Richard Laymon: Tributes

When Sara Foster is kidnapped in front of an abortion clinic in broad daylight, taken off a busy Manhattan street by a pair of total strangers – Stephen and Katherine Teach – she is three months pregnant wth her married lover’s child.

Her abductors seem to know that. They also seem to know where she lives, where she teachers, where she was born, who her lover is – even where her father plays golf on the weekends. They tell her about a mysterious worldwide Organization devoted to white slavery and what happens to those slaves who try to run away. What happens to their families and those they love.

That’s what Sara is now. Their slave.

They show her what happens if she tries to disobey.

She sleeps in a coffin-like box in the basement.

She’s fed according to their whim. Abused according to their whim.

They involve her in a brutal murder.

That’s just the beginning. Because Stephen and Katherine Teach have terrible plans for Sara.

And her baby.

Like his novels Joyride, Stranglehold, The Girl Next Door, and Cover, Right To Life is a descent into madness and human evil which is all the more harrowing because it’s based on fact. Sara’s ordeal really happened to somebody just like you and me and it’s one that is vividly rendered. So consider yourself warned. This is disturbing graphic writing.

Not for the timid.

Like life.