Ted's Score

I was contacted by a publicist and offered a physical ARC. I’m glad I said yes! I believe this release is a reissue from Hellbound Books.

The novel focuses in part on Ted. Ted’s mother was a real piece of work, and although his time in the military most likely exasperated things, she was the crux to his unhinging. Now, Ted has an insatiable hunger, the drive to kill. These are what Ted calls his score. One couple, a particularly important score for Ted, is one of the town’s greatest unsolved mysteries. One that the local police took into their retirement even. And I loved that the marketing used the ‘newspaper’ clipping of it as the book wrapping. Ted’s got quite the long list of kills, making him one hell of a serial killer.

The other focus, is on the Benton family. Especially the daughter Jules and her boyfriend David. I originally thought this was a kind of unique way to set up a final girl, but this isn’t your typical slasher. Jules and David have been talking about when and how to do it for the very first time, and when David’s parents go away for a week, the timing seems perfect. The chaos that ensues after is almost endless. Deceit, cheating, lies, and sneaking around lead them on a path of their own destruction. A path that may lead right to an elderly Ted.

Now one thing that I can’t really tell if I liked or not, was the incredible amount of sex in the story. The author does pretty well with having it present, while not making the reading all that X rated, which for me is a plus. My issue is that it’s so constantly present that it bleeds into everything. Ted’s disgusting perversion, teenagers (Jules and David especially, and even the Benton parents. And while that’s certainly fitting for those old school slashers, it just made it feel like there was no destination between anyone or the different arcs. But I’m not saying I dislike it, because part of me wonders if it was in itself a commentary of that.

There were a few moments, like with Ted and his mother and then again later in the novel where I felt like we were getting into something that felt almost like it could be Dexter: New Blood-ish. Not to mention Ted’s drive certainly has a ‘dark passenger’ feel to it from the very beginning. And while I wished that this truly did come to pass, I enjoyed the ending the way it was. No one is safe. And no one can ever truly know the depths that they’re willing to go until they get there. Three different incidents, and three differently viewed types of evil.