Klein's highly acclaimed first novel The Ceremonies - which Stephen King called "the most exciting novel in my field to come along since Straub's Ghost Story - established him in the top rank of horror writers. Now, with the four novellas gathered here, Klein proves himself to be a master of this classic shorter form.The collection opens with "Children of the Kingdom", a beautifully crafted chiller that gradually reveals the horrors that lurk behind the shadows of the city. In "Petey", George and Phyllis and the die-hards at their housewarming think that their new rural retreat is quite a steal - unaware that foreclosure, in a particularly monstrous form, is heading their way.In the insidiously terrifying "Black Man with a Horn", a homage to Lovecraft, a chance encounter with a missionary priest over the Atlantic lures a traveller into a web of ancient mystery and fiendish retribution. And in "Nadelman's God", the protagonist discovers, degree by shocking degree, that the demons of our imaginations are not always imaginary.

    And we too become victims of the unknown forces he conjures. Against a wide variety of settings, Aickman's chilling stories unravel with the psychological subtlety and uncanny vision of a true master of the genre.

    

    

    FellLuck Is No LadyThe CureThe Screaming PeopleThe Big KickThe MasterpieceTalentThe Final PerformanceLife In Our TimeUndergroundA Case Of The StubbornsThe HeadWhat You See Is What You GetNinaAuthor's Afterword

    Seven decades of passion and sin fester beneath the bleak Montana sky.In the spectral beauty of these pages you will meet: the Eastern-bred mortician who discovers love after death; the rancher's beautiful daughter who delivers death after love; the old cowboy whose survival skills turn against him; and the gunslinger, dressed in black, who tries to outdraw the modern age on the blacktop of present-day Montana."The grimmest of fairy tales"- William Hjortsberg