J. Gahagan] · ss Courier Spr ’38 77 · The Ape and the Mystery [“The Mysterious Mona Lisa Smile”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 26 ’48 89 · The King Who Collected Clocks [“Royal Impostor”] · nv The Saturday Evening Post May 3 ’47 117 · Bone for Debunkers [“The Karmesin Affair”; Karmesin] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Dec 15 ’62 133 · A Lucky Day for the Boar · ss Playboy Oct ’62 143 · Voices in the Dust of Annan · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 13 ’47 161 · Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? · nv The Brighton Monster, London: Heinemann, 1953; Star Science Fiction Stories #3, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1954

    They were tired and tense, two guys and three girls arguing over a vacation gone bad. But things were about to get worse for the five young friends. Much, much worse. In fact, most of them would never see the highway again. — The woods were dark and forbidding, filled with unseen dangers and inhuman sounds. The light in the distance promised sanctuary from the grasping terrors. Instead, the light lured the travelers to the very heart of evil, a house at the entrance of Hell, a house that held only torture, depravity and--for the lucky ones--death.When the front door closes, the screaming begins!

    A Marine Corps psychiatrist with a crisis of faith encourages his patients to enact their fantasies as part of their therapy. However, he proves himself to be more deeply disturbed than at first appears and finally sacrifices himself to save one of his patients.

    On a moonlight night in early spring, twenty-seven people entered the mansion's labyrinthine halls, to partake in an orgy of diabolical debauchery, the likes of which beggared description. And one by one, twenty-six of them were butchered in place. The twenty-seventh body was never recovered. House of Sin The screams have faded, and the blood has dried but the spectral house remains...waiting. House of Hell Welcome to the mansion made in Hell Flesh Gothic Where the temple of evil is your own body...

    Few know these characters—and their creators—better than Sarah Weinman. One of today’s preeminent authorities on crime fiction, Weinman asks: Where would bestselling authors like Gillian Flynn, Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the women writers who came before them? In Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, Weinman brings together fourteen hair-raising tales by women who—from the 1940s through the mid-1970s—took a scalpel to contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence. Lovers of crime fiction from any era will welcome this deliciously dark tribute to a largely forgotten generation of women writers.

    We dare you to read them alone, late at night. The moon is full. The clock strikes twelve. Don't be afraid. But what's that sound? Footsteps in the hall? It's just the dog. That creaking door? Merely the wind blowing. And is that a face at the window? Or is it just your imagination? Read these stories at your own risk. . .but be prepared to be scared out of your wits.

    They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains.Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the Sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive.All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last Sanctuary is about to fall.

    Only a drug-addicted detective and a young man with a gift for mathematics have the means to solve an enigmatic murder--a murder that may be the key to saving Trowth from certain destruction.A new edition of this book is available! Sure, it's a dollar more, but it also includes three short stories--check out The Translated Man and Other Stories.

    But when the rain came, the creatures left the shadows...WORMSSpectres from the past tortured James Hildebrand's mind. His blackest nightmares were crowded with malevolent, coiling images of decay. Then, suddenly, he knew the threat was real.WORMSThe dead alone could not quench their hunger. And, for the living, the horrors that fed and multiplied in the darkness of the night became more terrible with the dawn...

    Its shrouded history of madness and murder is just the inspiration he needs to wriote his ultimate masterpiece of horror. But what waits for David and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Amber, at Baudey House, is more terrifying than any legend...First comes the sultry hint of jasmine...followed by the foul stench of decay. It is the dead, seducing the living, in an age-old ritual of perverted desire and unholy blood lust. For David and Amber, an unspeakable possession has begun...

    Beautiful, hypnotic, ancient, it was the sacred -- and deadly -- talisman of the fabled Leopard Men of Africa.Unsuspected, it would crawl its way into his mind, bringing horrifying destruction into his home. And unresisted, it would demand an unbelievable sacrifice. And then -- perhaps -- it would move on...

    The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family. Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo. The story expresses numerous racial and evolutionary conceptions of the late Victorians, especially notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the fin de siècle. In the figure of She, the novel notably explored themes of female authority and feminine behaviour. It has received praise and criticism alike for its representation of womanhood. (From Wikipedia)

    Vampires, werewolves, ghouls and ghosts - not to mention Frankenstein's monster - stalk the premises. Bats and spiders drop upon the unwary. At every turn a new fright awaits - all in fun, of course.Happy HalloweenBut the Manse's history of horror is ancient and terrible - more awful than the innocent Trick-or-Treaters can imagine. For twelve years it has been biding its time, feeding on the fear its unsuspecting visitors so willingly offered...Happy HalloweenUntil tonight. Tomight is the Thirteenth Annual House of Horrors.It will be the last.Tonight, at the Witching Hour, all Hell will break loose.Happy Halloween

    A mysterious email sends Kayla to a Maryland beach town and her grandmother’s home, Seacliff House. There, Kayla hopes to discover who she is and why her past has been shrouded in mystery.When Tanner Bishop discovers an old diary among his grandfather’s possessions, his interest is piqued. Some of the entries speak of Pearl, a young woman who abandoned her son and fled Maine for Maryland in 1958. The journalist in Tanner wants to know what became of Pearl once she found her way to Seacliff House. But as the woman’s great-grandson, he needs to know.Kayla quickly learns the whereabouts of her father and meets her formidable grandmother, while Tanner investigates his own connection to Seacliff House.Through a mutual interest in searching out their roots, romance blossoms. But events that cannot be stopped are quickly set in motion—including murder—to reveal secrets of the past that threaten the couple’s hopeful future.

    She sent for a wartime secret service colleague to come and help. What they discovered was horrifying beyond anything they could have imagined.Dennis Wheatley returned in this audiobook to his black magic theme which he had made so much his own with his famous best seller The Devil Rides Out. In the cumulative shock of its revelations, the use of arcane knowledge, the mounting suspense, and acceleration to a fearful climax, he out-does even that earlier achievement. This is, by any standards, a terrific story.