Worst Enemies

by Jack Scaparro

The horror has just begun...for Neil Romano, of the NYPD, when the first inexplicable killing takes place much too close to home and to his own cherished family.

As the deaths become even more frightening and bizarre, Romano sets out to untangle a series of crimes which have thrown the entire city into turmoil.

What he discovers as he moves through the dark worlds of psychic research and Chinese mysticism couldn't possibly be true...

Genres: Horror

351 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scaparro's debut novel Worst Enemies, first published in 1983, shows some flair in spots, but not nearly come close to what he achieved in The Attic. Our main protagonist, Neil Romano, is a cop with the NYPD, and this reads something like a police procedural. Making use of an old and tired trope in the horror genre, Neil is basically your typical burnt out cop when some strange murders start happening and he wants the case badly. The first victim, a 13 y.o girl, was found in her room in a locked apartment, arms and neck horribly broken, brain liquified and also raped. Yet, there is nothing, I mean nothing, regarding clues as no trace of any perp is found at all. Obviously, this was some sort of 'psychic' murder in that the victim was killed by mind power or something; the question motivating this quasi mystery is who is the perp?

Scaparro does not make much of this potentially interesting plot however, and Worst Enemies is rife with lurid, trashy sex scenes even including a girl and her dog!. Now, I am down with the trashy pulp, but this was just too cliched for my taste. We are quickly introduced to some mysterious 'asian' man who watched the first murder from the street, and his housemate, another 'asian' who keeps yet another young 'asian' as her lesbian lover (and yes, expect some erotic scenes from that!). So, some crazy asian mind foo?

The police procedural part is also pretty lame. Our protagonist Neil is your typical half drunk burnout case, semi estranged wife and daughter, yada yada yada. To cap it off, Scaparro serves up a denouement that you could see coming from a mile away. So, yeah, some flair in spots, with some occasional snappy dialogue, lots of sleazy sex, but filled with walking tropes for characters and full of cliche. A first book and it shows. 2.5 stars, but I will round up as it was Scaparro's first.

[Douglas Castagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The resolution is contrived and predictable. The story has some thrills but is dated and comes off as tired and forced. There are some good story elements but nothing comes to fruition.