Book Review: Spare Key by R. Frederick Hamilton
Review by Elaine Lamkin
From Australian author, R. Frederick Hamilton, comes one of the most unsettling cautionary horror tales I have read recently. Spare Key is, at its core, a warning that you just never know who your neighbor might be so, FOR GOD’S SAKE, don’t give him or her a spare key to your place (or if you have, change your locks if the neighbor moves). Rachel, who feels cursed as she continuously gets the neighbors from hell at her apartment complex, has hope that her latest neighbor, Ben Fowler, might just be the exception to her “neighbors from hell” existence. Well, in a way, Ben is an exception. But then again, that might be because Ben has quit taking his medication.
Graphic and gruesome, Hamilton’s novel explores voyeurism, sexual predators, child abuse, murder, torture – things I wasn’t expecting in a horror novel from Australia. It’s not that they don’t have horror novels Down Under. It’s just that this one is so lean and mean. Spare Key is actually only 170 pages – there are two short stories, The Filmmakers and Writer’s Block included (nasty little stories they are as well). But Spare Key is the eye-opener. Think if Edward Lee had a child who grew up Down Under and you might get the general idea of just how horrifying this book is – sexually explicit and violent with an ending I really didn’t see coming.
Ben Fowler, our resident psychopath, has a fixation on women who resemble the tormentor of his childhood and youth. And when he finds these women, and has not been taking his medication, his mind takes him to a “Red Room” where he can revel in the horrific acts that he can now perform on his “tormentor”. But that Red Room is not just in Ben’s mind and that is where the horrors truly begin. However, Ben didn’t count on having a neighbor like Rachel. A woman who has “HAD ENOUGH”. I won’t say Spare Key is anything approaching a “fun” read but for fans of extreme horror, this is one to add to your library.
The two additional short stories in the book are equally unpleasant: The Filmmakers, where young teens degenerate into making “snuff-like” home movies with the neighborhood kids as the “stars”, and Writer’s Block, a bizarro story about a man kidnapped by his body-building MOTHER who knows that if she tortures her son enough, he will write the masterpiece she knows he is capable of writing. Annie Wilkes on steroids, anyone?
I hope this isn’t the last we hear of R. Frederick Hamilton as his writing is definitely up to snuff (no pun intended) with any extreme horror writer. Just wish there were more Aussie horror writers. We horror fans have seen the filmic horror from Down Under with Wolf Creek, Rogue and even Picnic at Hanging Rock but something like Spare Key…I am curious what the readership for this book is in Australia. American extreme horror readers will lap this book up.
You have been warned…
Order it on Amazon
Visit R. Frederick Hamilton on Facebook and Myspace!
Popularity: 1% [?]
[ ‹‹ Horror Feature “Midnight Movie” Available on Blu-Ray Cry Wolf (2005) ›› ]
2006 2007 2008 2009 awesome 80s bad movies Best of bloody book review boring brutal campy creepy disturbing Fatally Yours film festival fun ghosts gore haunted horror comedy Horror Literature humorous independent insanity interview low-budget madness monsters murders News psychological release info revenge sequel serial killer short film slasher supernatural unique vampires violent Women in Horror Worst of Zombies