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In the Dark

by Richard Laymon, Dean Koontz (Introduction)

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 1,728 ratings · 74 reviews

Nothing much happens to Jane Kerry, a young librarian. Then one day Jane finds an envelope containing a fifty-dollar bill and a note instructing her to "Look homeward, angel." Jane pulls a copy of the Thomas Wolfe novel of that title off the shelf and finds a second envelope. This one contains a hundred-dollar bill and another clue. Both are signed, "MOG (Master of Games)....more

Mass Market Paperback, 503 pages

Published September 28th 2001 by Leisure Books (first published November 1st 1994)

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Aug 07, 2008 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

So you’re a loner type who has let your figure go a bit flabby while you work at the local library. Suddenly one day you find an envelope with your name on it sitting on your chair. You open it to find a clue, much like a scavenger hunt and a fifty dollar bill. What do you do? Why you develop a penchant for culottes, stick a malfunctioning switchblade in the breast pocket of your blouse and start hunting for the next clue… of course you need to find a token hot guy that can actually answer all o...more So you’re a loner type who has let your figure go a bit flabby while you work at the local library. Suddenly one day you find an envelope with your name on it sitting on your chair. You open it to find a clue, much like a scavenger hunt and a fifty dollar bill. What do you do? Why you develop a penchant for culottes, stick a malfunctioning switchblade in the breast pocket of your blouse and start hunting for the next clue… of course you need to find a token hot guy that can actually answer all of the clues for you because you’re a bit of an idiot, (fashion sense aside) and as the money doubles with each envelope you need to leave your sanity aside because things are about to get hairy.

How far would you be willing to go for money? How much danger would you be willing to face for four hundred dollars? Eight hundred? Sixteen hundred? Are you willing to fight nasty animals? Tromp about in spooky houses? Break and enter? How about murder? The game starts out innocently enough; an envelope here or there with money in it and a clue leading Jane, the local librarian, to the next envelope with double the money. The mysterious individual leaving the envelopes identifies him or her self only as MOG or Master of Games. Jane falls hook line and sinker for the game, not that she’s poor and dying for the money (it almost would have been more believable if she had a dying child at home that she needed money to cure or something.) Jane is bored, so very bored, and lonely. She’s apparently been without proper companionship for quite some time… so her mysterious benefactor is not only adding a bit of excitement to her life, (along with the cash and danger) but allows her a level of fantasy about a mysterious admirer who just might really love her. But she has Brace – the ridiculously named man she met at the library after receiving her first note… is he in on it? It seems rather convenient that he showed up just after the first note… can she trust him? Lucky for her she met him though because he seems to know the answers to all of MOG’s clues, and of course he has to be around for Jane to have all of the necessary Laymon-esque fantasies and sex scenes.

“In the Dark” is a fast read for just under 500 pages; the concept of the game is fun to read about, although you won’t be able to guess any of the clues on your own because they all lead to places in the town that the story takes place in. It is fun to see just how far Jane is willing to go for such a pitiful amount of money, true it doubles each time… but I assure you that most of you would have a much higher price to do what she does, if you would be willing to do it at all. As a character, Jane is a complete dolt… she’s selfish, immature, and seems to think she’s funny when she’s more irritating than anything, on top of that she apparently only owns culottes, her panties are always sweaty, her nipples tend to always be sensitive, and she apparently walks around with her boobs way out in front because they get injured or nearly injured about once every 5 pages or so. She’s also a ridiculously deep sleeper, without the common sense to change the locks on her doors after someone has been in and out of her house at will. Brace, our token male hero or bad guy in disguise (you never can tell with Laymon) is a Lit professor who is unbelievably tolerant of being slapped, punched, cut, stalked and beaten up for the love of a woman he has known for less than a week.

In the end I guess Laymon had to make Jane a selfish retard because if she had any sense the book would have been far shorter because after the graveyard incident a normal person would have said “screw this” and if Brace wasn’t such a forgiving guy, he wouldn’t have been able to tell her where to go for all of her clues. As a book, this was very entertaining, there was some gore which is typical of Laymon, but it doesn’t come until the last 150 pages or so of the book. As always with a Laymon book there is plenty of talk of women’s anatomy, rape, brutality against women, and lots of sex. Laymon does a wonderful job of making some of the scenes very creepy, what he does a terrible job at is wrapping up the story at the end and giving the reader a satisfying “Oh, I get it” moment. When MOG is revealed there is no explanation in regards to the game, the selection of Jane, or many other strange things. Still, even though the ending left a little to be desired, this was one of Laymon’s best books I have read so far. I recommend it for Laymon fans, and to fans of horror that can tolerate a stupid lead character and lots of talk about panties and breast sweat.
(less)

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May 17, 2010 Dora rated it 2 of 5 stars

Young librarian Jane finds a note addressed to her on her chair at work one night. Inside? A fifty dollar bill and the promise of more if she follows the clues. What starts out as a scavenger hunt turns into a deadly test of wills and morals as Jane finds herself doing more dangerous (and depraved) things for the promise of bigger and bigger payouts. This, then, is "The Dark", another in the long series of completely ridiculous horror novels from inexplicably popular author Richard Laymon.

Mind y...more Young librarian Jane finds a note addressed to her on her chair at work one night. Inside? A fifty dollar bill and the promise of more if she follows the clues. What starts out as a scavenger hunt turns into a deadly test of wills and morals as Jane finds herself doing more dangerous (and depraved) things for the promise of bigger and bigger payouts. This, then, is "The Dark", another in the long series of completely ridiculous horror novels from inexplicably popular author Richard Laymon.

Mind you, it's an interesting premise; an anonymous "benefactor" who slowly doles out the carrots so that you never see the stick until it's too late. And, for a while, Laymon shows restraint and gives us a story with a fairly believable progression of circumstances. Jane gets help from the laughably named Brace, and winds up scaling a statue in the dark for her next prize, only to find the clues become more cryptic and her trials become more dangerous as she goes. It all winds up in a showdown that reads like someone dropped the script for Saw into a bucket of afternoon soap operas.

The problem I have with Laymon's stories is that he always goes too far. I don't mean that he writes about things I find offensive, although that's clearly what he's trying for, but rather that he takes his tragedies and his horrors leaps and bounds beyond what is reasonable until they become completely ridiculous. At one point, someone vomits into Jane's mouth; if you think that sounds gross, I promise you that by the time the story gets to that point everything will be so outlandish that you'll find it hysterical. He piles bizarre situations on top of his heroine in an effort to make you uneasy and breathless with suspense, but instead winds up with a chain of events that feel cartoonishly overblown. Nobody behaves rationally, and nobody is ever interesting, because they're always two-dimensional stereotypes.

So why do I read his books if I find them so poorly done? After so long, his books have become to me the horror equivalent of those terrible bodice-ripper novels that clog supermarket shelves. I read them because they're exceedingly simple and never take more than an afternoon, and have a tendency to give me hysterics more than once. "Oh, that Richard," I chuckle to myself, perhaps with my fists on my hips, '50's sitcom mom style, with an affectionate wag of my head, "what's he gone and done this time?" Only, instead of knocking over the family heirloom vase or putting a slingshot pebble through Old Man Wilson's window, he's putting a naked hairless man in a church bell-tower throwing bullets at our hapless protagonist. I'm not sure if his books are so bad they're awesome, or just awesomely bad.

Long story short; The Dark is paperback junk food and should not ever be taken seriously.(less)

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Sep 30, 2010 BecksBookPicks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jane is the main character in this book. She is a librarian and on day she find an envelope on her chair. She open the envelope to find $50 and a letter from Master of the Game, AKA, MOG. In the envelope she gets a clue as the where to find the next envelope is. Upon finding the next one, she gets her money doubled. At this point, she is hooked. Who wouldn't be, if all they had to do was follow the clue and your money gets doubled. However, each clue brings her to more and more dangerous situati...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Rei rated it 5 of 5 stars

Own it, love it, read it loads. It does its job, it's full of suspense and excellence and has his trademark writing style on it. As an amateur author myself, Richard Laymon was my first inspiration into the world of writing and I will always hold his work in high esteem. Laymon happens to be my favorite author of all time and I have yet to discover a book by him that I REALLY can't stand.

In the Dark, read whilst I was in France and I just randomly plucked it off the bookshelf, I'm glad I did. I...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Bullshit!....bullshit. I'm not even going to finish this book. I'm to chapter 18 and I'm just done. And personally I'm pretty pissed off at this book because it started off so awesome! I couldn't put it down. The characters were extremely likeable, it was funny yet thrilling at the same time, then it just got stupid. Or rather the main character just got stupid, completely brain dead more like.
Anyone who has read this please tell me one good reason why, after what happened in the graveyard woul...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Kevin Groosalugg rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't know how to feel about this book. It's my first Richard Laymon novel, and I wonder how he's written 30 books before this and still manages to write like an amateur. It's like a college professor told him to be more descriptive so he decided to rehash the same descriptions of mundane objects over and over again and triple the size of the book. The plot is pretty straightforward: A woman finds an envelope with a note sending her on a quest, when she completes the quest she gets money and a...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Hatchetgabby rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fantastic if it's not my favorite Laymon book it's deffinately in the top two,only con is i wish he'd given a little more background info on the villan.

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Jul 23, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second Laymon book I have read (the other being "Island") that seems to define the term "page-turner". The suspense and plot are paced so perfectly that even the few flaws of the book can be forgiven. The antagonist's motives are not only not explained, but never even speculated on. Another problem is the character of Jane, who as a young librarian not only becomes more resourceful as the book goes on, but progressively acts and speaks out of character. Like most Laymon books, this i...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, 2009

Laymon does it again! I almost don't want to read any other books these days because of how bland they seem in light of a Laymon novel. He simply knows how to build suspense, create interesting characters, and throw in elements of total surprise.

As the plot unfolds you may find yourself disbelieving some of the character's actions, but just hang in there. The ending, as usual, is priceless!

This was one of Laymon's thicker books that you can tell he took a little more time writing than usual. The...more

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May 16, 2009 ♥ Marlene♥ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fiction

Finished this book last night. Wow what a difference with the last book I read. This one I could not stop reading and it kept me thinking about it even when I could not read.

My dad gave me about 5 books by Richard Laymon. This is the first book I have read by him and I loved it. So original. I love the toughness, the gore, the sex. lol. Okay sometimes the story was a a bit like "A girl would never do that, but all in all I really loved reading it.

I picked this book because it had the best revie...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Christopher rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: masochists, people who miss 90s mass market paperbacks

Quite simply, awful. From the characters (who act like no one you've ever met) to the plot (which beggars belief on a scale so large, it becomes a chore to give a toss what's coming next) to the writing (which is maybe the most pedestrian noodling I've ever encountered, where literally every action and motion is described in brain-meltingly rigorous detail), this is the worst book I've read in awhile. Though, to be fair, I stopped actively reading it about halfway thru and skimmed my way to the...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Katy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just LOVED this Laymon book - I couldn't put it down! It was, let's be honest, extremely disturbing, and as with many of his other books I at times questioned my psychological state for enjoying it, but his writing style was so sublime and this story such a unique idea (at least I've never seen anything else like it before or since) that I couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer audacity of it - I can't really outline it without creating spoilers, but trust me -if you are a horror fan, you...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Eva rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nett für langweilige Abende, der Schreibstil ist einfach verständlich, angenehm zu lesen und vermittelt Stimmung.
Die Geschichte an sich finde ich interessant, aber teilweise sind die Aufgaben, die der Hauptcharakter erledigen muss ziemlich platt.
Gegen Ende wird die Geschichte dann viel zu fantastisch, das nimmt jede vorher aufgebaute Identifizierung mit dem Hauptcharakter und der Geschichte. Zumindest nach meiner Meinung.
Insgesamt wie gesagt eine nette Geschichte, aber für außergewöhnlich lesens...more

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May 02, 2011 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Okay, so while this isn't exactly high art, it's extremely entertaining. Full of violence, gore, sexploitation. It's just the kind of thrilling schlock I look forward to when reading Laymon. This isn't for the faint of heart, and for the person expecting rational thinking. The characters often do stupid things, that lead them into very bad situations, but the situations are so breath taking it doesn't matter. You'll be ripping through the pages and before you know it the book is over. I highly r...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Jenny Lane rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 22, 2012 Tanja Seppä rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Dowdy librarian Jane receives an envelope with her name on it, containing 50 dollars and note with instructions. The note is signed "MOG" - master of games. The first few things Jane has to do are easy enough, but the game soon turns more sinister. The reward increases steeply. Soon dowdy-Jane is a trim, sleek, single-minded woman.

The premise is interesting enough. Particularly when Jane is still trying to figure out the note of where she is to turn up next time. However, when the stakes are ra...more

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Feb 06, 2012 David Watson rated it 4 of 5 stars

In The Dark was released in 1994. Jane Kerry, the city of Donnerville’s librarian lives an average uninteresting life but that all changes when she finds an envelope containing $50 dollars and instructions saying “look homeward, angel,” signed MOG, Master of Games. Soon MOG starts to give Jane tasks to complete and keeps giving her more and more money. The tasks keep getting more crazy and more dangerous and now Jane is forever changed and obsessed with the game. Will she survive or will she fa...more In The Dark was released in 1994. Jane Kerry, the city of Donnerville’s librarian lives an average uninteresting life but that all changes when she finds an envelope containing $50 dollars and instructions saying “look homeward, angel,” signed MOG, Master of Games. Soon MOG starts to give Jane tasks to complete and keeps giving her more and more money. The tasks keep getting more crazy and more dangerous and now Jane is forever changed and obsessed with the game. Will she survive or will she fall victim to Mog’s games?

Once again I read this book years ago, but I remember enjoying watching the character of Jane change through out the book from a normal person to a tough as nails woman who will do whatever it takes to complete Mog’s tasks and get more money. I also loved how the excitement in the books builds, you never know if Mog’s games will be dangerous or just simple and easy to give Jane a false sense of security. For instance one night Jane just has to spend an evening eating dinner with a stranger while the next night she has to find a treasure in a house where a serial killer is torturing his victims.

My favorite scene in the book managed to make me shudder and laugh at the same time. I don’t want to give it all away but at one point Jane is being chased by a female cannibal with only one leg, holding a knife and a fork and screaming “I’ve got the hungeries.” Richard Laymon’s books are usually very hard core and definitely not for everyone.

One thing that every Richard Laymon book that I’ve read has, is a rape scene. I’ve also seen where some people have said that Laymon hates woman because there is so much violence against women in his books. I have to disagree with the people saying that Laymon is a sexist, because if you pay attention to his stories you will see that the female characters in his books are smarter, stronger, more compassionate, more resourceful and all around better characters then the men. Also the men who commit the violence against women always end up suffering much more then the women do. I also have not read a Laymon book where the main hero wasn’t a woman.(less)

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May 09, 2010 chucklesthescot rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Laymon,horror and thriller fans

Shelves: horror, fiction

Jane is a bored librarian who finds a 50 dollar bill and a cryptic note that leads her to another book with more money and another clue. So begins a scavenger hunt with a difference, starting out with innocent expeditions with the money doubling each time. Then just when Jane is hooked, the tasks start becoming more dangerous and illegal. She starts to have second thoughts about the game but the mystery host has no intention of letting her quit.
This book is clever, full of the suspense that Lay...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Richard Laymon writes with a sense of purpose, that purpose is to entertain. Although Mr. Laymon's prose at times may seem sophomoric and his characters may come across as a bit underdeveloped and even act outside their given stereotype, this author still some how manages to deliver pure pulp fun. There are those who read Laymon and are expecting a pure literary, high prose achievement, these folks are left feeling cheated and love to bash Richard Laymon, this is not the fault of the author. If...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Maicie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-in-2012, mystery-thriller

Laymon is a car wreck on the side of the road; I don't want to look but I can't help myself.

My blood pressure goes off the charts and I've hurled more than one of his books across the room. His writing brings to mind what would happen if Playboy were written by a group of thirteen-year-old boys. Lots of tits, lots of ass, lots of ridiculous scenarios. Picture a red-faced sweaty boy talking to his buddy: “So Mary Ann walks into the cafeteria and sneezes and...her boob pops out.” Yep, it’s that b...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Jeff O'Brien rated it 4 of 5 stars

It usually takes me a week to finish a 350 page novel. In The Dark was just over 500 pages and I blazed through it in just over two days. This book defined "page-turner."

For me, the only flaw of this book was the lack of back story on the villain. When you have a villain as brilliant and mysterious as the one we have here, it tends to be a bit of a letdown when we don't get to fully understand him. Otherwise, there was really not a flaw to be found here, in my opinion.

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Jul 28, 2011 Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars

Richard Laymon rocks! I know he has his detractors...blah blah blah his romantic relationships are ridiculous...blah blah blah...but come on! He isn't a freaking romance author (and 99% of those are ridiculous), he is a horror/thriller author. This is a doozy! The concept is great...essentially a messed up scavenger hunt. The characters, though not the most amazingly developed, are still developed enough to be likable. I cared about what happened, and I was never bored. You don't read Laymon exp...more

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Jan 14, 2010 Carrie rated it 2 of 5 stars

It was just OK. The end was not a surprise, but there were a whole lotta unanswered questions. I don't expect everything to be tied up into a nice neat package, but when an event or person has been made to seem important, I want to know why. Also, a bit annoying that occassionally (3 or 4 times) really mundane events were described in minute detail (like how she fried eggs, in bacon grease, at just the perfect temperature, which we could tell because the egg-whites did not turn crisp on the edge...more

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Jun 28, 2011 William M. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

I read this in 3 days and it was hard to put down each night. What a great hook! I can honestly say I had a smile on my face for most of the book... it's that much fun. Granted, it might offend a lot of people with it's graphic descriptions and adult scenes, but if it's horror you want, it's horror you will get. Laymon doesn't ramble on and on like Stephen King. He gets right to the point and brings on the violence and suspense.

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Jan 05, 2013 Butterblume89 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, thriller

Eines Tages erhält die junge Bibliothekarin Jane einen Fünfzig-Dollar-Schein und die Aufforderung, sich an einem ominösen „Spiel“ zu beteiligen: Wenn sie jeweils mitternachts eine bestimmte Aufgabe löst, dann verdoppelt sich ihre Belohnung. Sie macht mit. Die ersten Aufgaben sind noch leicht, doch sie werden härter – bis es kein Zurück mehr gibt: Das „Spiel“ artet zu reinstem Terror aus ....
Ich habe dieses Buch an einem Aben durchgelesen ich konnte es nicht mehr aus der Hand legen,es war spannen...more

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Oct 20, 2010 Jak rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’m unashamed of my liking for horror novels but when I read ones as poor as this I begin to wonder. I’m not looking for Shakespearian prose from Laymon because I’m after light entertainment. But I honestly think that if I was imaginative enough to come up with some plot lines I could write no worse than he does.

The reason for that is that Laymon has clearly never progressed beyond the mentality of a teenage boy. And one that has absolutely no idea about women. Honestly, his female characters b...more

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May 17, 2012 Marcus with a C rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english, on-my-kindle-app, fiction, horror, 2012

This books was a recommendation of a colleague and I must say, it was a great recommendation.
I knew that this is kind of a mystery/horror read and so I was a bit surprised at the beginning about the potential love story that seemed to develop. However it all turned out to be right ....
The spooky thing is that the story actually could be real and it is amazing what people can turn into if they are given the option or better if they are not not given any option .... The characters are so likeable...more

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Jul 18, 2009 DJMikeG rated it 4 of 5 stars

Laymon's ability to create a story that keeps you tearing through the pages is fully exercised in this downright ridiculous thriller. Of Laymon's many talents, one of his most peculiar feats is keeping the reader enthralled while describing completely off the wall and lets face it, absurd events. The story concerns "The Game", in which librarian Jane Kerry must figure out clues that are left for her with cash in envelopes by M.O.G., Master Of Games. The clues involve increasingly scary and dange...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Kirsty rated it 1 of 5 stars

Obviously none of Laymon's books are what I'd call 'good', but this is one of the worst. I read the whole bloody 400+ pages waiting for a twist –and then there wasn't one. Instead I got a comic-book baddie and an unconvincing romance. Still, it had those usual Laymon features of naked girls and ultraviolence, which is always nice for a reader's voyeuristic side....more

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Feb 26, 2013 Jaina S rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is a ridiculously bad book. I made the mistake of getting sucked in by an interesting sounding premise - librarian gets mysterious note and sets out on an ever-more-dangerous game. This mess is basically the Saw movies in book form-factor. But LESS believable. Do yourself a favor and go read a cereal box instead.

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About Richard Laymon

Richard Laymon was born in Chicago and grew up in California. He earned a BA in English Literature from Willamette, and an MA from Loyola University. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, and a report writer for a law firm, and was the author of more than thirty acclaimed novels.

He also published more than sixty short stories in magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Cavalier,...more

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