Bad Ronald-Jack Vance mystery novel, book review

Bad Ronald-Jack Vance mystery novel

Bad Ronald was written in 1955 but was not published until 1973 when it was issued under the author’s actual name John Holbrook Vance.  It is a 171 page “mystery” novel that reads more like a short horror novel.  The draft title of the book was "Something Awful."  It is a difficult book for me to review because, although it is fairly well written, it is not only improbable but involves a main character who is a detestable, sociopathic, racist, cruel, arrogant, seventeen year old boy who rapes and murders young girls when he is not obsessing about food or busy creating his fantasy world of Atranta.

Ronald is completely selfish and has no sense of empathy toward others.  At one point he wonders if it is wrong to rape but decides that since it is so much fun it must be a good thing.  He also sees himself as being very special.  "He deeply resented the terms 'sex offender', 'deviate', 'murderer' when used in connection with himself.  Such words simply didn't fit the case; they implied a vulgar ordinary criminality which Ronald was far above and beyond." After Ronald rapes and then accidentally strangles to death an eleven year old girl, his overly protective, widowed mother hides him in her house in a secret downstairs bathroom where the police cannot find him.  But soon his mother becomes ill and dies. 

A new family with three teenage daughters buys the house and move in.  Barbara is "blonde and cute."  Althea is "a girl of interesting attributes."  Ellen is beautiful and "Her hair, fine brown-gold like Althea's, seemed to glow of itself; her eyes were transparent gray; her skin, golden from sunlight, seemed to luminesce with health and cleanliness."  Ronald is intrigued by the three young sisters so decides to remain at the house in his hidden bathroom downstairs while he spies on the family through peep holes and steals their food.  It is all very creepy.

If you don't mind reading about this sort of thing you will find the book to be well enough written and suspenseful.  Vance avoids gory details and does not dwell on the violence.  The dialog is perhaps not as realistic, witty or snappy as Vance can be but it is perfectly adequate to the task.  Oddly this is the only Vance novel that has been made into a movie (for TV) so far although his novel The Man in the Cage was an episode in a TV series.  Vance completists will probably want to give Bad Ronald a try.  Others need to decide for themselves.  It seems more like a horror story than a mystery to me and I later noted that in an interview Vance himself stated, "I don't have any feelings of hatred, or passion toward Bad Ronald; of course I do feel sorrow at the plight of the girls, but that's why it's called a horror story."

My copy of this book is the Spatterlight Press trade paperback edition.  I’ve read this novel twice so far and rated it a 3, “Liked it.”