Ray Garton “Ravenous” (Leisure Books)
2008 342 pages
Ray Garton is a new rising voice in horror and Ravenous is his take on what a good werewolves story should be. It has plenty of blood, death, sex and gore galore and taken in that context, this might be a great story on its own.
The story takes place in a small sleepy California town (think Big Sur) in which a woman is savagely attacked and raped by a creature. She fights back and looks to have killed her attacker but when it proves the creature may be much more then Sheriff Arlin Hurley’s department can handle, unexpected help arrives. But is the help just as bad as the killer?
But Garton makes two huge mistakes in my opinion. He created 2 great characters who could have served as a thrilling on going series in Sheriff Arlin Hurley and the werewolf fighter, Daniel Fargo. Garton writes about them wonderfully, creating a solid back story and creating both tension and an uneasy alliance w/Hurley having a hard time actually acknowledging such a thing as a werewolf despite the rising death count.
But Garton is also very sloppy with his plot-lines….so many weird deaths would draw a huge response but it takes almost the entire story before anyone other then Fargo comes to grips that people being torn apart and raped might not be human. And for well as Hurley and Fargo are written, the main werewolf, Irving Taggert is not. You don’t really know anything about him,why he is a werewolf, how he sustains incredible injuries while in wolf and human form and that it doesn’t affect him.
And the ending is one of the most lazy pieces of writing I have seen from a horror writer. Killing off your two best characters to drive a story, I can understand, do it just to have a ENDING is just garbage and really below Garton’s talent.
I will keep my eye out for his next novel in hopes that as he matures as a writer and that his storytelling also will improve. Ravenous could have been very special, instead it’s a total letdown.
(by Michael Sullivan)
Custom
Search 
October 3, 2009 at 1:06 pm
You should probably research the authors of the books you review. Ray Garton is not a “new voice” in horror. He has written over 50 books since 1984. In 2006, he was made a Grand Master.
October 3, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Michael – thought you might like to know that Ray Garton has been working in the horror genre for the last twenty five years or so. His third novel, Live Girls, originally published in 1987, is considered by many as one of the classics of the genre. Since then he has written more than fifty other works, which is a considerable body of effort. He is far from “new.”
I like reading reviews of books I haven’t yet read. I dislike having the ending spoiled for me by the reviewer though.
October 3, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Oh lord…. I don’t even know where to start with such a lame review…
October 3, 2009 at 8:42 pm
By “new”, you mean “having been published in the last 25 years”?
Right?
Good one, idiot!
Yikes!
October 4, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Craptacular review!
October 4, 2009 at 6:37 pm
WOW! If I had not read the novel before I read this review, I would be FURIOUS that you gave away the ending. You should not be reviewing novels. What are you? 14?
October 5, 2009 at 12:48 am
Craptacular review is craptacular.
It would also help if the reviewer actually knew of what he was reviewing.
October 12, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I actually do know what I was reviewing,a potential good book being wiped out by a lazy writer. It happens and its a shame.