Death's Door: Amazon.ca: Michael Slade: Books

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Product Description

Amazon.ca

The franchise is in good hands. That's evident from Death's Door, another riveting thriller from Michael Slade, the pen name used by a revolving cast of writers. Here, it comprises the father/daughter team of Jay and Rebecca Clarke. Not a typical literary combination, but a winning one. In Death's Door the Slade team again focuses on Vancouver's Special X squad, headed by Chief Superintendent Robert DeClercq and colleague Zinc Chandler. Their adversaries are a motley crew that includes renegade plastic surgeons Dr. David Denning and Ryland Fletcher, porn king Wolfe Capp, the aptly named Undertaker, and depraved mastermind Mephisto. Potential victims include forensic pathologist Gill Macbeth, whose desire for cosmetic surgery will prove fatal unless Special X wins a desperate race against time.

The adrenalized action and clever plot twists rapidly ensnare the reader, who will also be entertained by detours into topics as diverse as the narcissistic quest for longevity, the obsessions of Alfred Hitchcock, and the myths surrounding mummies. The titles of other books in the popular series--Hangman, Primal Scream, Ghoul, and Cutthroat--indicate the graphic nature of Slade's forays into the twisted psyches of his villains. And some scenes in Death's Door may be too grisly for the faint-hearted reader to bear, though the lurid cover art should be sufficient warning. Fans of the franchise, however, will be left happily sated. --Kerry Doole --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Horror fans who don't mind prose riddled with puns, old movie references and plot-stopping lectures on everything from ancient Egyptian spiritual beliefs to geographic profiling will welcome the pseudonymous Michael Slade's Death's Door, an over-the-top near-parody of psychothrillers, in which RCMP Chief Superintendent Robert DeClercq gets on the trail of a missing mummy and a multitude of mayhem-making murderers. "Slade" is now the father-daughter team of Jay and Rebecca Clarke.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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First Sentence
Undertakers they could have been, the two men who gingerly maneuvered the casket out the front door of the stately manor overlooking the Thames River from Richmond Hill. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

3.0 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars That does it: another writer falling back on previous fame, Mar 15 2004

By	Mark Shanks (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Deaths Door (Paperback)

Once upon a time, "Michael Slade" wrote original, interesting stories with well-nuanced characters in a sub-genre of "splatterpunk". But that was 20 years ago, and the original authors behind the Slade name (John Banks, Jay Clarke, Lee Clarke, Richard Covell) have dispersed, leaving the father-daughter team of Jay and Rebecca Clarke to trade in on the earlier "glories", and all we get are the now-standard "Special X" characters and a franchise name. Pity. OK, I'll concede that there is a veneer of intelligence usually lacking in graphic (as in "gore-riddled") crime fiction, but just sticking a bibliography at the end of every book doesn't necessarily make that book intelligent in and of itself. "Death's Door" is the most egregrious example of laurel-resting I've come across in a looooong time, worse even than Stephen King's last two or three thousand books. Not only are the major characters recycled, including the villian ("Mephisto", oh, dear.....), they are now recycled cardboard. Zinc Chandler gets to bang his head (again - poor man would be in an institution by now), DeClerq gets to act the swell and brood (alternately), "Ghost Keeper" is even more of a stereotype than his last appearance, as is Ed "Mad Dog" Rabidowski (full-blown psychotic now), and the rest of the crew, well, what did you expect?

I really hate it when an author can't break new ground and instead feels entitled to dish out familiar material to an apparently easily-satisfied fan-base. Believe me, if this was "Michael Slade's" *first* novel, no publisher would touch it.

Do yourself a favor: if you've already read the first four Slade books ("Headhunter" through "Cutthroat"), you've read all that's *worth* reading. You can stop now and pick up something else, something different, original, and not continue to encourage sloppy, condescending, franchise gunk.

Slade, if you come up with something OFF of the "Special X" gravy train you've been riding a little *too* long, I'll be delighted to check it out. Otherwise: you've sold me your last book.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Good First Chapter...Not Much Else, Aug 19 2003

By	Mike Kilianski (William Paterson University, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deaths Door (Paperback)

I've rarely ever been so disappointed by novel I purchased as I was by Michael Slade's (Father and Daughter team) Death's Door.

Before leaving the book store I had read the first chapter of the novel and was intrigued by the theft of the Mummy. And I when I read the back of the book I thought it held the possibility of maybe being a real page turner. However, as I've already said I was gravely disappointed by it.

This book seemed to be more like a cheesey action film in print, with parts of a term paper on Egyptology thrown in for good measure inbetween. True, I have never read any other Slade works, and I know that Death's door is just a part in a series of novels dealing with the same character(s), so maybe I am lacking some necessary insight, but this is definitely a novel that sadly disappointed me.

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1.0 out of 5 stars The same, tired old formula, Jul 23 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Deaths Door (Paperback)

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" right? Wrong. In Slade's case, the same old formula needs not just fixing, it needs a total revamp. Here's the same template the authors have used since the first book Headhunter - a child gets sexually warped during his or her formative years (usually an incident involving a parent), the pyschosis gets surpressed for years until for some unknown reason it gets triggered when the child becomes an adult, that person then becomes the prime killer or hooks up with some madman bent on an insane scheme that if successful, will garner immeasurable riches. Interspersed inside this template are boring history lessons that some readers might find interesting, but are usually forgotten once the lesson is over. Sounds familiar right? The same framework was used in Headhunter, Ghoul, Cutthroat and now Death's Door and loosely fits the others. Yes I admit I've read all the books but the last two (Hangman and Death's Door) were read more out of hope that the authors might come up with something new than with any real relish for the tales concerned. Like another reviewer here, I too found myself skimming the pages out of sheer frustration. And perhaps the most damning indictment was that I've stopped reading it altogether for three weeks because I've completely lost interest (I'm 40 pages from the end but don't really care how it ends).If the authors don't revamp their storytelling, I won't be the only one losing interest.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Truly Awful
From the constant interruption of clumsy and intrusive exposition, commentary, lectures, and ramblings that bring the pacing of this story to a crawl, to the large and forgettable... Read more

Published on Jul 21 2003 by Gary Riley

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
This was the first book I read by Slade, and I was surprised how amatuerish it was, being their tenth book. Read more

Published on Jun 18 2003 by S. Padalino

2.0 out of 5 stars miserably bruised book
What a miserably bruised book. In place of intelligence we get hijacked history, forensic-behavioral extracts, cartoon character development and the adolescent clutter of the... Read more

Published on April 29 2003 by tomcheese

1.0 out of 5 stars Enough already!!!
This was the first Michael Slade book I read and it will definitely be my last. I bought this book because I was intrigued by the promise of blood, gore and suspense. Read more

Published on April 15 2003 by Joan Falcon