Kaleidoscope Eyes - A Novel of Erotic Horror - Softcover

Watkins, Graham

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0881849294 ISBN 13: 9780881849295

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1993

Synopsis

While Durham, North Carolina, epidemiologist Sam Leo uncovers a pattern of unsolved crimes that are apparently rape-murders, his friend, pathologist Stephanie Dixon, discovers a kaleidoscope with erotically magical powers

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Reviews

Readers must prepare to be disturbed--and exasperated--by this X-rated, sinister and, above all, sado-masochistic tale. Sam Leo, a married epidemiologist, falls for a Mexican temptress named Selinde who has a proclivity for painful (though apparently compelling) sexual acts with jalapeno peppers. Unbeknownst to Sam, Selinde may be a supernatural being from Aztec folklore who demands human sacrifice; she's connected to an epidemic of rape-murders in which unresistant victims are stabbed repeatedly by their assailants. When Sam, his wife and two other couples take a vacation together at an isolated North Carolina beach house, it's clear that one or more of them will wind up on the sacrificial altar. Transfixed by a magical kaleidoscope that creates erotic mandalas, the group develops a taste for S & M. Watkins ( Dark Winds ) uses increasingly violent orgies to build suspense, culminating in a horrendous scene that finds several buck-naked survivors handling a razor-edged ritual knife. This gruesome tale may hold a certain fascination, but repetition makes the highly explicit sex scenes eventually seem ridiculous--a case of overkill, as it were.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sadomasochistic shivers about an incarnate Aztec goddess and the spell she casts over six North Carolina yuppies. Paperback horror novelist Watkins writes well in his first hardcover, but you practically have to sponge away the blood to make out the words. Watkins is especially good at setting the story's theme--that there can be a potent link between pain and erotic pleasure. Here, the pleasure is provided for Sam Leo, an epidemiologist, by the exotic Selinde Lorona, a remarkably beautiful and self-possessed young woman who gives him her phone number when they first meet, by chance--and who is, as we know from a prologue set in 1518, the fleshy form of the Aztec goddess Cihuacoatl, the ``Snake Woman.'' Though Sam--hitherto faithful to his wife, Cheryl--is reluctant to call, his lust bests him and he meets Selinde at a restaurant where, in a scene of genuine sensual power, she introduces him to the seductive agony of hot chili peppers--a lesson intensified the next day as she bathes his body in burning pepper oil, which he loves. Meanwhile, Cheryl's pal Stephanie Dixon buys a mysterious kaleidoscope whose violent, pre-Colombian images enchant her and her husband, Art, into ever-rougher sex; and, at the same time, Sam becomes aware of a rash of stabbing-murders in which the victims submitted without a struggle--with the path of the killings leading to the coastal town where Sam, Cheryl, Stephanie, Art, and a third couple go for their annual vacation. There, in an isolated beachhouse, the kaleidoscope lures the couples into a crescendo of extravagant--and graphical detailed--acts of group sex, flagellation, piercing, and finally, stabbings...with Selinde hovering in the background, smiling her killer Mona Lisa smile. Worth a try, though it might be wise to call it quits after the hot chili peppers. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Married epidemiologist Sam Leo is drawn into a highly charged affair with a mysterious young woman he meets at the site of a traffic fatality. Sam's nasty coworker, a computer hacker, discovers the affair and blackmails Sam into helping him predict the next in a series of sex murders as part of a computer game he has created. A pathologist-friend investigating one of the murders impulsively buys an expensive kaleidoscope, which causes a sudden intensity in the stagnating physical relationship with her husband. Watkins ( The Fire Within , Berkley, 1991) ties together these seemingly disparate events into a thrilling erotic novel that explores the hidden savagery in six "normal" people and the close bond between pain and ecstasy, love and death. This fascinating, frightening, and very readable account of a descent into an erotic hell portrays scenes of explicit sex and violence that, though never gratuitous, might offend squeamish readers. It merits a place in genre and contemporary fiction collections.
- Eric W. Johnson, Teikyo Post Univ. Lib., Waterbury, Ct.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881849294
• ISBN 13: 9780881849295
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 382