No Sanctuary by Richard Laymon
July 2003
Leisure Books
333 pages
Horror / Extreme Horror
Remember, going into this, that I am a very big fan of Richard Laymon.
No Sanctuary has two storylines; in one we follow a woman named Gillian who has a pastime of breaking into houses. And it’s not necessarily criminal – aside from the ‘entering’ part of the break and enter. She’s not there to steal anything she simply wants to live vicariously through the lives of those who own the houses that she’s broken into. It’s a victimless crime… or so she would think until the tables turn and she becomes somewhat of a victim herself.
Elsewhere, we are following Bert and Rick as they head out on a camping trip. Richard Laymon type sexcapades and pandemonium ensue.
Gillian’s story is the most interesting to me and I kind of wish that we had only Gillian’s story to follow in a novella length book. The story of Rick’s memories of a camping trip gone terribly wrong as a young teen is very interesting and very dark but we’re only told this actually harrowing story in recollections that he’s telling his new girlfriend Bert on their current camping trip that she arranged, and he only reluctantly joined in on.
Bert is one of those really outstanding strong Laymon characters that is the sort of woman that I found cool when I first was reading Richard Laymon books. I think that what I didn’t like about the story is that the two stories of Rick and Bert on one side and Jillian on the other… only barely converge.
If you’re looking for some sort of camping novel this could fit the bill for sure as there are a few angles on tramping through the pines and how scary that can be. If you’re looking for an urban exploration break and enter novel it can work there too but I think that the two stories are too far opposite spectrums to really work properly together. I think the biggest let down is by the time you figure out that these stories will not converge the way you want them to it is a bit of a let down. Now, while we do get some very typical Richard Laymon phrasing in this book, conspicuously absent is the word rump. I do not recall one ‘rump’ at all, but everyone had ten pockets, and there are erections, see-thru clothes, and nipples galore.