One Rainy Night

Rating:
Summary: Very Cool book!!
Review: This is definately true Laymon style!! It totally keeps you on the edge of your seat. A great read for any fan of Mr Laymon indeed. There is plenty of gore, lots of suspense and some black rain to make it interesting....

Rating:
Summary: Beware the Rain
Review: It starts to rain when a police officer returns to the scene of where a black high school student was burned to death on a football field. The rain is dark, tastes like blood and it covers those that are out of doors. Suddenly everybody touched by the dark rain has all of their inhibitions torn away. They become violent, lustful. They become savages and they turn on each other. After awhile they realize the people inside, the ones who hadn't been out in the rain, are different and the affected ones band together to try and destroy them.

And that's just the beginning of this very scary book. It's a story of survival. It's non stop action and suspense and a great read for all Laymon fans. Five stars for "One Rainy Night."

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane

Rating:
Summary: The Inky Veil of Shadows
Review: The town of Bixby seems like an ordinary enough place to live. The people live their ordinary lives with their ordinary jobs to attend to, dreaming dreams of being fairytales that defy the mundaneness of their existence like most people find themselves doing. Then comes the event in which a boy is burned alive because of the color of his skin and the girl he dated, followed by the black rain that changes everything in the blink of an eye. As it falls, people find themselves coated in sodden clothing and polluted with more than just physical, but also emotional, grime. They wander the streets that they've lived in maddened with murderous rage and primal desires while the people "lucky" enough to avoid those sooty skies cringe as the night of the "wet people" descends. And that is just the beginning.

In the realm of horror writing, the story seems a bit cliché at first. There's a catalyst that causes something ominous to descend upon a town, thrusting its occupants into a state of evolving madness. Within it are wondrous forms of gore and a potential victimology being birthed, but it seems to state that, in the end, all actions have consequences and that even the innocents suffer at the hands of those willing to sacrifice them. The thing that makes it good, however, is that the story is crafted in an entertaining fashion and the black rain finds a nice way to construct a tale that says that its author, Richard Laymon, understands how to divulge the fabric of his thoughts and break through the mundane. Through the use of introduction to a town that seems like so many other towns and citizens that have lives and feelings, he melds their thoughts and reactions into a world where every turn has a potential disaster looming with an axe in the shadows. He showcases little pieces of the world outside but, for the most part, the story is a character-driven one and the fear and loves his constructs entail look and act like the realities of emotion. Pain, loss, watching the death of people that you have cared about and loved and knowing that, in some rights, you yourself could have caused this, is spoken each time one of his people looks outside and breaths. Everyone has the potential to falter and fall down that spiraling staircase, becoming a victim or a monster or at least a person marred by experience. Personally, I find that favorable when reading about some bedevilment laying stretching out its hand.

If you are someone that is looking for enjoyment that isn't groundbreaking but that does entertain in a gruesome fashion, then you might enjoy this and other pieces from the mind of Laymon. He has a way with the tapestries woven, one that many other people lack in their storytelling, and is worth staking out because there is always some sacrificial lamb worth watching as it suffers through page after bleak page. Some are better than others, mind you, and some have more to say as the author progresses and grows, but they all have something within them I find worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Beware of the rain...
Review: Another great Laymon book. Laymon is well known for being able to reveal and develop the dark nature that hides in people. This book is dedicated to that idea.

A mysterious black rain is the catalyst that sets off a small town. Once exposed to the black rain, ones darkest natures are able to rise to the surface and take over.

One Rainy Night shows us what could happen when not just one or two people throw off the shackles of civilization and succumb to the darkness, but a significant portion of the population.

This one kept me on edge though the whole story and I just could not figure out where it was taking me (another great trait of a Richard Laymon story).

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, not bad
Review: This is my first Laymon book, and it was defintiely an enjoyable read. He wastes no time with suspense building, and very little with character development. Instead he launches right into the action. A mysterious black rain falls on the small town of Bixby,,CA, turning everyone it touches into homicidal maniacs. Various groups of heroes are followed through the night as they fight for survival against the crazies. This book is like a novelized version of one of those arcade games where you shoot seemingly endless swarms of murderous zombies. Not much for depth, a bit gory, but a fun book nonetheless. Reads fast despite its 400+ pages.

Rating:
Summary: One helluva night.
Review: If this isn't Laymon's best book, it is certainly one of his best. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is about a negro kid that gets murdered by some racist jerks and his grandfather puts a curse on the town that makes it rain black and it turns normal people into murdering maniacs.The cop in the story once he figures out who might be behind this rain, also figures the best way to put a stop to him is with a bullet through the brain.It is far fetched, but this is horror at it best and something different.

Rating:
Summary: Fairly lame
Review: Hey, I'm as much a Laymon fan as the next guy, and I don't pick up his books expecting Tolstoy or anything, but I thought this one was pretty limp. The violence is so overbearing it comes off as cartoonish (not even fun cartoonish, just yawn-inducing), and the characters are as 2-dimensional as they can be in a story like this. Want some fun Laymon? Pick up "Ths Stake" or "Island".

Rating:
Summary: Remember Jaws and how you were afraid to go in the...
Review: water? This novel will make you afraid to walk in the rain or you may turn into a raving, blood-thirsty lunatic!! Laymon takes a silly concept and turns it into a fairly interesting read. He does a great job of setting the story up, but his characters are not fleshed out like in other novels.

However, he does a great job of describing the action and the scene in the restaurant is classic Laymon. It is something "Laymon-ite's" will instantly recognize as classic, vintage Laymon. The survivors of the black rain battle the blood-thirsty rain soaked (undead?)!!

Some of the survivors are then forced to go to the house of a vodoo priest to stop the rain and the ending is Laymon at his best. He doesn't pull any punches and this book reads like a screenplay for a George Romero film. It should be developed into a B-movie film, maybe straight to video?

An enjoyable read and solid outing from the late, great Dick Laymon.

Rating:
Summary: A thrilling, quick and satisfying read
Review: Richard Laymon has a knack for basing an entire story in a short amount of time. The last book I read by him, Among The Missing, also occurred in a single evening. And Laymon makes it all seem so easy and natural, or unnatural as the case may be.

This is another excellent book in that vein. This time a mysterious black rain falls on a town and everyone who is struck by it turns into a enraged killer. As is also normal, a wide number of characters are all involved in the story and each and every one of them seems real. And that tops off what you would expect from a horror novel: a good story, excellent characters and a fast paced read. Definitely a recommendation!

Rating:
Summary: One Dark Stormy Night...
Review: Rarely do I read more than one novel by the same author in a month. But after finishing Island by Richard Laymon, it was nearly impossible not to pick up another one of his novels. And while One Rainy Night doesn't match the achievement of Island, its still a great read.

The premise of the novel is simple: after a racially motivated killing, a black rain begins to fall driving anyone exposed to it into a homicidal frenzy. Following a small collection of people, Laymon illustrates the effects of the black rain and the actions taken to stop it.

Like Island, the characters are somewhat shallow but that's really not the point of his novels. Laymon writes to entertain and he's ridiculously successful. Above all, One Rainy Night is a lot of fun to read. Think of it as a low budget horror movie in novel form.

Laymon writes a good book - they're entertaining, easy and quick yet thoroughly engaging. Definitely check this one out.