Dennis Wayne's wife Peggy has disappeared. Not kidnapped, but literally vanished into thin air while the two were planning a picnic. Responding patrolman Hank Bishop thinks the whole thing must be a set-up, until he investigates the area where Peggy was last seen and stumbles through a gateway into another dimension out of his worst nightmares. After managing to claw his way out, he reaches the only sane conclusion under the circumstances: this isn't a job for the police, this is a job for the S.O.S.
The Strange Occurrence Squad is a trio of paranormal operatives utilized by the government to investigate unexplainable phenomena: Clint's the muscle, Malcolm's the brains, and Theresa's the psychic who sees clues they can't:
Every previous assignment they've taken on has been set in the real world -- can even the S.O.S. handle a case that will drag them into a hellish alternate reality filled with fog and populated with creatures never before seen by human eyes? Peggy's life depends on them, but the portal between worlds won't stay open forever, and if it closes, this will be S.O.S.'s final investigation.
A quickie read meant for a tween-age audience not ready for Laymon's more graphic adult works. Thin Air is the fourth and final entry in the S.O.S. series of Fastbacks, following The Night Creature, The Beast, and The Return. At sixty pages, and roughly 75% of the size of a standard mass-market paperback, it's a slim volume most readers will tear through in a single sitting.
Being book four in a series, there's not a lot of time spent on developing the main characters or explaining who they are. While the book does stand alone, you're still supposed to be reading them in order. This wasn't an issue in 1986 when Laymon wrote them, but if it's 2021 and you're trying to find print versions in the wild, all I can say is "good luck". Laymon's Fastbacks are difficult to find and much more expensive than most of his normal horror offerings even though he penned twenty between 1984 and 1986. Despite a reprint run of them in 2003, they're still long out of print and command premium prices on the second-hand market. I'm a huge Laymon collector, but Thin Air is the only Fastback of his I've managed to get my hands on.
Plot-wise, this could almost be called "Richard Laymon's The Mist": since it postulates a fog-filled dimension where strange creatures beyond human understanding reside. The story itself is straightforward, with no secondary or tertiary plots, but a couple of surprisingly violent sequences considering it's a book meant for younger readers: all three members of the S.O.S. carry high-powered revolvers or rifles, and aren't afraid to use them on the denizens of this alternate dimension. Heads are blown off and limbs severed, proving Laymon still has fangs even when toned down for the young adult crowd.
Unfortunately, with only 61 smaller-than-normal pages, there's no room for Laymon to expand on things. Paragraphs are typically one to three sentences in length, and dialog comes fast and furious, churning the pages at such a rate I was done in about fifteen minutes. Yes, I'm a fast reader, but this was intended as a single-session read.
Thin Air is a story I'd have loved to see Laymon expand into a more mature version, but alas, it was not to be. It's not a bad story, neither is it a great story, but it is a Laymon story, and that's good enough for me to give it three stars...assuming you can track down a copy for a reasonable price.
Sounds like fun! ( especially the way you describe it ) and it's a kind of a shame that it's so hard to get your hands on. I guess that is what happens with so called 'Thin Air' ;<)
Also sounds like this would be very fun when adapted to the screen!
P.S. > he penned twenty between 1984 and 1986.
That blew me away! The guy sounds like a machine!
Laymon was absolutely a writing machine. Between 1980 up to his death in 2001, he published twenty Fastbacks, more than sixty short stories, five story collections, thirty-six horror novels, one romance, one western, two teen suspense stories, one illustrated children's book, and an autobiography. He also left behind several near-complete manuscripts which were finished and edited by his wife and daughter for posthumous publication.
The guy was unbelievably prolific, and the fact he passed away at only 54 years old is absolutely tragic. :(
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