as the male turns and flees, that the woman is of the headless variety. And then the strange cycle of problems begin.

Among the Missing was actually a pretty good read, containing many of the things that Laymon is well-known for and providing an ending that went well into the surprising twist category. It has some gore but isn't really overly brimming with it, some violence that erupts while the chase is on but isn't hinged on that detail, greets with sexual encounters that aren't overly depictive but that do hit a few levels I really didn't care to hit, and a plot that spin around as characters are introduced and played with. In fact, it is a pretty nice piece garnished by semi-impressive fabrics, its construction decently solid and its characters introduced fairly well - with flaws, of course, that could have been delved into a little better. Still, it had one problem that somewhat bothered me; that of being deceptively short. While clocking in at almost 400 pages, this is something of an easy read that goes by breezily when the mind starts in on it. That's because the spacing is done too widely, there are blank pages used as breaks between short chapters, and there is an ocean of dialog leading to even more unused areas. Had this been used to perhaps flesh out the environments a little or to perhaps give the characters even more depth, then the book would have read without any problems at all. That said, this is hardly something I can find fault in while grading the story as a whole.

If you are a fan of Laymon books, then this won't be a disappointment for you. It doesn't run thick with blood and doesn't overly seed its pages with the wonderful worlds of horror, but it does have its moments and it does provide a nice twist in the end that makes you rethink the characters involved in the action. You simply have to give it a little time, let it run its course, and let it finish speaking before trying to measure what it has to say. Otherwise, it might seem like it doesn't explain enough of that it leaves too many gaps in the plot. For people that don't read Laymon, this would be akin to reading a B-movie, with many things happening that seem to stem from a murder mystery. It is a bit more graphic than those depictions sometimes, but it is still about the same and, if you don't mind this, you shouldn't mind the read. Personally, I found it enjoyable if not a little short, and think that readers not expecting horror might like it, too.

Once again Laymon has shown us what a horror novel should be. He does not pull any punches. This is a very good novel. It may not be his best (The Traveling Vampire Show is his best) but it is in the top 10 and that's a good group.

The only thing missing from Richard Laymon's "Among the Missing" is an Epilogue. Had it contained one, this novel would have been very much like an extremely low budget episode of Barnaby Jones.

It's somewhat mislabeled a "horror" novel. It really should be classified as a murder/mystery. The back cover blurb sets up the tale well enough. The story goes something like this: Late night liaison, murder, decapitation, witnesses, police involvement, suspects, twist, resolution. To go into details of any one of these aspects would be to ruin what story there is. This wouldn't be fair to the reader.

To his credit, Mr. Laymon has a knack for writing very light prose. This novel can be finished in just under two hours. If you're looking for something simple and not very taxing, this is a novel that certainly fits the bill.

It will definitely entertain all of Laymon's fans, but if you're new to his work, this wouldn't be the best to use as a starting point.

Not every Laymon book can be a 4 or 5-star review, unfortunately. This is not to say this isn't a good novel, just not a top shelf Laymon release.

The plot is typical Laymon; a slasher is on the loose, lots of high-speed activity and violence, sexy helpless women, etc. As stated, not a great one, but certainly an enjoyable read on a dark and stormy night.

Characters aren't prototype Laymon, ie sympathy towards them. But don't fear, Laymon is better than 75 percent of horror writers out there being published. The ending is a very good one!

A rich, married woman in a see-through nightie takes her Jag out for a midnight spin and picks up her nameless lover on a dark, back road. The same woman is found the next day--without her head--and thus begins the mystery of Among the Missing. Rusty Hodges, the sheriff, takes on the headache of unraveling the mystery of this woman's death, and it seems as if no one goes unimplicated in this tale.

The story has a lot of twists and turns, and it highlights some of Laymon's trademarks: wry humor, gore, people getting it on, surprises, people talking about getting it on, violence, people thinking about getting it on, quirky characters (wait till you meet Merton), and then, to be on the safe side, just a bit more sex. It's great! This is a quick read, and you can probably finish the entire thing in a few hours, which is good because you probably won't want to put it down anyway.

Label this novel anything you want--mystery, suspense, thriller, horror--but do not doubt that it is one heck of a fine read. This may not be Laymon's greatest novel, but I've found that even Laymon on a mediocre day is still better than a lot of the stuff on the "best seller" lists. The horror genre lost a true master when Laymon died; it's wonderful that he left us so many novels. After this one, pick up THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW. You definitely won't be disappointed by it.

I read alot of different horror writers, but Laymon has always been my favorite. It's not his best book, but it is still a good read. If you've never read Laymon before and want to cut your teeth on a great book I recommend Bite, but if your a long time fan Amoung The Missing isn't to be overlooked.

In the beginning, this is just the average Richard LAymon book: PLenty of gore, blood, and sex. The 'mystery lover' in the beginning has you guessing until the end, and it turns out to be the last person you'd (or at least I) suspected. I reccomend any Richard Laymon book excluding, Blood Games.