“To Walk With Strangers” left me impressed, disturbed and aroused.
Vince Andrews’s newest book takes the reader down a path many gay men may have thought of, but very few would actually follow. The character, whose name we never learn, knows he is a monster, a predator. And he revels in it. And that in itself is what makes him so fascinating.
In a combination of memories and current… activities, you get a full tour of the guy’s beginnings as a predator and how far he progresses. And that’s what he is. He never refers to the strangers he plays with as partners or even fuck buddies. They’re prey. Vince, and the character, wallow in the depravity of his actions. Sexual escapades doesn’t cover it. There are portions where you wonder exactly how far the predator is going to go. It’s scary, it’s wrong and it got me just a bit horny.
This is a jack-off book. But it’s a really good one. And since I was often reading it in public places, I couldn’t often take advantage of that. (That wouldn’t have been a problem for the predator.) The predator is never glorified, but he dares the reader to make a judgment on his life. And he even knows he will fall at some point. But until then, he is king of his little circle of hell. And you keep waiting for him to fall.
If you find nonconsensual sex, violence and a protagonist who is the textbook definition of a sociopath offensive, you’re not gonna like this book. But if you enjoy letting imagination loose, even when it dances at the edge of going that one step to far, keep the lube handy. Once it gets going, it becomes one of those one-sitting books that you can’t put down until it’s done.
“To Walk With Strangers” by Vince Andrews, Adynaton Publishing – ISBN 978-0-9859004-5-8
