Sunset People - Herbert Kastle

Just three more victims. Random killings as all the others, despite the delightful daydreams. Then he would be safe forever. Then he would become the man he’d always wanted to be, immune from the imbecilic insults and violence the world imposed. Because he could ignore it, knowing what he knew, knowing who he was and what he had done! Could turn a blind eye and deaf ear on it all, smiling, forever smiling. And would be passionate enough, sexual enough, sure enough to handle not only the whale, but attractive women, many of them, on the side. As strong men did. As would be his right, his prize…

Jove, May 1980

Normally, I’m not a fan of serial killer novels. Typically they’re the same old plot, some loony whackjob who can’t relate to women, stalking and murdering them one by one under the cover of darkness. It’s been done so often, and so badly, that I often avoid the altogether. Besides, you can get that same story from CNN and it’s become tiresome. Sunset People by Herbert Kastle could have easily fallen into the same trap that so many serial killer novels fall into, that is, become boring by the whole cliché of the genre. Misfit loser who has spent his life feeling picked on?—Check! Domineering mother?—Check!  Browbeating sexless wife?—Check! Beautiful heroine who becomes the loser’s latest obsession?—Check! Set in Los Angeles?—Check! This novel covers all the bases. So, you might wonder why I should bother writing about it. Well, because this 1980 novel takes the old tropes and sets them up all neatly into a sleazy buffet for you, yet everything about the ingredients seem just a little off. As if the pages you’re turning echo with a quiet snickering between the lines and the joke is on you.

Maybe I’m reading way more into the novel than Kastle intended. Maybe it was written as a by-the-numbers potboiler for a buck. I have no idea because Kastle isn't explaining his motive for cranking out this 381 page bad boy. But I’m thinking there is something more to the novel than just a sleazy serial killer thrill-ride. Kastle seems smarter than that. And, after finishing the novel, I’m almost of the belief that it was an attempt at something of a satire of the genre.

Here we have Larry Admer, the fucked up cop. No, Larry Admer isn’t the brooding alcoholic mess that most cops in these novels are. Instead, he comes across as a petulant prick, by turns praising and berating Diana Woodruff, the heroine of the novel, and the sister of The Silencer’s first victim. As for actually working the case and following the clues…well Larry isn't that kind of cop. His idea of detective work is calling Diana on the phone and bitching to her about why she doesn't put out for him. After all, he reasons, Diana works in a massage parlor, for Christ’s sake! She’s just a cheap massage parlor whore he tells her. Sure, Diana consents to go out with him on a few dinner dates. But those dates are more whining and dining than anything else. It’s no wonder she doesn't put out for him; he’s a complete dick and a crummy detective to boot. And he’s supposed to be the good guy.

Diana Woodruff, the cheap massage parlor whore, is really an intelligent thoughtful young woman who has pretty much accepted that she’s meant to service men without forming any kind of long-lasting bond. This can be blamed on her dysfunctional parents, but that’s too easy a reason. Yeah, her parents sucked, but mostly, she’s got a yen for hot sex without the emotional baggage that comes with it. That’s something Admer can’t seem to quite wrap his ego around. Diana should be more likable a character but is really something of a cipher. There is no window to her soul that one can crawl in through. Until her sister’s murder, she had no anchor in life and nor oar to steer by. 

Diane’s life is mostly working night hours at the Grecian Massage Parlor and reading novels like Portnoy’s Complaint, until the night her sister is shot dead on a sidewalk off Sunset Strip. Immediately, the presumption is that Diane’s sister was a prostitute. Why else would she be out alone dressed the way she was dressed? Diana rightly figures that the cops don’t give a hoot about the death of another prostitute. So she decides to accept Admer’s clumsy advances in the hopes that she’ll learn who killed her sister, so that she can wreak vengeance on the motherfucker herself.

The Silencer, our serial killer, is so named because no one reports hearing any gunshot when he kills. It’s given away in the first chapter of the novel who The Silencer is. He’s a schmuck named Frank Berdon. A short dumpy fat loser of a guy who finds a loaded gun on the street after a mob hit goes haywire, leaving him alone with a dead guy and a loaded gun. The gun itself is a 10 shot .22 automatic with a MAC silencer. For Frank, it means 10 bullets of retribution to unload on all the sluts and bitches who've tormented him, ignored him, made fun of him…you get the idea. You can meet dozens like him on any given Saturday night at the clubs. Since the identity of The Silencer is given, the drive of the novel is watching him unravel as he shoots his way through one victim after another. The one thing they all have in common is not that they’re prostitutes, as The Silencer believes, but that they’re misguided dreamers lured to the Sunset Strip via events that abandon them to the whims of insanity. A rock star’s girlfriend, a jilted lover, an out of work actress who believes she’s the character she once played on TV, a teenage girl escaping from a rapist, to name a few. All of their stories are wrapped into the lure of the Strip, hopeless and ripe for the picking. These are the “Sunset People.”

This is the second novel by Herbert Kastle I've read, the other being The Millionaires, which I also liked. I can’t say why I liked these novels, by all reasons I shouldn't. Maybe it’s just a matter of sordid tales told well.