SALERO THE CELEBRATED CIRCUS CLOWN, THE TOAST OF EUROPE, HAS COME TO AMERICA. DRESSED TO KILL Review: Laugh To Death, 2015 by David Watson "With the topic of episode 113 of horror addicts being Bizarro fiction I've got a couple of works of literature that are not your average reads: Salero was born into a family of circus performers. They were all acrobats but Salero decided to go against the family's wishes and become a clown. Salero worked hard and he won the respect of his family and several awards for being a clown. He joined a traveling circus that's on a tour of America and he is the star of the show, but he doesn't fit in with the rest of the performers. Salero is the only one in the circus that travels with his own Italian sports car along with having half a train car as his living quarters. Salero is clown royalty and he is also a serial killer. Not just any serial killer either, he targets young women who have a fear of clowns and he likes to sexually torture them before finishing them off. He makes kids laugh by day and women scream by night and as he travels from town to town he makes sure he covers his tracks. His killing spree may be coming to an end though as two detectives from New Orleans are on the case and closing in. Laugh To Death by Charie D. La Marr is like no book I've read. After spending 9 years as a clown, Charie has started her own genre called Circus Punk and Laugh To Death is as dark as Circus Punk can get. To say this book is disturbing is an understatement. I've never read sexual torture scenes that went on for so long. The Sex scenes are so descriptive and so unbelievable that even the most hard-core S and M fan may start squirming. Salero also psychologically tortures his victims as he rapes them which makes this book even more shocking. When I read a horror novel I usually don't like it when it's obvious that the author is going out of his or her way to shock me. In Laugh To Death it's pretty clear that Charie D. La Marr is pushing the reader to the breaking point and trying to see how much the reader can handle. Though for me unlike other books I've read where the point is to shock, I wanted to keep reading this one even though I found myself feeling sick to my stomach. I can't even describe the most disturbing scenes because I would be embarrassed to write about it, but the writing is so good in this book that I kept on reading. The story may be pretty thin in Laugh To Death but the complex characters kept me wanting more. Salero may be a sadistic killer but there are some great scenes where the author makes him seem compassionate. It was also interesting finding out what his victims' feelings are and how they question their own feelings. The two detectives in the story have a lot of great conversations with each other that made this book better. I would love to read more books by Charie D. La Marr in the future. "He didn't bother to undress-merely unzipping his pants and shrugging them down before dropping on top of her and entering her fiercely. His grunts as he thrust hard into her were loud and vulgar. She struggled and writhed violently beneath him. "No You will not move. You say I am a fucking clown, and so I will be. And I will fuck you until I can fuck you no more. And when I am done, perhaps I will take you down to the cattle car and watch while the other clowns fuck you one by one until you are so full that their juices run down your thighs. You will learn to show respect for me. For my art and my craft." Pinning her hands to the bed, he entered her quickly and roughly. She screamed and spit in his face. He slapped her again and left her ear ringing as he wiped the spittle from her face and continued to pound her hard and fast. "You hate clowns? Well you have a clown inside of you right now. How does that feel? A fucking clown is raping you and he'll continue to do it until it pleases him to stop."