Night Hunter
Author Michael Reaves died at age 72 on March 20, 2023. His novel Night Hunter was published by Tor in 1995. Set in 1990s Los Angeles, the book takes the reader on a tour of the city’s seedier side. There are echoes of film noir but instead of perpetual rain, Santa Ana winds and smog punctuate the mood. Decay and decadence permeate a narrative hellbent on painting the town a garish red. A color which bleeds through any attempt at veneer. Police detective Jake Hull’s personal woes mirror the city’s decline. An ulcer is eating away at his gut, what he sees on the streets makes him teeter on the brink of a meltdown, and his soul is grappling with personal and professional guilt. Liquor helps. And on his beat, a flash of his badge garners him complimentary fellatio from the local prostitutes. In an atmosphere where murder is commonplace, one makes sensational headlines: a street youth is staked through the sternum, a clove of garlic found in his mouth. The press goes wild with Van Helsing references. Jake senses that it won’t be the only slaying featuring this modus operandi. A serial killer is at large in a city full of weirdos as Halloween approaches. Jake is on the case to redeem his plummeting reputation and to fulfill his own barely contained bloodlust.
Is this a book about vampires? Not in the supernatural meaning of the word. It does, however, feature hematophagy. Plus, there are supernatural elements sans Dracula-type blood suckers. The ash wood stakes used in the murders are employed for a different occult purpose. There is a lurid grotesqueness to the staking process that is thus described: “It was like trying to spear a slab of raw beef. The sound was different this time; a hollower tone as the vibrations of impact echoed through the body. The point tore through the pericardial sac and plunged into the thick muscle fiber of the left ventricle. The victim, fully awake now, convulsed in agony, a bubbling scream tearing from his throat. Shock locked the muscles in tetanic spasm. There was no time for the brain to flood with endorphins to mask the pain; it filled every cell, raced like wildfire throughout the nervous system like the mother of all heart attacks.”
Hunting down the killer gives Jake a purpose. Middle aged and at a crossroads, his visage betrays the wear-and-tear: “The man’s face had the lived-in, rundown look of a projects tenement.” In addition to Jake, there are a handful of characters who project depth. One of the more memorable is Tace Daggett, a stand-up comedian who is hitting her stride. She’s smart, sassy, and sexy. Another who stands out is Franklin Conner, a past his prime horror movie actor. Conner sees parallels between the murders and one of his films, which lures him into the investigation. There is a multitude of less well delineated peripheral characters, such as a de rigueur Satanist who goes by the moniker of Anton Magus, who serve their purpose in forwarding the plot. The book’s author also wrote screenplays and his work in that medium is evident in some of the novel’s more paint-by-the-numbers characters, and the overall brisk pacing. Reaves quite likely found it impossible to resist setting a frenetic confrontation scene at The Hollywood Sign. Or caving-in to the inevitability of staging a knockdown drag-out fight at a once grand movie palace that has succumbed to the ravages of time: “This place felt rife with the discontented spirits of the city’s past…it seemed to embody everything that was wrong now with Hollywood, the one-time glamor and sheen that had faded and shredded away to reveal the nacreous rotting core.”
Peppered with street names that enhance verisimilitude, Night Hunter is an engaging horror novel with a film noir vibe. Michael Reaves drives the reader “down these mean streets” that Raymond Chandler invoked but takes a detour from the route which renders a few quirky surprises. The book embraces the cynical insights of film noir and infuses them with outrageous gallows’ humor.
May its author be remembered.
