FREE: BILLY by Whitley Strieber (1990, Hardcover)

The listing, BILLY by Whitley Strieber (1990, Hardcover) has ended.

This 6 1/4" X 9 1/4" hardback book with jacket has 317 pages. Good condition. *******Fat, 40-ish Barton Royal, kiddy-clown in an L.A. bookstore, is obsessed with pubescent boys. He wants to be their "father" but when they turn against him he has a "black room" for their punishment. Seeing 12-year-old Billy Neary in an Iowa shopping mall, Barton is smitten. He follows the boy home, craftily and boldly abducts him and begins a nonstop drive to L.A. The book alternates scenes of the devastation wrought on Billy's family, a national manhunt, Billy's growing awareness of his peril and Barton's violent mood swings. We get chilling glimpses of Barton's past--he talks of skinning boys alive--and his plans for Billy. Bright, winning Billy is worn down almost to madness. Barton's tortured self-justification and Billy's brainy sweetness are believable but the other characters have much less depth.*******