Customer Reviews

The Lost

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After having read several Jack Ketchum books recently, I've finally discovered the secret to his success; he opens a book about true-life serial killers, picks out some psycho, and uses that as a basis for a story. Ketchum's "The Girl Next Door" utilized the case of Gretchen Baniszewski, "Joyride" borrowed elements from the case of spree killer Howard Unruh, and "Off Season" apparently took material from the Sawney Bean family. In "The Lost," Ketchum continues this trend to tell a story that is more suspense than horror, and he sets it in the tumultuous 1960's.

This isn't your typical whodunit; the book starts off with a double murder committed by three teenage friends. They commit the murders because they want to see what it feels like to kill people. The rest of the story is a flash forward four years into the future. One of the teens, who evades capture by local police, is living the high life as a local drug dealer while living and working at a motel run by his parents. Despite (or perhaps because of) his vanity, his cruelty, and his sociopathic tendencies, he is able to gather around him a motley assortment of losers who follow his every order and whim.

Since we know who did the crime right from the start, we're left wondering where Ketchum is going to take us. There is no need to worry about that. Ketchum populates his novel with more than enough intriguing characters. Two of the most important characters are the cops who investigated the original killings, and who are still attempting to pin the murders on the teens. One of the cops, Ed Anderson, who retired after the killings, comes to see that he has a personal stake in catching the killers. The other cop is Charlie Schilling, who delights in harassing the suspects in an effort to get a confession.

The ringleader of the three killers is a fictional representation of real life murderer Charles Schmid. Schmid killed several women in Arizona during the 1960's. Even a cursory comparison shows that Ketchum borrowed heavily from the Schmid case in order to create his killer. Schmid excelled at gymnastics during high school, wore makeup, stuffed his boots with paper to make himself look taller, told outrageous stories to attract followers, and even walked with an unusual gait. Ketchum's killer shares every one of these traits.

This book reminded me of Ketchum's "Joyride," but this book is developed better and is more fun to read. One reason is length; Ketchum gives himself 400 pages to draw deeper characters and better atmosphere. Everyone comes across as authentic, from the teenage killers to the young ladies who may end up as victims.

What doesn't work as well here is the time frame. The book takes place in the late 1960's, but Ketchum gives only a few references to that effect. He does throw in a few references to the moon landing and the Manson murders, but there were many times that I forgot the time frame of the story. Ultimately, I think the story would have worked just as well if it had been set in modern times.

"The Lost" is one of Ketchum's better novels. I really had no idea how the story was going to end while I read the book. You do know that there is going to be some type of gruesome scenario (it is Ketchum, after all), but he hides it so well that the ending surprised me. This is a good read for those who like suspenseful books, as well as those who don't get enough Jack Ketchum in their diets.

On the surface, The Lost is about the escalating conflict between a murderous sociopath and a zealous lawman. Look closely, however, and you'll find a book dealing with questions about the nature of love, the price of loyalty, and the difficulty of facing overwhelming personal and cultural upheaval. Gripping due to the constant potential for sudden violence (this is a Ketchum novel, after all), The Lost thrills as much for its psychological and emotional richness as it does for its pervasive violence and suspense.

The tale begins in 1965 with an act of sudden, unexpected carnage when sociopath Ray Pye shoots two female campers in cold blood after one of the pair rejects his pitiful romantic advances. The vicious attack, witnessed by Pye's stunned companions, Tim Bess and Jennifer Fitch, leaves one woman dead, the other in a coma.

It is the death of the second camper in 1969 that signals the true beginning of Ketchum's story. We discover that Sparta, New Jersey Police Detective Charlie Shilling has spent the past four years searching for evidence linking Pye to the crime. Bess and Fitch have kept their silence, perhaps from a sense of misguided loyalty, perhaps out of love. Pye, practically daring Shilling to arrest him, has also kept his cool, sticking to a story the detective can't contradict. Frustrated by his failure, Shilling intentionally provokes Pye, finally pushing the mentally unstable killer over the edge. Using the same weapons he carried that fateful night four years earlier, Pye takes gruesome revenge on his real and imagined enemies.

In tone The Lost recalls Red, but, unlike that book, has a much broader scope. Ketchum purposefully adopts a slower pace, so as to more completely explore the complexities of his numerous characters' personalities and relationships. The small vacation town of Sparta acts as a microcosm of the country, as the characters deal with the unpleasant reality of random violence as part of everyday American life -- suddenly, it's not something that only happens in the big city (the Tate-LaBianca killings perpetrated by the Manson family are prominently mentioned, inspiring Ray Pye to further mayhem). As such, it also holds a mirror up to today's world as well, where children practice drills to prepare them for the eventuality of their peers shooting up the school. It takes courage to look into that mirror, but Ketchum's never been one to flinch from unpleasant tasks. He exposes the lies we tell ourselves so we can rest easy at night in the knowledge that it couldn't possibly happen here.

Jack Ketchum has written some very disturbing tales; his The Girl Next Door is one of the most affecting book I've ever read. He is a so-called horror novelist who blends natural, every-day horror (the darkness of a person's mind is always prominent in his books) with great stories. Now comes The Lost, his most mature and most affecting since Girl Next Door.

A melee of characters in 1969 are trying to cope with something horrible that happened five years ago; the cold-blooded murder of two young female campers. You have the murderer, Ray, his two accomplices, Jen and Tim, some of their friends, the cop on the case, Charlie, and a retired cop who helped Charlie with the case five years ago, Ed. All their lives are about to crumble together as the horrors of the past event resurface to haunt them once more. Ketchum has no remorse for any of these characters; he shows to us that no one, no matter how good, is safe from a twisted mind.

Ketchum is at his affecting best with this book. His prose grabs you by the guts and never intends to let go of you until the final page. The regular Ketchum reader will recognize all the trademarks that made this author such a cult phenomenon. But new readers beware; this tale is more slow moving and nostalgic than his other books (a lot of the book was obviously inspired by old 60s music, rock icons and films). Still, with its bloody finally and believable characters, The Lost is Ketchum's best in years, and that's saying a lot!

Stephen King has called Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door one of the best books ever written. Previous to that, Ketchum was the horror world's best-kept secret, the Einsturzende Neubauten of scary stories: influential to just about everyone working in the field, unknown outside it. Now, thanks to one offhand sentence in one very widely read treatise on how to write, Jack Ketchum has become collectible overnight. Don't try to find a copy of The Girl Next Door unless you're willing to pay [a lot] for a dogeared reading copy. But Ketchum has released a brand-spanking-new one recently, and until you come up with the scratch for the out-of-print monsters, this'll do just fine, thankyouverymuch.

The Lost tells the story of Ray Pye, sociopath extraordinaire, who kills a camper and puts another one on life support in 1965, then waltzes off scot free because no one can put him at the scene, find the murder weapon, or any other useful little prosecutorial trick for actually convicting someone. Most of the book's four hundred pages take place four years later, in the weeks following the death of the second camper after spending the intervening time in a coma and hooked to a life support system. (...)

The question almost everyone who picks this book up is going to be asking himself is "is this guy really as good as Steve King says he is?" Yup. He's that good. The question I ended up asking myself is "why is this guy considered a horror writer?" The Lost is your basic detective story where you know who the killer is from page one and the tension rests on the cops trying to pin the murders on the killer. It's no more horror than the stuff Joe Lansdale's been writing since Savage Season; it sits nestled firmly in the crook of the arm between mystery and thriller. (...) But there's more to it than that. Ketchum has a sense of delicacy one doesn't find much in either horror novels or mysteries, and he knows how to use conscious symbolism-- almost unheard of in genre fiction of any sort. Granted, it gets spread a little thick at times, but it's amazing to see it at all. Add it all up and note that Ketchum never pulls a single punch throughout and you've got yourself one serious bang-up ride waiting to happen. I suggest taking it as soon as you can.

The Lost isn't really a horror novel which seems to upset a few people I've talked to that's read the book. Having said that, I found it so interesting and absorbing I couldn't stop reading until the last page. Its one of those stories that immerses you on so many levels. You find yourself becoming so into the characters that it leaves you sad that it's over at the end. Ray Pye is one of those characters you despise yet pity also. I had read that the character was loosely based on The Pied Piper of Tuscon. This book takes you beyond that into a fictional world of obsession and murder. Its so well-written that it just flows along perfectly as you turn the pages. I found it hard to put down the night I started it and finished it the next morning.

If you have an open mind, you can enjoy this book. I found it frightening that there are people exactly like Ray out there in the world right now. There is also some humour involved as well. Though Ray kills many people in this book, he does get his in the end. Literally. You will have to read it to understand exactly what I mean.

I also found there was also some social commentary to the book namely the way Jack Ketchum tied in many events that had seemed to break down the moral fabric of our society. Some say he didn't do that well but I disagree. I think Mr. Ketchum showed this perfectly. All in all, its a great book full of mayhem!

I've read Jack Ketchum before and looked forward to this new book, THE LOST. When I started it I couldn't put it down until it was finished. It's a tense and edgy ride with Ray and those attracted to and repulsed by his relentless hunger. Years after the opening Bad incident we travel through the town Ray lives in, drawn by his non-PC life, waiting for the next Bad thing to happen. Ketchum doesn't disappoint in THE LOST, there was always another layer of Bad things waiting to make me turn the page. In the end, the random everyday-ness of Ray's evil made me want to put extra locks on my door and windows and sleep with the lights on. LOVED IT!

Jack Ketchum is one of those rare writers that never disappoints. "The Lost" is a close second right behind "Off Season" as my favorite book from him. Previously released by Cemetery Dance and now by Leisure Books, leaders in the world of horror publishers, it reads more like a suspense novel rather than a horror book. Its ultra violent third act itself might just push it over the fence as a horror book after all.

Its main protagonist/antagonist is Ray Pye, one of the most despicable characters in recent memory. One night in 1965, Ray, along with his sometime girlfriend Jennifer and his best friend Tim (acting solely as witnesses), shoots two camping women on the suspicion that they might be lesbians. He kills one of them on the spot while the other one escapes, only to die later on in the hospital. Four years pass and one of the cops on the investigation is still trying to catch the murderer. His only suspect is Ray Pye and he doesn't have any evidence to put him away.

Some might find this book slow moving because after the double murder, it takes a good two hundred pages for the plot to really thicken. But believe me, it's well worth it and the fact that the characters and events are so well developed leads to a much stronger and much more explosive third act than you could ever expect. Layer by layer, Ketchum weaves a compelling tale involving many characters. We follow Ed Anderson, a retired cop who worked on the double murder case. He's dating a girl named Sally who is young enough to be his granddaughter. His ex-partner Charlie Shilling is on Ray's trail and hovers over him like a hawk, always edging on the thin line of the law to get his man. Ray, aside from his drug dealing and sleeping around, is after a new girl in town, Katherine. She's the first time he's ever had a challenge in the dating department and he begins obsessing about her. We also get a glimpse of how sick Ray really is when he seems to be getting off on hearing the grisly details of the Charles Manson - Sharon Tate murders--an event that will echo all the way to the third act. Meanwhile, Tim and Jennifer never orbit too far from Ray, but a storm is brewing and their relationship will be put to the test.

Ketchum's portrayal of Ray as a troubled young man trying to deal with his feelings of inadequacy (he always wears cowboy boots to gain a few inches, amongst other things) paint a crystal clear picture of what a monster man can be. The novel moves at a good pace, even though there isn't much action or a whole lot of gruesomeness in between the first and third act. What goes on between the characters is so engaging that you'll catch yourself saying "one more chapter" until you've reached the finale. All the different roads traveled by the characters will crisscross, culminating into a cleverly orchestrated chaos; one that will stay fresh in your mind days after the book is closed. If you're a fan of Ketchum, you have to pick up "The Lost"; it's the author at the top of his game. If you're a horror aficionado, I think you'll get your fill as well. This is a brutal book that doesn't flinch from its excesses.

Alan Draven,
Author of Bitternest

This is my 4th Ketchum novel and I wasn't sure what to expect. I had been 'wowed' and 'let down' by Ketchum so I had no expectations for The Lost.

It started as the synopsis states, Ray kills 2 girls in a campground while his bestfriend and girlfriend look on. Brutal beginning. Then flash foward a couple of years to burned out cops who couldn't ever convict the guy and how they couldn't get over it. Hmmm, drags a little. Then we see how Ray and pals are doing, he's a crazy smug little b@$t@rd and Tim and Jennifer are pretty well pathetic. It drags a little more.

I put this one down for about a month when I was half-way through. Then I said to myself, 'well, lets see where he was going with this...'

About halfway through this book, it kicks into high-gear and you see where Ketchum was going with all this extra character development. You need to understand how everyone in town interacts with and relates to Ray to get the full impact of the emotional explosion.

Someone once told me, that when you have to deal with a crazy person daily (friend, family member, whatever..) that you begin to alter your normal behavior to adjust to the insane behavior, and then you begin to act insane as well, just so you won't have to deal with changing or rocking the boat. Then it spreads and you have an entire group of people that display varying degrees of insane behavior until the original lunatic goes too far for anyone to be able to ignore it anymore. This book is about a town doing just that, they go along and cope with Ray each in their own way until he explodes and ruins all of their lives, not just the 2 girls at the beginning. They were the tip of the iceberg.

Long story short: If you can trudge your way through the set-up, you get a Hell of a reward at the end.

I have to scratch my head at reviews that call this a mindless beach read or disappointing drivel. Did those people read the same book I did? This wasn't as fast-moving and chockful of mayhem as some of the other books by Ketchum that I've read, but ultimately, it is just as horrifying, if not more so, because we've come to understand and sympathize with his characters, many of whom meet with violent ends.

You can't pick up a Jack Ketchum novel and expect light reading. Ketchum specializes in realistic horror and he will not flinch or turn away or cop-out. This doesn't always make his books very easy to read. But if you know what you're getting into and are prepared to hold on for the ride, you'll be subjected to a level of horror that just does not exist elsewhere in the publishing world right now. I'd liken the experience of a Ketchum novel to riding a rollercoaster--once you're strapped in and climbing that first hill, it's too late to do much but go along for the ride.

This is a good book--it is slow-moving to begin with, but there's a reason for that, as Ketchum develops and creates a cast of believable, realistic, human characters. We see their motivations and their thoughts/feelings, which makes what happens later on that much more affecting. Regardless of this slow start, I was held riveted to the book and could not stop reading until it was finished. It isn't quite up there in the same league as _The Girl Next Door_ or _Stranglehold_, Ketchum's most appalling books, but it is certainly one of his best novels and deserves to be read. Just be careful and know what it is you're getting yourself into.

I've now read several Ketchum books and this is the first that truly incorporated plot and character development with Ketchum's knack for grotesque and disturbing violence. Finally, we get an opportunity to understand the backgrounds of his characters and in typical Ketchum fashion, the plot speeds along, twists and turns, and ends with a scene that I will not soon forget with a villian unlike any other you have encountered before. I highly recommend this book but don't plan on getting much accomplished once you start it!