Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a horror novel written by Donald Allen Kirch. Ray Hoie thought his weekly visit to the local strip club was mostly harmless. The bacon quesadillas were astronomically good there, and much more of a draw for him than actually watching the strippers perform on the stage. Somehow, though, this evening's pleasure jaunt went seriously awry. He had awoken, bloody, bound, and in quite a bit of pain, in what seemed to be a dark and foul-smelling cellar. When the shadowy figure who seemed to be regarding him finally drew close enough to be seen, Ray was astonished to see his very hot captor, complete with tight-fitting red dress and legs that demanded adoration. Her name was Eve, and Ray was not the first man she had entertained recently. She chuckled a bit as she pointed out to him the pile of rotting corpses almost out of view in a dark corner. Still, somehow, just being near her made Ray's senses tingle, and he felt sure that someone, particularly Tammy, his girlfriend, would have the police find him before he became her next victim. But who was Eve, and how did a hot babe like her get to be so insane? Eve had her own story to tell, and it was a strange one indeed.

Donald Allen Kirch's grotesquely humorous horror novel, Drop Dead Gorgeous, instantly grabbed my attention with its lurid, 1950s-style pulp fiction cover. You'd have to be more out of it than those stacked bodies in the basement corner not to at least be intrigued by this authentically spooky novel that somehow manages to channel the noir mystery, horror, high-tech science fiction and romance genres into a spellbinding, fast-paced and unforgettable tale of betrayal and revenge. Kirch deftly switches the reader's attention back and forth from the plight of the hapless Ray to the story of Steve Kane, a salesman extraordinaire who ran afoul of a mad genius who did not take being slighted very lightly. Imagine Dr. Frankenstein with nano-robotic technology and a chip on his shoulder, throw in a good helping of Robert Bloch's uncanny juxtapositioning of horror and mystery, and you get a hint of the forbidden delights in store when you open this quite remarkable horror novel and begin to read. I loved every minute spent reading Drop Dead Gorgeous. It more than fulfilled any expectations raised by that cover, and it's most highly recommended.