Gecko

Gecko is a great story. Without a doubt the first half is a 5 star read. The second half is less suspenseful, and I would give 4 stars for an average of 4 and a half. Jim Monday is a Vietnam vet who is used to killing. However, after the death of his best friend in what are mysterious circumstances, Jim begins to notice little green geckos everywhere. Jim knows there is some connection between these geckos and the strange German man who has stolen his wife from him. To compound the problem, Jim either has the conscious of a young Australian woman trapped in his brain, which he has a week to save before the murder of her physical body, or he is merely going insane. It is hard to tell which would be preferable. The tension builds until Jim discovers that some of the geckos are not so little - and then the book gets really gory. Another great read from Bootleg Press. Buy this book for a thrill. Relic113

Horror, just the way I like it. This was the first of Jack Priest's books I have read and I was not disappointed. I won't go into a narrative of what the book is about, as several others have already done that much better than I. But let me say the creature of the title is a frightening, relentless monster that leaves a very bloody, and uncompromising trail of bodies as it is unleashed upon the unsuspecting characters, who find themselves in a maelstrom of intense terror. There is one particular element to this book which struck me as one of the most original ideas I have ever seen (or read). I won't spoil it for you except to say it concerns the "connection" between the main character Jim Monday and Donna. Jack Priest is a fresh and imaginative voice in the world of horror literature and I will be reading his books for many years to come. I hope you will too.

Jim Monday and his attorney are on their way to meet with Jim's wife, her lover and their attorneys to decide what Jim's about to be ex, Julia, will get in the divorce settlement when a voice goes off in Monday's head telling him to, "Jump back!" Jim obeys as a speeding car strikes and kills his lawyer. The voice belongs to a young woman being held captive in New Zealand. Priest does an excellent job in getting you to suspend your disbelief, at least it was pretty easy for me to accept that someone under duress could shut down and throw their thoughts halfway around the world, at least the way Priest sets it up. Monday knows he has to rescue the woman, but first he has to rescue his wife from her fiance, who turns out to be as rotten as they come. To make matters worse for Monday, he manages to get arrested, for assaulting said fiance, then he kills a couple of the fiance's hencemen in a daylight jailbreak, so now he's wanted for murder. But wait, Monday's got even more problems. It seems that that very same fiance controls a kind of shape changing giant gecko thingy straight out of Maori folklore. And that brings us full circle, back to New Zealand and the voice in Monday's head that stays with him through this fantastic read. As I've come to expect by reading this fine young writer, the characters in this story were as believable to me as my next door neighbor, who I don't like very much by the way, because he plays his music all night long. Rock and Roll would be all right, but there is nothing worse than Rap rapping through your walls when you can't make out the words. Whoops, sorry for the digression, but Priest's characters really are a real as that rapper which is just one of the reasons I really, really liked this book. The others are the great story and the greater than great Gecko bad guy thingy monster.

He's big, he's green, he's got horrendous breath and he's a total killer. He is, of course, the Gecko of the title. He's sort of a familiar to an evil, grazed, doctor, pornographer. The kind of guy you don't want to meet in a dark alley, especially if he's got his gecko pal along for the ride. This story opens with our hero, Jim Monday and his best friend, attorney David Askew crossing the street. Monday hears a voice in his head, telling him to "Jump back." He does, David does not and is struck by hired killers in their stolen car. The killers work for Doctor Bernd Kohler, who has swept Monday's wife off her feet, so he's got half Jim's fortune, however he wants it all, hence the killers. Back to the voice in Jim's head. It belongs to a woman named Donna, who is imprisoned in New Zealand, half a world away. Turns out her mind has flown the coup (it's an ancient Maori thing) and settled itself inside Monday. So now Jim's got a stranger living in his head. This makes for some very interesting reading, exciting too. The evil doc takes Monday's wife up to his castle type hideaway in Northern California, Monday follows, getting constant advice from Donna in his head, and the Gecko is hot on Monday's tail. So are the cops, because Monday had a tussle with the killers and left them dead. Unfortunately he killed them in the police station and now the cops think he's the killer. Fiftyish Jim Monday is a heck of a character. He's dogged and determined, but he's afraid to fly. He thinks like a young guy, but reacts like an old guy. He fights like the devil to save his wife, though she clearly is through with him. And then there is the matter of the girl in his head (she's like nineteen or twenty). There's a clock ticking on her and so he's gotta wrestle with that fear of flying if he wants to save her. Does he? Read the book and find out. Jeez, I used to say that when I gave book reports in elementary school, when I was a little girl. Five stars from Katie for this one. Reviewed submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Southern Californian real estate developer Jim Monday is a man with a woman in his head and a monster on his trail in this horror thriller that had me reading the night away. Young Donna Tuhiwai, held captive in New Zealand, leaves her body and her mind settles half a world away in Monday's head. She sees a speeding car, shouts "Jump Back." Monday hears the words in his mind, jumps back and watches in horror as his best friend is killed by a speeding Buick.Later she makes herself known to Monday, explains to him she is trapped in his body, tells him that she has been abducted and she needs him to go to her rescue. But Monday has problems of his own. His wife has been seduced by the man who Monday believes killed his friend and he believes she too, may be being held against her will. He is determined to rescue her, then he'll tend to Donna's rescue. However there is an ancient horror in the form of a Gecko beast, a mythical monster from Maori folklore, that wants to keep jim from saving his wife and it's just as determined as Jim and it's big, mean and almost impossible to kill.I must say I really liked this book and like I did with RAGGED MAN and NIGHT WITCH, Mr. Priest's other two horror stories, I went right to Google as soon as I finished and did a search for the Gecko or the ngarara beast that the author has chasing around after the Jim Monday in this, his second horror story. As I mentioned elsewhere, I like my monsters, vampires, werewolves and such, to be drawn as accurately as possible from the folklore and legends from wench they came. In RAGGED MAN Mr. Priest used a little too much literary license for my taste. In NIGHT WITCH he was right on. So I was curious to see how he fared here.I got a lot of hits when I typed in the words Maori and Gecko, but they were mostly tattoo sites and the like. I tried ngarara, got a zillion hits that were no help other that I figured out that ngarara can mean either gecko, monster or maybe monster gecko, so again I e-mail Mr. Priest and asked him what gives. He got right back to me and told me that the inspiration for the bad gecko beast thing came from a story written by Mohi Ruatapu in 1876. He then directed me to several websites, but unfortunately for me, they were all in Maori, Mr. Priest's little joke on me I think. Anyway, he got me and I can only assume that he's telling the truth, so no stars taken away for cheating on the folklore for GECKO. He gets all five for this one.Reviewed by Stephanie Sane