Book Review: 'The Vengeance' by Robert C. Sloane
'The Vengeance' (247 pp.) was published by Crown in 1983. This is the sequel to the 1981 horror novel 'A Nice Place to Live.'
[ My review of 'Nice Place' is here.]
Unaware of the trolls, and hoping to put the horrors of what happened in Mill Harbor, Long Island, behind them, Nick, Christine, and their son Joey have started a new life as restauranteurs in the skiing destination of Torchester, Vermont. But through various unpleasantries the trolls discover where their quarry has relocated, and begin a cat-and-mouse game of terrorizing the Martinos before administering a final, brutal death by dismemberment, with a special sauce of rape and mutilation beforehand !
As sequels go, 'The Vengeance' is dire. I had to struggle to finish it.
Author Sloane keeps the trolls off-stage for most of the narrative, preferring to have the Martinos deal with all manner of domestic crises, as well as confronting Kyle Thorne, the chairman of the Mountaincrest condo association, who schemes to allow developer Baxtor Cabot to erect a hotel at the base of the Mad Mountain ski resort. Such a structure might imperil the community's water supply, but the mercenary Thorne has dollar signs in his eyes. Then there's a sub-plot in which Joey gradually is brainwashed into adopting the troll mentality - ?!
Along with a plodding, padded narrative, the reader has to deal with sparkling dialogue passages such as this:
...Christine spoke softly.
"I have good new for you, Daddy, and I have bad news."
"Tell me, my zucchini. I'm all ears."
"How sexually unfortunate for me. However. First the bad news. I can not get Henrietta to go home these afternoons to take care of Joey. We haven't got a sitter, we have a career woman."
"I know, I know. She fired me yesterday and I own the place. I cut the cheesecake too large. The woman is out of control."
More than once while reading 'Vengeance,' I suspected author Sloane was being facetious with this novel.......
The climactic battle with the trolls doesn't come until page 222, and is accompanied by pages of "Bwa-Ha-HAA !" dialogue, as the trolls sit and detail the horrors they will visit on the apprehensive Martinos.
