Bobby and Cindy Adams, conspiring with three of their neighbor friends, drug and tie up Barbara, the Adams’ overnight summer babysitter, intending to keep her captive until their parents return from vacation. Set in a rural but affluent Maryland countryside, told in fluid third-person omniscience, Johnson’s novel is an imperfect but unforgettable plunge into hell. The surprise, however, is that this notorious book, which depicts the worst bad behavior imaginable, is so good. The reputation isn’t unjustified the scene described above isn’t the novel’s most disturbing, or even a strong contender. Indeed, due to scenes of youth-administered brutality and for having been so long out of print, LET’S GO PLAY has acquired an unholy contraband mystique. Horror fans owe Hendrix and Valancourt a debt of gratitude for resurrecting this brutal lost classic. LET’S GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS’ is part of Valancourt’s reissue of various titles discussed in the excellent PAPERBACKS FROM HELL (2017), Grady Hendrix’s book about the paperback horror market of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Johnson’s LET’S GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS’ (1974), a vintage shocker newly reissued in mass market paperback. Welcome, friends, to the gruesomely sadistic world of Mendal W. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, he solves the problem by blindfolding her. When the boy notices her pleading eyes, he feels not guilt or remorse, but annoyance. She is tied to a chair, her mouth gagged. A teenage boy, wielding a knife, tortures a naked young woman.
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