I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book before I started it. Maybe I had an idea of the story at one point but realistically, it's a Jack Ketchum novel. That's all I need to know. This one was more rooted in the real world than some of his others but that's probably why I keep thinking about it again and again, days after I finished it.

The story is about Lydia and Arthur. We start with each when they are a child, gaining insight into each of their personalities. Then we continue and see them become a couple and get married. All pretty normal, until that point where it is not.

Now for the theme and it's impact on me. I suppose the theme is love. The shape that it takes. What people will do for it. How much or how little someone let's it into their life. And how best to analyze that but by contrasting it with pain and the loss of power. Which when you think about it is what makes up love. Giving someone else control of your heart and feelings. Trusting them until there is pain and that pain is too much; then trying to take back that control. All of those elements have been woven into this story. The result is a book that leaves a huge impact on the emotional side. I was able to predict / conclude why with some of the events in the story but that has more to do with the tragedies of the world today. It did not take away from the emotional pain. ( )

Stranglehold is a gritty, visceral novel that is totally Jack Ketchum. Ketchum pulls no punches in his fiction. His writing is not for the feint of heart, and this novel certainly fits that bill. In this novel Lydia McCloud marries Arthur Danse, thinking he is the man of her dreams. Things are good with them for a time, and they have a child. But Arthur is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. As time goes by, she starts to see just what kind of monster he is when she suspects that he is molesting their son.

One of the really hard things to get right in fiction is the villain. It’s rare to find a good villain, and most of them are these one dimensional cartoon characters that don’t resemble real people. But Ketchum succeeds with Arthur Danse, who is one of the most utterly vile and despicable characters I have ever encountered in a novel, yet at the same time he’s well-developed and multi-dimensional. In Ketchum’s fiction, the humans are the monsters, and you don’t get more monstrous than Danse. I found myself rooting for his demise and hoping that it would come in a terrible way. To get the reader to care about a character, whether positively or negatively, is a job well done by the author, and I salute the late, great Jack Ketchum.

Carl Alves – author of The Invocation ( )

Just terrific! Could not put the book down. The storyline is spellbinding... ( )

http://blog.tharos-online.de/archives/441-Jack-Ketchum-Wahnsinn.html ( )

This special edition is limited to 1,000 signed copies. Copy 300. ( )