From the publisher:
Kyle didn’t like being told what to do. When his brother demanded that he get himself home right now, no stopping, no passing GO and no collecting two-hundred dollars, the order didn’t sit well with him. So, he stopped at a bar in an unknown town. He met a girl. They drank, left, did drugs together, and when he awoke in the morning, her decapitated head lay in his lap. As he pieces together what happened the night before, a police cruiser rolls in behind him. From that moment, the chase is on. What Kyle doesn’t know is that he isn’t the only killer in town.
John Hunt’s forte is telling horror stories. The current one is certainly right smack dab in the genre. The book opens as Kyle is driving home after serving a sentence in prison for second-degree murder. He is an individual whose background is dark and a personality that is unable to control impulses to lash out violently when angered.
He lives with his brother who takes care of him since their parents are both deceased. His brother had told him in no uncertain terms to drive straight home without stopping for anything. Kyle, though decides that it has been a long time since he has had a beer and stops at a bar. While drinking he picks up a woman and they go out to his car for a bit of sexual activity. In the activity Kyle passes out and when he awakens he sees the woman next to him but with her head away from the rest of the body.
The only thing Kyle can think of is to flee the scene and try to make it back to his brother. And therein begins a story which incorporates a lot of killing including a female police officer and friends of the woman whose head he chopped off. It also utilizes the services of a genuine monster who contributes to the number of bodies stacking up. Many of the murders are described in a lurid highly descriptive manner which might bring on a feeling of repulsiveness on the part of the reader. These killings and the manner some are handled are certainly a part of the miasma hanging over the story.
Horror stories are certainly a part of the literary experience and have been so for many years. For example, the books by Edgar Allan Poe are enjoyed today with some of these incorporating horror. Hunt does them well and I can’t see not reading them along with books with other themes to make for a more complete reading experience.
11/2020 Paul Lane
MURDER RUN by John Hunt. Independently published (September 7, 2020). ISBN: 979-8666485477. 299 pages.
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