Book picks similar to
Orca by Arthur Herzog III


horror
paperbacks-from-hell
thriller
fiction

Cat's Cradle


William W. Johnstone - 1986
    She was just a scrap of a girl clinging to a black cat with eerie yellow eyes. A lost child or an orphan, maybe. It was a miracle she had survived on Eden Mountain at all. Suddenly strange things began to happen in placid Ruger County, bizarre killings that the police couldn't solve. Horrifying accidents that the people couldn't comprehend. An insatiable beast was stalking their lovers' lanes, their swimming holes, and their children. No one noticed how quickly the little girl's pale cheeks turned pink with health. How her frail body filled out with sleek, lithe muscles and feline grace. And no one noticed that at night her innocent blue eyes turned an eerie, evil yellow ..."

Thresher


Michael R. Cole - 2018
    People go into the water and never return. Corpses of killer whales drift ashore, ravaged from enormous bite marks. A fishing trawler is found adrift, with a mysterious gash in its hull. Transferred to the coastal town of Merit, police officer Leonard Riker uncovers the horrible reality of an enormous Thresher shark lurking off the coast. Forty feet in length, it has taken a territorial claim to the waters near the town harbor. Armed with three-inch teeth, a scythe-like caudal fin, and unmatched aggression, the beast seeks to kill anything sharing the waters.

The Amityville Horror II


John G. Jones - 1982
    An inconspicuous hose in a sleepy Long Island suburb that gave rise to a monstrous evil, a terrible phenomenon that stunned the country. It was to be the dream home of the Lutz family, but it turned out to be a hell house. After just 28 days, the Lutzes fled in terror, convinced the house was possessed by evil spirits. Now comes the full terror of the Amityville horror, for the nightmare that Jay Anderson described was not the whole story. There is more, much more, and it is all disclosed for the first time in The Amityville Horror II. For four years after the Lutzes fled the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, they were followed and tormented by an inescapable evil. Now the reveal the harrowing details of their harrowing ordeal.

Lupe


Gene Thompson - 1977
    In San Francisco, Emily Blake and her husband David, a dermatologist, by an old Victorian in Pacific Heights and hope to start a family. Emily's happy plans are threatened when David begins an affair with a beautiful patient named Jennie. A visit to a mysterious young boy in the Mission District named Lupe starts a chain of events in motion that result in Jennie's death -- by spontaneous combustion -- a murder trial, a media circus, and demon possession.

Son of the Endless Night


John Farris - 1985
    Ancient and implacable -- armed with sensuality, delusion and horrible death -- it will join itself to human weakness in an unholy alliance.Not since The Exorcist has there been such a powerful novel of demonic possession as Son of the Endless Night.

Kronos Rising


Max Hawthorne - 2014
    Even though he knew the creature was right behind him, he wouldn't quit. He would make it. Just as that beacon of hope began to shine down upon him, the bright sun overhead vanished from view. Confused, he gazed wide-eyed as the daylight grew dim. Then he realized the ultimate horror: the creature had overtaken him, its jaws opened wide.""He was in its mouth."A coastal community faces the wrath of a mysterious sea creature in Max Hawthorne's heart pounding new novel, "Kronos Rising."Devastated by his wife's tragic drowning, Olympic hopeful Jake Braddock turns his back on fame and fortune and retreats to his childhood home of Paradise Cove, Florida. He accepts the job of town sheriff, hoping to find the solace he so desperately craves.He finds anything but.A series of horrifying deaths and disappearances send a flood of panic through the idyllic town. It is only after the ravaged carcass of a full-grown whale surfaces, however, that the real terror begins.Soon Jake finds himself drawn into an ancient-a mystery that ends with him adrift at sea, battling for survival against the deadliest predator the world has ever seen. It is a creature whose ancestors ruled the prehistoric seas. Now freed after eons of imprisonment, it has risen to reclaim the oceans of the world as its own.And it's hungry.

Earth Has Been Found


D.F. Jones - 1979
     Alien horror becomes a living nightmare as the xenos, meaning “strangers”, inflict mayhem on earth. International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course. National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Military officials, the government and the FBI work alongside physician Mark Freedman and Soviet scientists to uncover the supernatural mystery that lies behind these unexplainable events. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures that not even the wildest imagination could invent – sinister parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision. The terror that unfolds has terrifying consequences for all involved, and the invasion reveals something much more frightening and final than ever suspected. Earth Has Been Found is a gripping and chilling first contact sci fi novel, from classic science fiction author D. F. Jones.

Fathomless


Greig Beck - 2016
    Rumors of its existence in our modern oceans have persisted for centuries. Now, in a new adventure, the rumors explode into brutal and terrifying reality in FATHOMLESS, by GREIG BECK. Baranof Island, Gulf of Alaska, 1952. Jim Granger is searching for a place of legend. Known as ‘Bad Water’ by the island’s elders, it’s reputed to be home to many dangerous creatures. Through a seam in a cliff face, Jim finds what he seeks. He also finds, too late, that the water demon he was warned about is horrifyingly real. Today, Cate Granger is following in her grandfather’s footsteps. Along with a team of scientists and crew, she accidentally releases a creature from Earth’s primordial past into today’s oceans. The giant Megalodon shark follows its instinct and a genetic memory of a home that once existed millions of years ago along the Californian coast. Nothing is safe on or below the water as the monster stakes its claim on the world’s oceans. Now Cate and her team must do battle with a creature that has no rival, knows no fear, and regards humans as nothing more than prey. In FATHOMLESS, the greatest predator the world has ever known is coming home. “… combines the terror of Benchley's JAWS with the primordial horror of Alten's MEG in an adventure that is the best of both.” —Matthew Summers, Smash Dragons Book Reviews.

Twins: Dead Ringers


Bari Wood - 1977
    Made into the motion picture Dead Ringers by David Cronenberg.

Headhunter Reimagined


Michael Slade - 1984
    The Headhunter is loose on the streets of Vancouver. The psycho’s victims are everywhere - floating in the Fraser River, buried in a shallow grave, nailed to a totem pole on the university campus. All are women. All are headless.Then the taunting photographs arrive. Carefully posed shots of the women’s heads stuck on poles. The Mounties of Special X are up against a unique brand of killer. A killer whose sexual psychosis stretches back through Ecuador’s steaming jungle and a scream-filled New Orleans dungeon to a dead-of-winter manhunt in the Rocky Mountains a century ago.

Night Train


Thomas F. Monteleone - 1984
    Now the final nightmare must explode. Now the killing frenzy must begin...

Night Stone


Rick Hautala - 1986
    She couldn't believe they were really moving in. If it weren't for the wooden doll she had found in the closet of her new bedroom, she would have been miserable. But the strange hand-carved figure fascinated her, and she sensed with a child's instinct that she had to hide it from her parents...Hidden EvilIt was a house of darkness and shadows, but with her secret doll, Beth wasn't afraid. Not even when she heard the scratching and whispering at night. Not even when the tall massive stones of her dreams began to ooze with blood. For as she stared into the eyes of the wooden doll, she heard it call to her and felt the force of its evil power. And she knew that it was about to tell her what she had to do...

Famine


Graham Masterton - 1981
    Ed Hardesty, a wheat farmer, attempts to find out the source of the blight which has devastated the world.

Nightlife


Brian Hodge - 1991
    Justin Gray, a former small-time drug dealer in St. Louis, has arrived in Tampa, FL, to start a new life. But on his first night in town his buddy Erik takes him to a disco, where he tries a mild dose of skullflush. Another of Erik's friends takes a larger dose and is tranformed into a ravenous beast who practically devours four people on the dance floor and then commits suicide. Local dealer Tony Mendoza begins a search for Justin, the only witness who knows what really happened in the disco that night. Mendoza himself is sought by the Yanomamo warrior Kerebawa, who travels to America to retrieve skullflush and avenge its theft before it is sniffed by too much of Tampa's "nightlife."

The Kill Riff


David J. Schow - 1988
    Kristen, his beloved daughter, dying, pounded bloody and broken by feet and fists. Kristen, dead-as dead as Lucas' most hidden desires.In Lucas Ellington's eyes, the mindless crowd of rock n' rollers is blameless. His child was murdered by Whip Hand, the Ultimate Party Band. The main event.Whip Hand dissolved soon after the arena disaster but the musicians are still alive out there, still alive and kicking.Not for long. Lucas has sacrified one set of dreams; he will not surrender another. Instead of Kristen, he cradles revenge to his breast.His ultimate target: Gabriel Stannard. Whip Hand's lead singer.