Evil Reincarnate

LET THE BLOOD FLY! could be Clark's (The Feeding) motto as the narrative flashes from one disembowelment to another in this dim serial-killer novel overlaid with cabalism and time travel. Hollywood psychiatrist Connie Stallman interviews bloodthirsty killer Tod Jarrow to evaluate his fitness to stand trial. Tod, who thumbs out a cop's eyes and stabs another through the eye and brain with a hypodermic needle, prefers to mutilate living women, but he has none of the fascinating character of his counterpart Hannibal ``the Cannibal'' Lecter and remains merely vulgar. As it happens, Tod and Connie had earlier lives in Venice 400 years ago as the lovers Marcangelo Mosca and the Contessa Alessandra Contarina. Marcangelo/Tod was an assassin in the hire of the adulterous contessa's husband, Count Ludovico Contarini, but was-and is-tied even more strongly to the Dark Sorcerer, Azrael, the Angel of Death. Clark strikes every cliche possible, past and present. Throughout, low blows, including a scene in which Connie comes to orgasm as she's being raped, assault the reader, accompanied by shallow dialogue, and every gut-walloping plot twist falls leadenly in place. (Nov.)