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The Kill Riff
Lucas seeks revenge for the death of his daughter, trampled to death during a heavy-metal rock concert, stalking one-by-one the members of the rock group who had performed, and only Gabriel Stannard, former lead singer, can stop him
406 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
14 people are currently reading
954 people want to read
About the author
David J. Schow
197 books144 followersDavid J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays, associated with the "splatterpunk" movement of the late '80s and early '90s. Most recently he has moved into the crime genre.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
November 2, 2024
The misogyny is strong with this one.
August 27, 2023
Can fiction ever go too far?
No.
But David J. Schow is sure as hell gonna try! Welcome to KILL RIFF, a book so filthy and nasty, it's like licking pubic hair off the public toilets in a Just for Laughs.
But strangely, I loved it.
Maybe I have a fetish? I don't know. Call my doctor. Where's my Sertraline.
Kill Riff is a mind crunching dumpster dive of 80s sleaze that reads like Death Wish versus MTV. And then it takes a turn straight into bat country.
The book features a recently released mental patient overcoming the trauma of losing his daughter to a horrible and exploitative accident at a rock and roll show. The mental patient claims he's gone through therapy and doesn't want revenge on the rock band. He's doing much better now. His therapist even wants to have sex with him! (HA-HA gross!) He's going to let go of the past and rebuild his life and really, truly move on and OH MY GOD HE'S GOING HUNTING FOR HAIR-FARMERS.
Sounds simple and straight forward? Lots of sweaty muscles and big beefy handshakes and large knives and large knuckles and large guns, right?
How very 80s!
Think again, you snivelling butt dimples!
Because this is David J. Schow and that means this book is going to give you several brutal Kung-fu kicks straight into your tender bits.
You think David J. Schow is all cuddles and snuggles. But no. He bites.
He bites really hard.
He bites like a mean old cat that you just gotta pet but you know it's gonna take a chunk out of you. But it's worth it just to squeeze that magnificent belly. It's like putting your hand into a really nice blender.
That's David J. Schow.
And we love him. We love his brutal, flesh-ripping, requires surgery to get your fingers working again, writing style.
Sure his books will give you rabies, but what a fun way to get rabies.
Right kids?
What the hell am I talking about? Did I eat the drywall again?
I blame inflation.
Kill Riff sets fire to the 80s revenge thriller and gobbles down popcorn with a shit-eating grin as the whole thing burns alive. It somehow looks at a bunch of stories full of gritty action heroes bringing sweet, sweet, bloody doom down on colossal psychopaths and says to itself "No, this isn't nearly cynical enough".
It's like Cobra or Dirty Harry or Commando, only it's gone completely fishing. We're not just talking broken. We're not just talking the funny or cute kind of crazy you see in Batman movies. Oh no. Because I'm crazy and I'm funny and I'm cute.
And I'm fine.
I'M COMPLETELY FINE.
...shut up Doris.
This is 72 floors beneath me in the department where the doctors keep the people they feed to the cenobites from Hellraiser. These are the people who try to talk to Nyarlathotep using subliminal messages in interpretive dance numbers set to Nightcore versions of Steven Universe songs. We're talking scary crazy. We're talking "enjoys Teen Witch unironically" here.
David J. Schow asks the question nobody really wants to ask about a story like Dirty Harry: "What kind of person would actually go on one of these roaring rampages of revenge, y'know, in real life?"
And the answer is: Oh no. OH SWEET BABY JESUS, NO.
The best part of this book is that you see the big twist coming from page one. You just assume that you're safe. "The writer won't go there. Everything's gonna be a-okay."
But you're not safe Buckaroo. You are not, in-fact, a-okay. The writer is absolutely going there. He is bringing his best Hawaiian vacation shirt and tacky shorts and sunglasses.
He is sitting down in a folding chair with strange white stuff on his nose that we're pretty sure is not sunscreen.
And he is fully going there.
Fully.
On top of that, we got what I call a "Jack Ketchum situation" here, because David J. Schow is a butcher/splatter-god who just happens to be really good at writing.
That's what makes his work so freaking dangerous. It's not the subject matter. There's tons of gore and sex and nastiness across every genre imaginable. 99% of it is a solid "Meh". No the problem here is that Schow makes you feel it.
From tip to tat.
Schow isn't just showing you the half-chewed food in his mouth. He's like Saturn devouring his characters. Showing the half-chewed people in his mouth.
You can hear their lost screams as they are slowly digested in the infinite, unfinished night of his squirming gastrointestinal tract.
It's the execution that matters, you see.
Schow will make you laugh, make you cry, make you think and then pull your lungs out of your mouth like a cursed priest in a Lucio Fulci movie.
There's a whole chapter in Kill Riff dedicated to one of the most repugnant characters I've ever seen in a fiction getting absolutely toasted. And by the end of the chapter you're cheering for that putrid human rectal wart to survive. You want him to live. You need him to live. You know that the guy is the social equivalent of a milkshake full of faeces and bacon grease. But he's a human being, damn it! By the end of the whole scene David J. Schow is just squeezing your empathy berries dry. You can hear them crunching in his fist.
And that's real talent. Making somebody care about a relatable person with lots of nice, respectable traits? EZ-PZ. Making somebody care and relate to a six foot tall bag of infected human puss? That's trauma baby. That's a writer wielding empathy like a surgeon scalpel and getting under your skin and straight into the sweet meats.
Just delicious.
Free ham for everybody.
Kill Riff is the smartest evisceration of 80s action storytelling, ever. EVER? Well, yeah.
It's a succinct condemnation of the culture, top to bottom. It takes apart the body building fetishism, a media completely addicted to sensationalism and the superficial rebellion as corporate product that was infused in so much of MTV. It's a strident criticism of the Yuppie style Gordon Gekko ideal that views instant gratification as empowerment and life-fulfilling and how completely deranged and broken that is.
It explores how this kind of deep cancer rooted in corporate and celebrity circles worked so effectively at hiding monsters in plain sight.
It takes apart "violence for violence sake" storytelling, while being more overly deranged than everything it's criticising. Because it plays it straight. Kill Riff steamrolls the Death Wish genre flat by being honest about it.
The main protagonist is a Homelander style send-up of 80s action vigilantes only he's so messed up he makes Homelander look like a Care Bear. And (maybe most importantly) Kill Riff also addresses how sexism feeds into cycles of abuse, narcissistic delusion and violent derangement. And why a lot of parents who are the most strident about 'protecting the kids' are often the most toxic and monstrous.
It's about all these deep ulcers that drained the entire 1980s dry. Horrible commercial bowl infections that our society has never completely recovered from.
Kill Riff points out that as escapist fiction, the big crazy action guy who takes no crap and brings down bloody horror on people who wronged his family sounds great. But in real life a person who can slaughter people like chickens and then pass themselves off as normal for the rest of the day? No matter what their motivation? That is usually somebody who masturbates to car crash photos. They're not a guy you want to idolise or put up on a pedestal. Even if you really enjoyed J.G. Ballard's Crash.
That type of guy ends up being chased by Dr. Loomis in October.
If a person has a certain level of normalcy towards living with violence or the destruction of other people's lives? That comes from experiencing it. Which means they have seen it. First hand. A lot. And it's easy for them to deal with it now. And they can slip in and out of that state of extreme violence like we put on pants.
And no matter how many times you go to the shooting range or the gym to cosplay as John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger, you will never be ready for a guy who can go from zero to eating grandma in 2 seconds.
NEVER.
It's not about 'who can win in a fight' or the rest of those insecure internet sausage measuring contests, because you'll be really lucky if you even get to fight.
These people are the Predator alien, only their cloaking device is our preconception of civility. When they come out of that camouflage and expose their full Ed Gein glory? Somebody better have a lot of wet wipes because it's crackers and jam time, sweetheart.
Kill Riff holds a mirror up to the entire 80s decade and shows us what we all knew was underneath those screeching guitars and roid-raging cocaine freaks. It takes you into the deep, filthy, sewers of the great societal subtext to show you the colossal fatberg that has clogged up the arteries of our collective unconscious.
And baby, it is murder.
No.
But David J. Schow is sure as hell gonna try! Welcome to KILL RIFF, a book so filthy and nasty, it's like licking pubic hair off the public toilets in a Just for Laughs.
But strangely, I loved it.
Maybe I have a fetish? I don't know. Call my doctor. Where's my Sertraline.
Kill Riff is a mind crunching dumpster dive of 80s sleaze that reads like Death Wish versus MTV. And then it takes a turn straight into bat country.
The book features a recently released mental patient overcoming the trauma of losing his daughter to a horrible and exploitative accident at a rock and roll show. The mental patient claims he's gone through therapy and doesn't want revenge on the rock band. He's doing much better now. His therapist even wants to have sex with him! (HA-HA gross!) He's going to let go of the past and rebuild his life and really, truly move on and OH MY GOD HE'S GOING HUNTING FOR HAIR-FARMERS.
Sounds simple and straight forward? Lots of sweaty muscles and big beefy handshakes and large knives and large knuckles and large guns, right?
How very 80s!
Think again, you snivelling butt dimples!
Because this is David J. Schow and that means this book is going to give you several brutal Kung-fu kicks straight into your tender bits.
You think David J. Schow is all cuddles and snuggles. But no. He bites.
He bites really hard.
He bites like a mean old cat that you just gotta pet but you know it's gonna take a chunk out of you. But it's worth it just to squeeze that magnificent belly. It's like putting your hand into a really nice blender.
That's David J. Schow.
And we love him. We love his brutal, flesh-ripping, requires surgery to get your fingers working again, writing style.
Sure his books will give you rabies, but what a fun way to get rabies.
Right kids?
What the hell am I talking about? Did I eat the drywall again?
I blame inflation.
Kill Riff sets fire to the 80s revenge thriller and gobbles down popcorn with a shit-eating grin as the whole thing burns alive. It somehow looks at a bunch of stories full of gritty action heroes bringing sweet, sweet, bloody doom down on colossal psychopaths and says to itself "No, this isn't nearly cynical enough".
It's like Cobra or Dirty Harry or Commando, only it's gone completely fishing. We're not just talking broken. We're not just talking the funny or cute kind of crazy you see in Batman movies. Oh no. Because I'm crazy and I'm funny and I'm cute.
And I'm fine.
I'M COMPLETELY FINE.
...shut up Doris.
This is 72 floors beneath me in the department where the doctors keep the people they feed to the cenobites from Hellraiser. These are the people who try to talk to Nyarlathotep using subliminal messages in interpretive dance numbers set to Nightcore versions of Steven Universe songs. We're talking scary crazy. We're talking "enjoys Teen Witch unironically" here.
David J. Schow asks the question nobody really wants to ask about a story like Dirty Harry: "What kind of person would actually go on one of these roaring rampages of revenge, y'know, in real life?"
And the answer is: Oh no. OH SWEET BABY JESUS, NO.
The best part of this book is that you see the big twist coming from page one. You just assume that you're safe. "The writer won't go there. Everything's gonna be a-okay."
But you're not safe Buckaroo. You are not, in-fact, a-okay. The writer is absolutely going there. He is bringing his best Hawaiian vacation shirt and tacky shorts and sunglasses.
He is sitting down in a folding chair with strange white stuff on his nose that we're pretty sure is not sunscreen.
And he is fully going there.
Fully.
On top of that, we got what I call a "Jack Ketchum situation" here, because David J. Schow is a butcher/splatter-god who just happens to be really good at writing.
That's what makes his work so freaking dangerous. It's not the subject matter. There's tons of gore and sex and nastiness across every genre imaginable. 99% of it is a solid "Meh". No the problem here is that Schow makes you feel it.
From tip to tat.
Schow isn't just showing you the half-chewed food in his mouth. He's like Saturn devouring his characters. Showing the half-chewed people in his mouth.
You can hear their lost screams as they are slowly digested in the infinite, unfinished night of his squirming gastrointestinal tract.
It's the execution that matters, you see.
Schow will make you laugh, make you cry, make you think and then pull your lungs out of your mouth like a cursed priest in a Lucio Fulci movie.
There's a whole chapter in Kill Riff dedicated to one of the most repugnant characters I've ever seen in a fiction getting absolutely toasted. And by the end of the chapter you're cheering for that putrid human rectal wart to survive. You want him to live. You need him to live. You know that the guy is the social equivalent of a milkshake full of faeces and bacon grease. But he's a human being, damn it! By the end of the whole scene David J. Schow is just squeezing your empathy berries dry. You can hear them crunching in his fist.
And that's real talent. Making somebody care about a relatable person with lots of nice, respectable traits? EZ-PZ. Making somebody care and relate to a six foot tall bag of infected human puss? That's trauma baby. That's a writer wielding empathy like a surgeon scalpel and getting under your skin and straight into the sweet meats.
Just delicious.
Free ham for everybody.
Kill Riff is the smartest evisceration of 80s action storytelling, ever. EVER? Well, yeah.
It's a succinct condemnation of the culture, top to bottom. It takes apart the body building fetishism, a media completely addicted to sensationalism and the superficial rebellion as corporate product that was infused in so much of MTV. It's a strident criticism of the Yuppie style Gordon Gekko ideal that views instant gratification as empowerment and life-fulfilling and how completely deranged and broken that is.
It explores how this kind of deep cancer rooted in corporate and celebrity circles worked so effectively at hiding monsters in plain sight.
It takes apart "violence for violence sake" storytelling, while being more overly deranged than everything it's criticising. Because it plays it straight. Kill Riff steamrolls the Death Wish genre flat by being honest about it.
The main protagonist is a Homelander style send-up of 80s action vigilantes only he's so messed up he makes Homelander look like a Care Bear. And (maybe most importantly) Kill Riff also addresses how sexism feeds into cycles of abuse, narcissistic delusion and violent derangement. And why a lot of parents who are the most strident about 'protecting the kids' are often the most toxic and monstrous.
It's about all these deep ulcers that drained the entire 1980s dry. Horrible commercial bowl infections that our society has never completely recovered from.
Kill Riff points out that as escapist fiction, the big crazy action guy who takes no crap and brings down bloody horror on people who wronged his family sounds great. But in real life a person who can slaughter people like chickens and then pass themselves off as normal for the rest of the day? No matter what their motivation? That is usually somebody who masturbates to car crash photos. They're not a guy you want to idolise or put up on a pedestal. Even if you really enjoyed J.G. Ballard's Crash.
That type of guy ends up being chased by Dr. Loomis in October.
If a person has a certain level of normalcy towards living with violence or the destruction of other people's lives? That comes from experiencing it. Which means they have seen it. First hand. A lot. And it's easy for them to deal with it now. And they can slip in and out of that state of extreme violence like we put on pants.
And no matter how many times you go to the shooting range or the gym to cosplay as John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger, you will never be ready for a guy who can go from zero to eating grandma in 2 seconds.
NEVER.
It's not about 'who can win in a fight' or the rest of those insecure internet sausage measuring contests, because you'll be really lucky if you even get to fight.
These people are the Predator alien, only their cloaking device is our preconception of civility. When they come out of that camouflage and expose their full Ed Gein glory? Somebody better have a lot of wet wipes because it's crackers and jam time, sweetheart.
Kill Riff holds a mirror up to the entire 80s decade and shows us what we all knew was underneath those screeching guitars and roid-raging cocaine freaks. It takes you into the deep, filthy, sewers of the great societal subtext to show you the colossal fatberg that has clogged up the arteries of our collective unconscious.
And baby, it is murder.
February 7, 2022
I've had this book for quite some time and finally got around to reading it, my expectations were high but I'm disappointed, it's not a horror novel, there's nothing 'horror' about it - it's a thriller novel.
While I don't mind a thriller every once in a while this one did nothing for me, it was just very predictable.
With all that said, there's another reason I've put it down to a one star rating and that's the terrible editing in the writing.
I've not given up on this authors work though, I'm going to give The Shaft a read at some point because I have it and it sounds cool; this one though..👎
While I don't mind a thriller every once in a while this one did nothing for me, it was just very predictable.
With all that said, there's another reason I've put it down to a one star rating and that's the terrible editing in the writing.
I've not given up on this authors work though, I'm going to give The Shaft a read at some point because I have it and it sounds cool; this one though..👎
September 8, 2023
This reads sort of like a violent yet cheesy action movie aka the best kind of action movie, but then it was written by the guy who wrote the screenplay for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (which I also loved), so I wasn’t all that surprised to find this a super enjoyable ride as well. Guns and guitars, baby!
January 15, 2024
While Schow now is associated with early splatterpunk in the 80s/90s, The Kill Riff gives little evidence of that, being primarily a thriller, albeit with a few gory action scenes. The glowing blurbs by McCammon, Bloch and Charles de Lint praise Schow's prose and this book, but I do not concur. This did have some great moments, but overall felt extremely bloated and too cynical for my tastes, and I am in general pretty cynical. A good editor would have belt sanded a few hundred pages from this tome.
I really wanted to like this one more, especially given that it centered on the 80s metal scene of which I lived and loved and featured many references of the era. My first live concert was Judas Priest and Iron Maiden back in 1982! Yet, Schow, while obviously knowing the scene, dismisses it as formulaic, trite and just plain money grubbing over and over. This really set the tone of the book as Schow shits on everyone throughout the book. Some people see the world through rose tinted glasses, but apparently, Schow's are shit brown.
The plot has a neat hook, albeit relatively straight forward. Our main protagonist, Lucas Ellington, starts the book getting out of the nut house he checked himself into. A few years ago, Lucas experienced a double tragedy-- his wife ODed and his teenage daughter was trampled to death at a concert by Whip Hand. So, Lucas, depressed, checked himself in to get over it. The novel starts with him returning to work (he works in a PR firm in LA) but soon tells his partner he is taking off for his isolated cabin south of San Francisco to regroup and hang before starting back in the grind. His real plan, however, is to get some revenge on Whip Hand, who broke up shortly after his daughter was trampled.
Lucas is a Vietnam vet (of course) and has a cache of weapons buried at the cabin. Schow must really love his guns because all of them are described in loving detail at the story continues. Lucas starts tracking the former members of Whip Hand and plans to take them out. He is a planner, and this part of the book could have been great if not weighted down by excessive description and bloated prose. Schow also introduces Gabriel Stannard pretty early on, the 'front man' from Whip Hand, now a solo act. Gabriel is your typical 'wild man' rock and roller, at least his image is, and when he reads about his former band mates dropping like flies, he knows exactly who is doing it and why, and is not planning on just hiding behind security...
The Kill Riff took some time to get into, with numerous info dumps posing as dialogue to start the book. My biggest problem with the book, besides needing a belt sander, revolves around how all the characters are assholes. You have no one to root for here. Lucas? Deranged Vietnam vet, but what is he really after besides simple revenge? His therapist Sara from the nuthouse? A damsel in distress looking for her man, and she thinks it is Lucas. Gabriel is so false it hurts. Everyone is mired in deep cynicism and greed. So, what could have been an exciting thriller oozing metal vibes turned out for me to be a depressing, slow thriller where I was hoping everyone involved would buy it in the end. 2 sour notes.
I really wanted to like this one more, especially given that it centered on the 80s metal scene of which I lived and loved and featured many references of the era. My first live concert was Judas Priest and Iron Maiden back in 1982! Yet, Schow, while obviously knowing the scene, dismisses it as formulaic, trite and just plain money grubbing over and over. This really set the tone of the book as Schow shits on everyone throughout the book. Some people see the world through rose tinted glasses, but apparently, Schow's are shit brown.
The plot has a neat hook, albeit relatively straight forward. Our main protagonist, Lucas Ellington, starts the book getting out of the nut house he checked himself into. A few years ago, Lucas experienced a double tragedy-- his wife ODed and his teenage daughter was trampled to death at a concert by Whip Hand. So, Lucas, depressed, checked himself in to get over it. The novel starts with him returning to work (he works in a PR firm in LA) but soon tells his partner he is taking off for his isolated cabin south of San Francisco to regroup and hang before starting back in the grind. His real plan, however, is to get some revenge on Whip Hand, who broke up shortly after his daughter was trampled.
Lucas is a Vietnam vet (of course) and has a cache of weapons buried at the cabin. Schow must really love his guns because all of them are described in loving detail at the story continues. Lucas starts tracking the former members of Whip Hand and plans to take them out. He is a planner, and this part of the book could have been great if not weighted down by excessive description and bloated prose. Schow also introduces Gabriel Stannard pretty early on, the 'front man' from Whip Hand, now a solo act. Gabriel is your typical 'wild man' rock and roller, at least his image is, and when he reads about his former band mates dropping like flies, he knows exactly who is doing it and why, and is not planning on just hiding behind security...
The Kill Riff took some time to get into, with numerous info dumps posing as dialogue to start the book. My biggest problem with the book, besides needing a belt sander, revolves around how all the characters are assholes. You have no one to root for here. Lucas? Deranged Vietnam vet, but what is he really after besides simple revenge? His therapist Sara from the nuthouse? A damsel in distress looking for her man, and she thinks it is Lucas. Gabriel is so false it hurts. Everyone is mired in deep cynicism and greed. So, what could have been an exciting thriller oozing metal vibes turned out for me to be a depressing, slow thriller where I was hoping everyone involved would buy it in the end. 2 sour notes.
January 19, 2016
Set in the heyday of the excessive 80's, advertising guru and Vietnam vet, Lucas Ellington, returns from therapy following the tragic and accidental death of his daughter at a rock concert for Whip Hand. But what his therapist and work boss don't know is that Lucas is far from cured and he has plans, big deadly plans for members of Whip Hand, and more specifically, for Gabriel Stannard, frontman.
David Schow writes like a blisteringly snarky version of Ketchum mixed with a liberal dash of Skipp & Spector, but make no mistake, this reviewer loved his storytelling prowess, all his own, and will definitely be reading his backlist.
Highly recommended.
David Schow writes like a blisteringly snarky version of Ketchum mixed with a liberal dash of Skipp & Spector, but make no mistake, this reviewer loved his storytelling prowess, all his own, and will definitely be reading his backlist.
Highly recommended.
December 7, 2008
David Schow was one of the better writers to come out of the 80s horror explosion. This is a really tight book with lots of twists and turns. I really enjoyed it.
June 6, 2018
David J. Schow has a bone to pick.
Looking at the author's note that starts the book ("If you claim this book made you do weird things, you should be locked away where you cannot hurt anyone. Repeat: I made it all up. That's why it's called fiction") as well as the year it was released (1988) and the subject matter (a heavy metal group being stalked by a crazed 'Nam veteran out for vengeance), you'd think he has a bone to pick with the frenzied Moral Majority, the PMRC's release of the "Filthy 15," and other Satanic Panic nonsense. But that's not quite true.
Schow has a bone to pick, and he has a bone to pick with everyone.
Sure, he takes the time to throw some jabs at the religious nutjobs burning metal records for publicity. How can you not? But for a book targeted towards the horror crowd, many of whom likely would have been all over heavy metal during the Satanic Panic, Schow really takes the piss out of rock 'n' roll. Schow rebuffs capturing the "spirit" of metal and opts for the unfortunate truth of heavy metal in Reagan's America - hollow, publicity-fueled, deceptive. The lyrics denounce the Man, but the Man is behind the curtain operating everything. Even the novel's climactic adrenaline-rush of a showdown is, in the mind of the final musician left to fight the killer, nothing more than a publicity stunt.
There are no clear heroes and no clear villains. Destruction and carnage rule this world. When people die, even the good-hearted ones, they die horribly, often reduced to a gory pulp. It's a worldview Cormac McCarthy would wholeheartedly agree with. It's a challenge to stay engaged sometimes because there really is no one to latch onto (no one likable, anyway).
Schow's writing is the greatest strength, sizzling with vivid descriptions, twists and turns, and some surprisingly human touches. Even when things slow down to indulge in lengthy bouts of plot, the strength of the prose keeps things interesting.
It's an entertaining read for a Satanic Panic enthusiast and gorehound like myself, but it's as pleasant to cozy up with as molten iron. In that regard, I must commend Schow on crafting a work that's metal to its core - angry, fast, violent, uninterested in pleasing anyone and all too excited to lob scathing condemnations at anyone and anything, including itself. A fascinating read for its place in history, as well as a great piece of nihilistic splatterpunk entertainment.
Looking at the author's note that starts the book ("If you claim this book made you do weird things, you should be locked away where you cannot hurt anyone. Repeat: I made it all up. That's why it's called fiction") as well as the year it was released (1988) and the subject matter (a heavy metal group being stalked by a crazed 'Nam veteran out for vengeance), you'd think he has a bone to pick with the frenzied Moral Majority, the PMRC's release of the "Filthy 15," and other Satanic Panic nonsense. But that's not quite true.
Schow has a bone to pick, and he has a bone to pick with everyone.
Sure, he takes the time to throw some jabs at the religious nutjobs burning metal records for publicity. How can you not? But for a book targeted towards the horror crowd, many of whom likely would have been all over heavy metal during the Satanic Panic, Schow really takes the piss out of rock 'n' roll. Schow rebuffs capturing the "spirit" of metal and opts for the unfortunate truth of heavy metal in Reagan's America - hollow, publicity-fueled, deceptive. The lyrics denounce the Man, but the Man is behind the curtain operating everything. Even the novel's climactic adrenaline-rush of a showdown is, in the mind of the final musician left to fight the killer, nothing more than a publicity stunt.
There are no clear heroes and no clear villains. Destruction and carnage rule this world. When people die, even the good-hearted ones, they die horribly, often reduced to a gory pulp. It's a worldview Cormac McCarthy would wholeheartedly agree with. It's a challenge to stay engaged sometimes because there really is no one to latch onto (no one likable, anyway).
Schow's writing is the greatest strength, sizzling with vivid descriptions, twists and turns, and some surprisingly human touches. Even when things slow down to indulge in lengthy bouts of plot, the strength of the prose keeps things interesting.
It's an entertaining read for a Satanic Panic enthusiast and gorehound like myself, but it's as pleasant to cozy up with as molten iron. In that regard, I must commend Schow on crafting a work that's metal to its core - angry, fast, violent, uninterested in pleasing anyone and all too excited to lob scathing condemnations at anyone and anything, including itself. A fascinating read for its place in history, as well as a great piece of nihilistic splatterpunk entertainment.
January 7, 2011
This was a pretty great psychological thriller. It suffered a tad from 'first-novel-itus', but even with its flaws, its a spectacular first novel. Its very, very 80s, as it is about heavy metal and was published in 1987. Some of the stuff that seems a tad too far-fetched in it (Gabriel Stannard's actions in the second half of the book) may appear that way because I was reading it through 2011 eyes. In the 80s, since nothing like this had ever happened, who knows? The way metal musicians presented themselves at the time made people think that they really, truly were renegade maniacs. The main character, Lucas Ellington, is one of the most incredible psychological portraits I've read, and the way he evolves and the story unfolds is very impressive. I'm definitely interested in reading more Schow, this is the first book I've read by him.
June 28, 2018
Typical 80's writing that was popular back then, all guns and muscles with a pinch of rock music.
After lots of heavy reading this was a beautiful piece of mindless writing, the popcorn movie in book form. Don't take it too seriously, it's Arnie type gun fun.
ENJOY!
After lots of heavy reading this was a beautiful piece of mindless writing, the popcorn movie in book form. Don't take it too seriously, it's Arnie type gun fun.
ENJOY!
December 31, 2015
First saw this book on the shelves as a rock-obsessed teenager. At that age, my limited disposable income went toward musical gear and cassette tapes, so I didn't buy it then. I read the first chapter in the store, though, and it has haunted me ever since. Came across the electronic version and loved it. I wouldn't describe it as a timeless tale, but more a time capsule from when horror and heavy metal had given way to camp. Still, love the earnest references to Betamax, Creem magazine and historic Denver locations such as Stapleton airport and the Currigan Exhibition Hall. Also charmed by the legitimate plot device in which you could buy a plane ticket with cash, no ID and a fake name. Good times. That's a relic from an era as lost as a fossilized laser disc. An era I enjoyed revisiting in The Kill Riff.
March 26, 2021
This book, to me, was like a very long and over done KAZOO SOLO. At over 400 pages, this was to long winded and talked in circles. Countless name dropping of musicians. Mental illness talked up to death. Undesirable characters that I couldn't give a damn about after page 199. This would of been a three star book if it was whittled down to around 130 pages and was just your standard by-the-numbers genre book, but it's reach exceeds it's grasp by miles.
May 15, 2012
I thought The book was good, It has a lot of stuff involing the 80's. It has some slow momment's at the start, and there is alot of of over-powered dialougue at the first of the book it felt like to me it was crammed in, and Mr. Schow was saying "Ok, here we go, I am going to stuff as much as I can between two people in the first scene so you will know that I am a for real writer." Other then that it is a good book, has a great plot twist halfway through, For a first novel it is not bad at all, I just wish the first of the book was a little bit easier to read in the first scene, As soon as I opend the cover, I Thought "This is going to lose my intrest fast." But if you can get through the first part, it does get better.
May 5, 2021
80s heavy metal and a father hell bent on revenge. Schow’s story felt like one of them over top 80s action thriller flicks that are a guilty pleasure. Really enjoyed this one.
May 10, 2024
This vintage 1980s horror book is more of a thriller, though the violence is horrific. A man's daughter was crushed to death at a metal band's concert and his wife killed herself.
Though Lucas is a killer we feel for him and the story gets more and more complicated. There is a moment that nonchalantly turns the story into something else. I had to read the sentence twice, and it became a psychological nightmare. I adored the book even though it's not the best writing it nails all the feels. Brutal.
Though Lucas is a killer we feel for him and the story gets more and more complicated. There is a moment that nonchalantly turns the story into something else. I had to read the sentence twice, and it became a psychological nightmare. I adored the book even though it's not the best writing it nails all the feels. Brutal.
August 19, 2025
I read this book a long time ago, as a metalhead in the 1980s who was seeing Ozzy concerts at the time I was reading this. Author Schow shows clear contempt for the metal scene he writes about, turning every artist into a cynical caricature. More so, he shows contempt for women, and ultimately, contempt for readers.
I'm aware many readers enjoy this style of nihilistic writing, but I felt like I was reading the rambling fantasies of a misanthrope, and never picked up a Schow book again.
I'm aware many readers enjoy this style of nihilistic writing, but I felt like I was reading the rambling fantasies of a misanthrope, and never picked up a Schow book again.
August 23, 2023
Really great 2/3rds ruined by the last 1/3rd.
The incest subplot felt forced and shoehorned in as a way to further explain Lucas’ mania.
The final showdown w/Gabriel also felt oddly set up. How would Lucas have known that Gabriel was going to show up?
Decent prose, unfortunate wrap-up. Could have used a better editor to tighten things up and shore up some of the plot points.
The incest subplot felt forced and shoehorned in as a way to further explain Lucas’ mania.
The final showdown w/Gabriel also felt oddly set up. How would Lucas have known that Gabriel was going to show up?
Decent prose, unfortunate wrap-up. Could have used a better editor to tighten things up and shore up some of the plot points.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2025
I grabbed this as a summer read (based mostly on the cover art), expecting something supernatural but was pleasantly surprised to find a fairly straightforward revenge tale. It (rocks and) rolls along quickly enough, and there's plenty of carnage (not nearly as splattery as some reviews claim though), and it's all very 1988, but it does occasionally stumble on some of the characterizations. For example, the business partner of our protagonist is particularly insufferable (which is fine) and overwritten (which is less fine), and a lot of pages are spent listening to him pontificate. I get that he's supposed to be a bit of a bore, but as it turns out, he's one of the only sane people in this thing, so we're cornered at the party with him for very long stretches. Also some doubling of scenes tripped me up, dinner conversations that seemed to start over or reset to basically make the same points all over again. But it starts with a bang, and as far as the writing, paragraphs and pages on their own can be pretty great, even as the characters seem to always... do the wrong thing? By that I mean sometimes they do the right thing, or the really wrong thing, but it's not as satisfying as it should be. I don't know exactly what I mean, but it's like the author doesn't have faith the reader will follow him wherever he goes, so he kinda cartoons people up, suddenly transforming them into leering maniacs to justify stuff he already sold us. Okay, let me stop beating around the boosh. So here you have a plot about a guy avenging the death of his daughter who got trampled at a concert, and he's killing a band with the unlikely but hilarious name of "Whip Hand" one by one (so far so good!), but then 2/3rds of the way through the author seems to decide nobody would *reasonably* do such a thing, and an unwanted twist alters the main character accordingly. I started talking to the book at this point, asking it "Who are you even for, bro? Don't you trust me?" But hey, I did very much enjoy how the last remaining band member went on the offensive. That was lots of fun (as well as a too brief copycat killer subplot), and luckily this showdown kicks things into overdrive and takes up most of the climax and you end on a high note. A high note! That's totally a music thing, right? Bam, we did it, America.
August 18, 2020
I'm not sure why but I was a little hesitant to start this novel. Maybe it was because it appears to be a heavy metal, slasher novel. Nothing wrong with that but I wanted more. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. Sure, it involves a heavy metal band, but it is really a psychological analysis of a shattered parent.
Lucas Ellington's daughter is killed during a riot at a concert for the band Whip Hand. After a year long stint at a mental institution, he is now out and apparently normal.
I won't spoil anything for you but the story that unfolds is intense, passionate and surprising. It does not play out like you expect. Each character is vivid and comes alive in almost no time. The only negative that I have is that many scenes are told as memories, not quite a flashback but similar in nature. For example, it will be evening and one of the characters will remember things that happened in the morning and that is how we the readers find out about it. I don't mind it being done but some times it got confusing as to when we were: are we reading about the book's present or is the character really doing something else and just remembering the past? But this is part of Schow's style. Either way the story is still an extremely solid and enjoyable book.
Lucas Ellington's daughter is killed during a riot at a concert for the band Whip Hand. After a year long stint at a mental institution, he is now out and apparently normal.
I won't spoil anything for you but the story that unfolds is intense, passionate and surprising. It does not play out like you expect. Each character is vivid and comes alive in almost no time. The only negative that I have is that many scenes are told as memories, not quite a flashback but similar in nature. For example, it will be evening and one of the characters will remember things that happened in the morning and that is how we the readers find out about it. I don't mind it being done but some times it got confusing as to when we were: are we reading about the book's present or is the character really doing something else and just remembering the past? But this is part of Schow's style. Either way the story is still an extremely solid and enjoyable book.
April 18, 2024
A disappointing mishmash of 'Old White Man Yells at Cloud' and 'revenge'.
For a while it is entertaining but extremely of its time. Offering a reflection of an older generation whose greatest fear was 'having a happy 9 to 5 life whilst owning a home' as that would make them 'complacent'. This reminded me A LOT of Stephen King's Roadwork where it is mainly long diatribes on the state of the world by someone who is clearly lacking in the empathy department.
For a while it seems to be a book that is JUST that, but the last act twist is so off the wall bonkers that it makes the first part of the book seem EVEN MORE POINTLESS.
Be prepared for pages upon pages of gun calibers. With ounces of casual homophobia, racism, sexism, and most of the other isms. A book about the emptiness of the music industry that is as empty as that which it purports to be against.
Fun for the few bits of madcap violence and a character named 'Cannibal Rex'.
For a while it is entertaining but extremely of its time. Offering a reflection of an older generation whose greatest fear was 'having a happy 9 to 5 life whilst owning a home' as that would make them 'complacent'. This reminded me A LOT of Stephen King's Roadwork where it is mainly long diatribes on the state of the world by someone who is clearly lacking in the empathy department.
For a while it seems to be a book that is JUST that, but the last act twist is so off the wall bonkers that it makes the first part of the book seem EVEN MORE POINTLESS.
Be prepared for pages upon pages of gun calibers. With ounces of casual homophobia, racism, sexism, and most of the other isms. A book about the emptiness of the music industry that is as empty as that which it purports to be against.
Fun for the few bits of madcap violence and a character named 'Cannibal Rex'.
November 5, 2020
Great idea not fully realized
This no vCard elements is a dark, metal riff on / The Phantom of the Opera. Instead of vCard a dis figured knights musical genius terrorizing the Paris Opera House, we have an unbalanced Vietnam Bengali n g a bloody revenge on the members of a metal band which performed at a concert at which his daughter was trampled in a riot. I enjoyed that storey very much, but that clever, clean, classicrevenge tragedy plot is quickly diluted by an over abundance of characters who m I found it hard to keep straight , odd psychological musings on the nature of psychopathy, a confusing and c excessively Byzantine backstory, a mhm d an extended shooters climax that, for me, conjured up the term "gun porn." It's certainlya good book, just yt? Not the author's best.
This no vCard elements is a dark, metal riff on / The Phantom of the Opera. Instead of vCard a dis figured knights musical genius terrorizing the Paris Opera House, we have an unbalanced Vietnam Bengali n g a bloody revenge on the members of a metal band which performed at a concert at which his daughter was trampled in a riot. I enjoyed that storey very much, but that clever, clean, classicrevenge tragedy plot is quickly diluted by an over abundance of characters who m I found it hard to keep straight , odd psychological musings on the nature of psychopathy, a confusing and c excessively Byzantine backstory, a mhm d an extended shooters climax that, for me, conjured up the term "gun porn." It's certainlya good book, just yt? Not the author's best.
April 28, 2023
Man, “The Kill Riff” was such a mixed bag. I REALLY wanted to like this book because of my metal head nature and rarely does “metal horror” do what it ought for me, but I can definitely tell this is Schow’s first ever attempt at a novel. For one thing, this goddamn doorstopper DID NOT need to be 400 pages long. Really weird intra-chapter head hopping. Cringe worthy bimbofication of the female characters (I know that’s just an 80s schlock horror thing so I tried to look past it). There were some effective passages, and for all his flaws I did care about Lucas in some ways. There are some neat bits of prose here and there that got bogged down by clunky exposition and, for a freakin TOR book, the amount of typos and formatting errors was shocking. Sigh. Whatever. Still a fun read, it just needs to be cleaned up and trimmed down. 2.5 bloody Marshall Amplifiers out of 5.
August 18, 2022
Lucas Ellington's sixteen year old daughter was trampled to death at a rock concert four years earlier. Every night since her death, he has had recurring dreams, where he sees his daughter's death followed by the fantasy of killing the members of the band, Whip Hand. After a year in a psychiatric institution, his doctor feels that Lucas is able to resume his normal life, as he is no longer suicidal and traumatized by the death of his daughter and the earlier suicide of his ex-wife. In reality, he was never suicidal, the past year had been part of the plan to redirect suspicion away from him, as he intends to murder each member of Whip Hand.
An intense novel, with graphic descriptions of pain, blood and violence combined with an insight into the cunning mind of an intellectual hunter.
An intense novel, with graphic descriptions of pain, blood and violence combined with an insight into the cunning mind of an intellectual hunter.
February 19, 2024
Splatterpunk is not really my kind of thing, and I'm not the biggest fan of this book, but I wouldn't call it senseless violence and gore. It's used in a sense it does drive the story, but sometimes I feel it's trying to make extreme violence "cool", which I hope we can all agree it isn't. I just don't find it worth reading, but I guess if you like this kind of stuff, it has something going for it, but I prolly won't read it again. Just overall a gross but readable story, guess that sorta is Chainsaw Massacre III... oh wait the guy actually wrote that, yea makes sense.
May 6, 2022
I wanted to like this so bad because I like the author and loved the concept, but it honestly seems like the lesser The Crow. I thought there would be more involved with the band, but the revenge aspect felt so secondary to everything else going on. And it feels bad to say, but I just cannot get into the dad vibes... too much dad happening here.
June 17, 2018
It's very telling that I quickly got bored of the main rockstars-getting-murdered plot and wanted to know more about the plot-twist when such a thing normally squicks the hell out of me. le zzz
April 30, 2025
The Kill Riff (1988) by David J. Schow is not about evil rock bands dragging their fans to doom. Initially, it SEEMS to be about a successful public relations executive who goes on a assassination campaign against members of rock band Whip Hand.
August 18, 2025
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【性感空姐】【淫蕩小護士]【麻辣教師】【童顏巨乳】
【混血美女】【甜美主播】【學生妹】【美女模特】
【傳播辣妹】【車展辣妹】【酒促小姐】【幼教老師】
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May 24, 2018
This is an overwritten mess. And it is not horror.
July 30, 2020
A dark psychological revenge story with a fantastic twist
Well narrated and a throwback to 80s hair metal highly recommended
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review
Well narrated and a throwback to 80s hair metal highly recommended
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews