Book picks similar to
The Golem by Edward Lee


horror
splatterpunk
edward-lee
fiction

Dark Mountain


Richard Kelly - 1987
    What they will find instead is terror in the form of a violent psychopath and his mother, a powerful witch.(Previously published as Tread Softly, by Richard Kelly)

The Hellfire Club


Peter Straub - 1996
    Their murderer remains at large. Nora Chancel, wife of publishing scion Davey Chancel, fears she may be next. After all, her past has branded her a victim. . . . Then Davey tells Nora a surreal story about the Hellfire Club, where, years before, he met an obsessed fan of Chancel House’s most successful book, Night Journey—a book that has a strange history of its own. . . . Suddenly terror engulfs Nora: She must defend herself against fantastic accusations even as a madman lies in wait. And when he springs, Nora will embark on a night journey that will put her fears to rest forever, dead or alive. . . .From the Paperback edition.

Afraid


Jack Kilborn - 2008
    . . Welcome to Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Miles from everything, with one road in and out, this peaceful town has never needed a full-time police force. Until now . . . A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate. As residents begin dying in a storm of gory violence, Safe Haven's only chance for survival will rest with an aging county sheriff, a firefighter, and a single mom. And each will have this harrowing thought: Maybe death hasn't come to their town by accident . . .

The Fisherman


John Langan - 2016
    Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

The Golem of Hollywood


Jonathan Kellerman - 2014
      A burned-out L.A. detective . . . a woman of mystery who is far more than she seems . . . a grotesque, ancient monster bent on a mission of retribution. When these three collide, a new standard of suspense is born. The legend of the Golem of Prague has endured through the ages, a creature fashioned by a sixteenth-century rabbi to protect his congregation, now lying dormant in the garret of a synagogue. But the Golem is dormant no longer. Detective Jacob Lev wakes one morning, dazed and confused: He seems to have picked up a beautiful woman in a bar the night before, but he can’t remember anything about the encounter, and before he knows it, she has gone. But this mystery pales in comparison to the one he’s about to be called on to solve. Newly reassigned to a Special Projects squad he didn’t even know existed, he’s sent to a murder scene far up in the hills of Hollywood Division. There is no body, only an unidentified head lying on the floor of a house. Seared into a kitchen counter nearby is a single word: the Hebrew for justice. Detective Lev is about to embark on an odyssey—through Los Angeles, through many parts of the United States, through London and Prague, but most of all, through himself. All that he has believed to be true will be upended—and not only his world, but the world itself, will be changed.

Off Season


Jack Ketchum - 1980
    A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River—off season—awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall...And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

A Penny For Your Thoughts


Robert Ford - 2019
    He has let go of old habits, especially the ones that turned him into an addict and helped land him in prison.On a hike along the Lowback Trail, Joe stumbles on one of the town's oldest secrets--buried long ago, if not forgotten.It's an unusual but safe enough treasure--a jar of old pennies. What interests Joe isn't the pennies themselves, but the pieces of paper taped to every coin--a child's handwritten wish on each one.When the first few wishes come true, they are simple things. Fun. Harmless.Except as time goes on, Joe realizes they aren't really wishes at all...they're exchanges, and the bill was racking up.Nothing is free in life. Sooner or later, you always pay.

Wolf Hunt


Jeff Strand - 2010
    But when the werewolf escapes, their lives are on the line if they can't find the lycanthrope and get the beast back in his cage.

Dawn of the Dreadfuls


Steve Hockensmith - 2007
    As our story opens, the Bennet sisters are enjoying a peaceful life in the English countryside. They idle away the days reading, gardening, and daydreaming about future husbands - until a funeral at the local parish goes strangely and horribly awry.Suddenly corpses are springing from the soft earth - and only one family can stop them. As the bodies pile up, we watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. Along the way, two men vie for her affections: Master Hawksworth is the powerful warrior who trains her to kill, while thoughtful Dr. Keckilpenny seeks to conquer the walking dead using science instead of strength. Will either man win the prize of Elizabeth's heart? Or will their hearts be feasted upon by hordes of marauding zombies? Complete with romance, action, comedy, and an army of shambling corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will have Jane Austen rolling in her grave - and just might inspire her to crawl out of it!(Description from back cover of trade paperback edition)

The 13th


John Everson - 2009
    The mysterious Castle House Asylum has been the site of unholy occult rituals using twelve missing women. But the most important is still to comethe 13th.

The Chill


Scott Carson - 2020
    Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all…Now, a century later, the repercussions of human arrogance are finally making themselves known. An inspector assigned to oversee the dam, dangerously neglected for decades, witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled. Those who remember must ask themselves: who will be next? For sacrifices must be made. And as the dark waters begin to inexorably rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges from the deep...

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1886
    Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate - and eliminate - human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatically brings to life a science-fiction case study of the nature of good and evil and the duality that can exist within one person. Resonant with psychological perception and ethical insight, the work has literary roots in Dostoevsky's "The Double" and Crime and Punishment. Today Stevenson's novella is recognized as an incisive study of Victorian morality and sexual repression, as well as a great thriller.This collection also includes some of the author's grimmest short fiction: "Lodging for the Night," "The Suicide Club," "Thrawn Janet," "The Body Snatcher," and "Markheim."

You Come When I Call You


Douglas Clegg - 2000
    In Los Angeles, a woman is tormented by visions from a chilling past, and a man steps into a house of torture. On the steps of a church, a young woman has been sacrificed in a ritual of darkness. In New York, a cab driver dreams of demons while awake.And a man who calls himself the Desolation Angel has returned to draw his old friends back to their hometown -- a town where, two decades earlier, three boys committed the most brutal of rituals, an act of such intense savagery that it has ripped apart their minds. And where, in a cavern in a place called No Man's Land, something has been waiting a long time for those who stole something more precious than life itself.An epic tale of horror, spanning twenty years in the lives of four friends -- witnesses to unearthly terror.

Fiend


Peter Stenson - 2013
    As a longtime meth addict, he’s no stranger to horrifying, drug-fueled hallucinations.  But as he and his fellow junkies soon discover, the little girl is no illusion. The end of the world really has arrived.  The funny thing is, Chase’s life was over long before the apocalypse got here, his existence already reduced to a stinking basement apartment and a filthy mattress and an endless grind of buying and selling and using. He’s lied and cheated and stolen and broken his parents’ hearts a thousand times. And he threw away his only shot at sobriety a long time ago, when he chose the embrace of the drug over the woman he still loves.  And if your life’s already shattered beyond any normal hopes of redemption…well, maybe the end of the world is an opportunity. Maybe it’s a last chance for Chase to hit restart and become the man he once dreamed of being. Soon he’s fighting to reconnect with his lost love and dreaming of becoming her hero among civilization’s ruins.  But is salvation just another pipe dream?  Propelled by a blistering first-person voice and featuring a powerfully compelling antihero, Fiend is at once a riveting portrait of addiction, a pitch-black love story, and a meditation on hope, redemption, and delusion—not to mention one hell of a zombie novel.

Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned


Anne Rice - 1989
    But just lift the lid, slide the first tape from its ghostly sleeve, and you'll soon embrace the hypnotic realm of the undead.Book 1, Interview with the Vampire, opens with the seductive purr of F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) stating, "I was a 25-year-old man when I became a vampire, and the year was 1791." And so our ultimate antihero, Louis, begins the elaborate retelling of his long, tortured life as a vampire. Winding through the ages, from New Orleans to Paris, we follow Louis and his undying mentor, Lestat, as they feed on humans, whet their carnal appetites, and uncover an underworld of vampire brethren.Interview with the Vampire, read by F.Murray AbrahamRunning time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Book 2, The Vampire Lestat, brings us up to date, with Lestat waking from his earthen slumber to join the ranks of rock superstardom before sitting down to share the tale of his own haunting initiation into the vampire world. Michael York (Cabaret) puts his wonderfully fluid, cosmopolitan voice to good use, adding a dash of sly humor to this fast-paced, satisfying blend of sex and blood and rock and roll.The Vampire Lestat, read by Michael York Running time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Book 3, The Queen of the Damned, takes us back, all the way back to ancient Egypt, exposing the origins of the vampire way. Narrating in eerily serene and gracious tones, Kate Nelligan (The Prince of Tides) leads us gently down this bloody path of immortal desires. David Purdham gives the voice of Lestat a wistful quality, tinged with an evil relish that exposes the master vampire's sanguine tastes.Queen of the Damned, read by Kate Nelligan and David PurdhamRunning time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Anne Rice has continued her Vampire Chronicles beyond these three novels, but that shouldn't make this collection any less tempting to either the undead initiate or certified vampire junkie. --George LaneyTotal: 6 Audio Cassettes / 9 hours~