Zoe a teenager has arrived at the garage where she works for the night shift. However on the news she hears that a serial killer has escaped from a mental institution. A serial killer who is slaughtering anyone he comes across in brutal ways, a killer who is heading in Zoe’s direction…

At the beginning of this novel, there is a warning that the book contains graphic descriptions of the violence in the story. The novel itself is described a Slasher novel. On both these counts, the book covers itself, the violence described is indeed brutal and in some ways disturbing and the story does have slasher type elements.

But what of that story and the characters? The story is nothing original. There have been many, many stories of serial killers escaping and going on a murderous rampage. The characters themselves are in many ways cliches of the genre and their development in the story, including Zoe is non-existent. To be fair to the author, Jon Athan, he does say in an afterword to his novel that character development wasn’t high on the priorities for a story of this type and again, if you look at many stories that are similar, they too tend to lack character development.

The book splits the chapters between Zoe at the garage and The Prowler as his murder spree goes on, before it brings them both together in the last part of the book for their bloody and I do mean BLOODY confrontation.

That warning at the beginning was not kidding. The descriptions of the violence in this book do not hold back. The prowler is as much a sadist as he is killer and the violence inflicted on his victims is described horrifically. This is not a book for the squeamish.

However, while I thought the book overall had potential, to be honest by its end I found reading page after page about the violence got a bit tedious. It’s not that Jon Athan is a bad writer, just I found those parts the least interesting in the book.

I’ve not read many novels that would be considered Slasher types. I’ve read novels with descriptions of violence, albeit perhaps not at this level. Night Of The Prowler as a novel, I found a mixed bag.

Fans of graphic violence will enjoy the hell out of this. But if you are looking for anything more, then this is not for you.

Rating: **1/2 out of 5