Cast a Cold Eye


Alan Ryan - 1984
    Jack Quinlan, an American writer, is researching a book on the horrors of the Irish Famine. As the days pass, and the longer nights, the darkness of history parts ... only to reveal an even greater darkness in the present.

Night Show


Richard Laymon - 1984
    Now he has moved to Hollywood, determined to break into horror movies, and he's forgotten all about her. But Linda is a girl with vengeance in her heart - and she certainly hasn't forgotten him...

Slob


Rex Miller - 1981
    Slob is his debut novel, the story of a man who thinks of himself as Death. A man wholikes to feast on human hearts, spilling blood wherever he goes. Jack Eichord is the detective who must hunt this human monster and genius killer. Years of working as a homicide detective for the Chicago Police department has hardened Eichord to things that would make most men turn and flee. But even he is not prepared for the labyrinthine search underground, as he trails the killer and his hostages through the sewer system of the city. Eichord thinks that he is beginning to understand thediabolical man and his patterns of violence...but can he guess the next victim in time, before it is too late for the woman he loves?

Kissing the Beehive


Jonathan Carroll - 1997
    He tries to write but his characters are dull, lifeless. So his thoughts turn to his hometown, and the tragedy he once encountered there. Boyd was fifteen when he found Pauline Ostrova floating in the Hudson River. The official verdict was murder, and the girl's ex-boyfriend was convicted. But decades later, Boyd remains certain that the killer still lives in his bucolic Hudson town--and he's determined to write his next book about what really happened. He has come home for inspiration, but the longer he stays, the more Boyd's investigation spirals toward madness and a final, shocking conclusion.

American Gothic


Robert Bloch - 1974
    Its stone walls conceal a maze of secret passageways and hidden rooms, private laboratories and concealed trapdoors. The Castle is home to G. Gordon Gregg, physician-murderer. His victims are young, beautiful women. His methods are swift, scientific and painless, his crime perfect. Until a newspaper reporter becomes suspicious. Investigating Dr Gregg, Crystal finds herself falling in love with the charismatic surgeon, despite the danger. It id that love that seals her doom - for what G. Gordon Gregg loves, he kills...

The Manitou


Graham Masterton - 1975
    Karen Tandy was a sweet and unassuming girl until she discovers the mysterious lump growing underneath her skin. As the doctors and specialists are puzzling over the growth, Karen's personality is beginning to drastically change. The doctors decide there is only one thing to do, cut out the lump. But then it moved. Now a chain reaction has begun and everyone who comes in contact with Karen Tandy understands the very depths of terror. Her body and soul are being taken over by a black spirit over four centuries old. He is the remembrance of the evils the white man has bestowed on the Indian people and the vengeance that has waited four hundred years to surface. He is the Manitou.

Hide and Seek


Jack Ketchum - 1980
    Reckless, dangerous games. Games you might even want to play yourself if you're with the right people. But shouldn't. Not ever. In a small Maine town, a group of thrill seeking college kids finds a game of hide and seek in an abandoned house turning into a reality of stark terror.

Satori


Don Winslow - 2011
    Twenty-six-year-old Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement at the hands of the Americans. Hel is a master of hoda korosu, or "naked kill," is fluent in seven languages, and has honed extraordinary "proximity sense"-an extra-awareness of the presence of danger. He has the skills to be the world's most fearsome assassin and now the CIA needs him.The Americans offer Hel freedom, money, and a neutral passport in exchange for one small service: to go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union's commissioner to China. It's almost certainly a suicide mission, but Hel accepts. Now he must survive chaos, violence, suspicion, and betrayal while trying to achieve his ultimate goal of satori-the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world.

Cellars


John Shirley - 1982
    Monsters made of blood arise from drains, an invisible hellhound devours human flesh, feral children stalk the shadowy streets and make murder a terrifying game. Occult investigator Carl Lanyard risks his life, his love, and his sanity as he battles the unspeakable forces of darkness. A modern classic by a master of the macabre in a new revised edition.

The Cleanup


John Skipp - 1987
    And now, even though the streets are free of muggers, rapists, and pimps, there is one thing left to fear . . . Billy Rowe.

Dispatch


Bentley Little - 2005
    Then he's offered a job to do it for a living. It consumes his time, his mind, and eventually, his soul. Jason really should have stuck with freelance.

Let's Go Play at the Adams'


Mendal W. Johnson - 1974
    In the orderly, pleasant world Barbara inhabited, nice children -- and they were nice children — didn't hold an adult captive.But what Barbara didn't count on was the heady effect their new-found freedom would have on the children. Their wealthy parents were away in Europe, and in this rural area of Maryland, the next house was easily a quarter of a mile away. The power of adults was in their hands, and they were tempted by it. They tasted it and toyed with it -- their only aim was to test its limits. Each child was consumed by his own individual lust and caught up with the others in sadistic manipulation and passion, until finally, step by step, their grim game strips away the layers of childishness to reveal the vicious psyche, conceived in evil and educated in society's sophisticated violence, that lies always within civilized men.More than a terrifying horror story, Let's Go Play at the Adams' is a compelling psychological exercise of brooding insights and deadly implications.

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe


Edgar Allan Poe - 1849
    found in a bottle --Silence-a fable --Berenice --William Wilson --Ligeia --The assignation --The facts in the case of M. Valdemar --The pit and the pendulum --The fall of the house of usher --The cask of amontillado --A descent into the maelström --The tell-tale heart --The black cat --The masque of the red death --The gold-bug --The murders in the rue morgue --The purloined letter.

Harvest Home


Thomas Tryon - 1973
    The quiet, peaceful place was straight out of a bygone era, with well-cared-for Colonial houses, a white-steepled church fronting a broad Common. Ned and Beth Constantine chanced upon the hamlet and immediately fell in love with it. This was exactly the haven they dream of. Or so they thought.For Ned and his family, Cornwall Coombe was to become a place of ultimate horror.

Mystery Walk


Robert R. McCammon - 1983
      Born and raised in rural Alabama, Billy Creekmore was destined to be a psychic. His mother, a Choctaw Indian schooled in her tribe’s ancient mysticism, understands the permeable barrier between life and death—and can cross it. She taught the power to Billy and now he helps the dead rest in peace.   Wayne Falconer, son of one of the most fervent tent evangelists in the South, travels the country serving his father’s healing ministry. Using his unique powers to cure the flock, Little Wayne is on his way to becoming one of the popular and successful miracle workers in the country. He helps the living survive.   Billy and Wayne share more than a gift. They share a dream—and a common enemy. They are on separate journeys, mystery walks that will lead them toward a crossroad where the evil of their dreams has taken shape. One of them will reject the dark. The other will be consumed by it. But neither imagined just how monstrous and far-reaching the dark was, or that mankind’s fate would rest in their hands during an epic showdown of good versus evil.   From the author of Gone South, Boy’s Life, and the Matthew Corbett series, a master of suspense who has won the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards, Mystery Walk offers “creepy, subtle touches throughout [and] splendid Southern-town atmosphere” (Kirkus Reviews).