Fear Me by Stephen Laws

Date: April 30, 2006 4:25 PM
Topic: Fear Me by Stephen Laws

I’m reading Fear Me by Stephen Laws (Leisure, 2005). Very powerful and scary from the first sentence.

Prologue

Three women, Yvonne, Bernice, and Jacqueline meet in an underground parking garage with plans to kill a certain man who has literally made their lives a living hell. Yvonne seems the most fragile and frightend of them, but when the man they know as Gideon makes his hidious appearance they each, in turn, fire the gun that finally leaves him unmoving and dead. PERHAPS! I’m still uncertain about this, and may not know until I get to the end.

Part 1 Lust

Paul visits his mother in an asylum. The doctors had said she suffered from Alzheimer, but she had been in exactly the same state for 12 years. She was always verbally abusive to her son on his visits. Even so Paul felt a duty to see her as often as possible.Later, after Paul has left, his mother wakes up hearing the mesmerizing voices of the trees singing to her. This often happened, and she was the only one who could hear. Sometimes their song was a comfort other times not. The singing today seemed a mixture. Still she unhesitatingly followed their command to leave her bed and walk outside the hospital. When she arrived at a forested area a stranger appeared with a shotgun, aimed it at her and fired.

Soon after, while at the house, Paul and his father are confronted by a young man who storms into their house and tries to murder both of them. With great difficulty Paul overtakes the man. The father, badly injured, tells Paul that he must run and hide because it is Paul that they seek. Before he can explain what this means, he falls unconscious. Now Paul is left to his own devices which turn out to be more horrifying than he could ever imagine.

Laws knows how to build suspense and keep the spook factor high. This is not a book to read on a dark and stormy night although even as I say this I must admit that yesterday evening I was so engrossed in the story that I kept reading even with a terrifically loud thunder storm overhead. Fortunately the lights stayed on.

I’m almost halfway finished and probably won’t post anymore information about the plot. I do not want to spoil it for anyone. Suffice it to say that chapter by chapter more menacing events occur. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.