The Unnatural

by Alan Nayes

he first victim, brutally assaulted, literally dies of fright in the ER, and Dr. Julie Charmaine must find out why. Psychiatrist, advocate for battered women and noted sleep researcher, Dr. Charmaine has just two clues to the beautiful young woman's death: she reeks of city sewers, and her last word is the Spanish slang for monkey. Meanwhile, Vicki Zambisi, tormented by twin memories of terror and lost love, begins an odyssey of vengeance. But when her nightmares keep her from destroying her betrayer, she turns to Dr. Charmaine. Eager investors have rewarded Dr. Wesley Kovacs lavishly for his groundbreaking cryonics research. Now, publicly supporting a form of immortality, Dr. Kovacs will let nothing stand between him and the Nobel Prize. Certainly not Vicki Zambisi, who could topple all he's worked to build. Or Julie Charmaine, now Vicki's therapist, who sees her dreams as evidence of a nightmarish plot. For in an experiment gone horribly awry, Kovacs himself holds the key to the 'Sewer Stalker,' the bizarre hybrid creature who lusts insatiably for beautiful women . . . and who now pursues both Julie and her patient. A gripping, edge of your seat thriller by the acclaimed author of Gargoyles.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765306131
• ISBN13: 9780765306135
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

real thriller

Nayes has a knack of writing books involving weird human experiments. I guess that stands to reason since he is an MD. Don't know if I'd want him to be my doc, but I certainly enjoy his books. The Unnatural has a similar feel to Relic by Preston and Child. A "monster" emerging from the sewers, ripping people apart, a weird smell, and so on. The identity of the killer is not really kept hidden through the book, so there is no surprise there. Even the nature of the killer is not really hidden, so the "spoiler" on one of the other reviews isn't even that much of a shock. But be forewarned, there are some - yes - stomach turning twists in store for the reader that makes it to the end. Of the two books of Nayes that I have read, Gargoyles and the Unnatural, I think I enjoyed this one the best. The plot is complicated. The science in it is almost far reaching enough to be ridiculous, yet has enough fact in it to be plausible. I can almost see this book becoming a series featuring further adventures of Julie, the main character.

Exciting slasher medical thriller

In Los Angeles, the woman barely survived the assault that apparently relates to sewage based on the gook on her when she suddenly screams in horror and dies in the emergency room. As a counselor for battered women, psychiatrist Dr. Julie Charmaine wants to know what was so terrorizing that the woman relived it in her dreams and dropped dead on the replay. While Julie wonders what happened, Vicki Zambisi, who has had several operations to repair her deformed skull, breaks into a boarded-up hotel to retrieve a memento that might disclose the secret illegal experiments conducted by the highly regarded mad cryogenic research scientist Dr. Wesley Kovacs. She is fortunate to elude the sewage slasher. Vicki meets Julie who has a device that creates visual images of what people are dreaming about that she would like to use on her. Vicki has doubts, but soon other women undergo the horrible assaults in the old abandoned hotel. Could Dr. Kovacs be the killer or is it something sinister beyond what the two women and a LAPD detective can imagine?This is an exciting slasher medical thriller that is fun to read sort of like a Roger Corman movie. The story line combines the serial killer with a science fiction cautionary tale about the boundaries of medicine. Julie is a delightful, brilliant and energetic heroine while much of the rest of the cast either are victims or enable the audience to understand the protagonist better. Alan Nayes provides readers with an enjoyable tale that hooks the reader from the first page and keeps their interest until all the questions are answered.Harriet Klausner