I was Afraid to Blink as I Zapped My Eyes Across the Pages

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	• Ragged Man Jack Priest Bootleg Press, 2003 - 340 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I was Afraid to Blink as I Zapped My Eyes Across the Pages

Two Americans, Rick and Ann Gordon, are participating in an off road race rally in Australia, when their car breaks down. While they're trying to figure out what to do, an old Aboriginal couple comes by. But before Rick can ask them for help, they die and their spirits leave their bodies and move in with Rick and Ann. However, the couple don't know this. They also don't know there is an evil spirit who wants to kill the good spirits who have hitched a ride with their bodies. Back in California, Rick and Ann try to resume their lives, but the evil from the Dreamtime follows.

J.P. Donovan is a young boy who lives next door to Rick and Ann with his divorced mother Judy. J.P. and mom are playing on the beach when the evil first strikes. Rick sees it coming toward Judy in the form of an angry homeless man with a big knife. Rick charges in and kills the attacker, but the evil jumps to another body and later kills Ann, then it goes after Rick's friends, before homing in on the boy. Rick has to stop it. Can he?

This is a story about shamans and friendship, death and the supernatural. I loved every page of it. J.P. is a delightful character who triumphs over a lot. The murder of his father, being kidnapped, the death of his pets and one last very bad experience. Rick too, has to overcome much, the loss of his wife, friends, an ancient evil from the Aboriginal Dreamtime and much more in this non-stop action story. Really, the action is fast and furious, I was afraid to blink as I zapped my eyes across the pages, afraid I might miss something.

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Exciting,Scary, Book!

I had previously read two other Jack Priest books,"Night Witch", and
"Gecko".These were both quality books so I decided to read "Ragged Man".
This proved out to be a very good book as well.
The main character in this book is Rick Gordon.He and his wife Ann are participating in a cross country race in Australia.They get off the beaten path and their car breaks down.An old jeep drives up to where they are broke down.Riding in it are an old Aborigine man and woman.Rick takes
the old man's hand and the old man dies.The old woman dies immediately
thereafter,Rick and Ann bury the old couple in the desert.Afterwards they
meet the Ragged Man and his Ghost Dog around a campfire.They are saved by a good guy.They make it home safely.
Once in America their surrounding circle of friends begins dying.Rick's wife Ann also dies.Suspicions that Rick is behind the deaths begins to grow in law enforcement circles.The Ragged Man and Ghost Dog have also
joined Rick in America.Rick is in constant danger from Ragged Man and the Ghost Dog.Eventually Rick learns the ancient Australian legend and he
connects all of the happenings to the deaths of the old couple in the desert.
This is a very entertaining book.Once again Jack Priest has come up with a frightening villain.Read this one.

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Fast-Paced, Spine-Tingling Fun

I really enjoyed this book. It was well plotted, spine-tingling, fast-paced, with interesting characters I believed in with believable back stories and it was a whole lot of fun. I'm not the world's fastest reader, but I finished Ragged Man in two days time. I really liked it and if you're a fan of the horror genre, then I think you will too.

Great!

This is the third Jack Priest novel I have read (the first he had written), and I have to say really well done! The man truly knows his stuff when it comes to building suspense not only through the tried-and-true method of plenty of gore, but also through flavor, development of interesting characters, and some absolutely fascinating subject matter in regards to legends and curses of the Pacific Rim-- something I have seen just about zilch on in popular fiction.

I noticed a while back Jack was making quite a name for himself and I was not disappointed. He's a great writer and a great person.

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Priest's off-beat debut

A few months ago, I read the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, which starts out with a lengthy introduction discussing the new horror novels for the year. It became evident that a more-than-healthy portion of these books involved vampires: male, female, historic, modern-day, romantic, comic, horrific: the variations would differ, but the creature was always the same. In fact, when you look at most horror nowadays, you seem to see a lot of the same villains: vampires, werewolves, serial killers and an occasional zombie, ghost or Satan in the mix. Which makes Jack Priest's novels so refreshing: he gives us new monsters.

Ragged Man is Priest's first novel, and the title character is also the monster, a demonic creature from the Australian outback that follows Rick and Ann Gordon back to their home in California. The Ragged Man is almost unkillable; you can stop his body, but then he will possess another human instead. By chance, this will be Sam Storm, a private eye who already has a grudge against Rick (rooted in Rick's past as a dealer in bootleg music). The natural evil of the demon will combine with Sam's feelings to make Rick's life truly miserable: Sam will go on a killing spree that targets Rick's friends and family, with his wife Ann one of the first victims.

Making matters worse, the Ragged Man has a monstrous pet, a giant dingo-like creature that is almost as hard to stop as the demon itself. As more people die, Rick finds that he will soon be accused of the killings himself, making it harder to protect a good friend's young son who is on Sam's list.

While this is a good book that moves fast and is suspenseful, it does suffer from some of those first novel problems that Priest does iron out in later books. Most significantly, Priest has not yet learned how to write children characters; the kid J.P. is far too intelligent and mature for his age; essentially, he seems more like an adult (compare this with Priest's novel Night Witch, in which children are important characters yet act much more like children.). Also, there are times when Priest is almost trying too hard with his writing, using similes and images that are distracting because they are a little too clever. Yet, these problems are not deal-breakers: overall, Ragged Man is an entertaining book that offers a nice change-of-pace from the standard horror novel.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Rick and Ann Gordon were well off the beaten track, in the middle of the great Australian desert, when an ancient jeep lumber toward them. It pulled alongside and an old Aborigine got out, leaving an old woman in the car. Rick took the man's hand as he slumped down. Dead. The woman smiled, then died too. They buried the old couple, drove back to civilization, then flew home to California, all the while keeping the secret of what had happened out in the desert. Soon after people around Rick start dying. First strangers, then Ann, then friends. And somebody has made it look like Rick is a murderer. To save himself and a child he loves, he has to find the real killer before the police find him, but there is something after Rick. Something connected with the death of two old Aborigines. Something from the Dreamtime. Something bad.

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