By RONALD PATRICK (Sphere; 1978/80)

The most morbid and sensationalistic funeral home expose you’re ever likely to encounter, written by an actual funeral director. The insider detail shines through in the many graphic descriptions of the preparation of corpses for funerals, as well as a downright nerve-shredding description of murder by embalming, which goes far, far beyond the infamous embalming fluid injection that climaxed THE LOVED ONE (both the Evelyn Waugh novel and film adaptation) in sheer grossness.

…a death-infused soap opera…

In essence a death-infused soap opera, BEYOND THE THRESHOLD centers on Robert Emerson Carlisle, an enterprising, ambitious and very sleazy California mortician seeking to corner the death business.  His employees include Steve Anderson, a guy who puts a lot of zest into the beautification of corpses and is gay (a fact that by itself was evidently quite shocking in ‘78), and also Christopher Granger, an eager teenage boy lusted after by Anderson and Carlisle’s unsatisfied wife Shawn.

…imminently readable, exerting a sordid can’t-look-away fascination paired with a great deal of lurid sex. 

The latter’s disaffectedness threatens to imperil Carlisle’s operation, as do some shady deals he made early on in his career. Much is made of a “military contract” whose details we don’t learn until near the nasty climax, which sees Carlisle taking some drastic measures (up to and including murder) to stay afloat.

All this is imminently readable, exerting a sordid can’t-look-away fascination paired with a great deal of lurid sex. There’s even some pitch-dark humor to be found in the details of cadaver handling, which, it transpires, is as vulnerable to screw-ups and shoddy workmanship as any other profession.

…insider details…

The book is a bit uneven, alas. Carlisle’s mother-in-law Katrina Andros, a middle-aged shrew headed for a full-blown mental breakdown (thus adding insanity to an already jam-packed roster of exploitable elements), is given far too much verbiage. The same can be said for Katrina’s daughter Shawn, who adds very little to the story outside a lot of excess griping about her hubbie Carlisle.

I’ll also quibble about the characterization of Carlisle himself, who’s so astoundingly arrogant, venal, weak-minded and clumsy it’s impossible to believe he’d be able to manage a 7-11, much less spearhead a funeral empire. That’s a problem in a novel whose major asset is its believability, although as a hissable villain Robert Emerson Carlisle is hard to beat.