Ray Garton: Ravenous

[Anamnesis]

Synopsis taken from Publishers Weekly:

A serial rapist is on the loose in the sleepy California town of Big Rock, and sheriff Arlin Hurley's secretary is the latest victim. When a self-proclaimed werewolf hunter named Daniel Fargo comes into town claiming that Big Rock has an infestation of the creatures, Hurley thinks the man is insane, until the eviscerated corpses and attacks by large animals start in earnest. For Garton, lycanthropy is an STD, spread mostly through rape, that runs rampant through a small town fraught with affairs and intrigues.

While Ray Garton lacks the skills of, say, Stephen King or early Poppy Z. Brite, he does offer up a thrilling werewolf story that's simply written and quick to read. It's perfect beach or plane trip reading. The characters in Ravenous are your stereotypical small town residents: an abusive drunk here, an awkard introvert there, etc. Mr. Fargo is particularly unoriginal, sweeping into town wearing a long black coat and black hat. The main villain, sad to say, is quite disappointing. He hardly makes an appearance in the novel and when he does I found myself feeling ambivalent about him as a character. On the whole, though, most of the characters aren't completely dull and I did manage to find myself rooting for the heroes.

One strange thing I did notice was Garton's tendency to spend pages and pages talking about people who are out of shape. Specifically, some of the characters either bemoan being overweight or think about how ugly fat people are. I was starting to think that somehow this was connected to the plot but this was not the case.

 

[lenny nero]

I've only read his vampire novel, Live Girls. It was ok, nothing great. I've been looking for an old book of his called Shackled in my local used store, but have never found it.

 

[Anamnesis]

I thought Live Girls was his best work. He wrote a sequel called Night Lifewhich was quite poor. Ravenous falls somewhere in the middle: a significant improvement upon NL but not as solid as LG.

 

[lenny nero]

I bought a copy of Shackled on ebay from the author himself. And he signed it for me.

 

[Anamnesis]

Just finished Bestial, the sequel to this book. I thought it was better than Ravenous--he tied up some loose ends from that book and brought in characters from another book of his. I also enjoyed the idea of a super werewolf race, although given the ending of this book I doubt there'll be a novel exploring this concept in depth. Some passages in the novel may offend religious people as they feel like thinly veiled attacks towards Christianity (specifically Seventh Day Adventism), and after reading that Garton was abused by his SDA parents I feel writing this book may have been a cathartic experience for him.