Horror & Dark Fantasy 2001

File Updated: 31/01/02

New Horror & Dark Fantasy Titles 2001

Stephen King Black House Published September 2001 by HarperCollins at Ł17.99 ISBN: 0-00-710042 6
With Peter Straub

The house appears to have been painted a uniform black not only the boards, but every inch of the exterior, the porch, the trim, the rain gutters, even the windows. Black, from top to bottom. And that cannot be possible; in this guileless, good-hearted corner of the world, not even the most crazily misanthropic builder would turn his house into its own shadow.

French Landing, Wisconsin - home of Kingsland Ale, Goltz’s farm implements, Maxton’s old folks’ home and Radio KDCU, the voice of the Coulee Country. A comfortable, solid middle-American town inhabited by comfortable, solid middle-Americans; and a serial killer.
Ten-year-old Irma Freneau’s mutilated body lies in the rotting ruins of Ed’s Eats & Dawgs in the woods close to the Black House. No one has discovered her yet; no one, that is, except for a host of flies and a wild dog. But her severed foot, complete with size 5 New Balance sneaker and an obscene note, is about to make its way home to French Landing, packed into a shoebox.
Slippage is occurring in the Coulee Country. Three children have been lost to the world. Three children: slaughtered by a fiend with a taste for child’s flesh. Linking the murders with those carried out by a previous century’s serial killer, the local newspaper has dubbed the perpetrator `The Fisherman’, and if local police chief Dale Gilbertson doesn’t catch the Fisherman soon, he’ll lose his job, and another French Landing mother will lose her child.
If only Jack `Hollywood’ Sawyer-the ex-detective from LA who cracked their last case for them - would help, Dale might save his neck. But, plagued by visions of another world, Jack has retired to this pretty rural retreat precisely to avoid such horrors. And having recognized the touch of madness on this case, he has no wish to revisit the Territories whence such madness issues.
Soon, he’ll have no choice: for the Fisherman is about to select his fourth victim. Tyler Marshall, left behind one afternoon by his bullying friends, pedals past Maxton Elder Care and is accosted by a crow. ‘Gorg!’ it caws, and ‘Ty!’ What ten-year-old could resist a bird that speaks his name? Not Ty, that’s for sure. And as he follows the crow towards the old folks’ home, he is grabbed by the neck and dragged into a hedge.
The Fisherman has made another catch...
Black House is a masterwork from two of the greatest storytellers of our time.

About The Author
Stephen King is the bestselling author of more than thirty books of which the most recent are Bag of Bones, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Hearts In Atlantis. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King in Bangor, Maine.

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Will Kingdom Mean Spirit Pbk published July 2001 by Bantam at Ł9.99 ISBN: 0-593-04896-2

The lines are open…
…but the messages are sounding bleak for Seffi Callard - cool, charismatic, beautiful and now the world’s best-known spiritualist medium. Suddenly a victim of her own remarkable gifts, she’s been forced to back away from the glow of public adulation, becoming a paranoid recluse at her father’s home in the Cotswolds.
Maybe the only person who can understand Seffi’s crisis is her old schoolteacher Marcus Bacton, who was the first to identify her skills. Marcus, now editor of an obscure journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, American journalist Grayle Underhill, to Seffi’s rural hideaway . . . and into a nightmare.
Who is stalking Seffi Callard - and from which side of the grave? The search for an answer will involve disillusioned police detective Bobby Maiden and the eccentric entertainer Cindy Mars-Lewis - himself facing vilification by his public after a series of bizarre tragedies linked to the national obsession with getting rich quick.
At a Victorian neo-Gothic castle in the Malvern Hills they discover that, four one psychopathic killer, getting rich is less important than never getting dead.
Brilliant and original, Will Kingdom’s second novel - full of sharp characterization, black humour and electrifying suspense - will convince you that there really are more crimes in heaven and earth .,. .
Acclaim for Cold Calling
'Kingdom is a major discovery… combines crime thriller with the supernatural without diminishing either' The Times
‘Part Wicker Man, part trad-whodunnit, part tough gangster thriller, The Cold Calling finally stands revealed as a tidy charmer and Kingdom as` a real find.’ Crimetime
‘An unusual and enjoyable thriller set among the prehistoric sites of Britain’ Chic
About The Author
Will Kingdom is a journalist who has specialised in the paranormal. He is married and lives at the foot of the Black Mountains,

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Brian Lumley Necroscope Avengers Published February 2001 by Hodder & Stoughton at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0 340 79247 7
E-Branch Volume 3
They're on the run! Now that their monstrous vampire 'gardens' under London, in Australia and on the Greek island of Krassos have been razed, two 'Lords' and a 'Lady' of the Wamphyri - Malinari the Mind, Lord Szwart and the hag Vavara - have joined forces, leaving a trail of undead destruction as they flee headlong from Ben Trask's E-Branch and the dead-waking Necroscope, Jake Cutter.
But headstrong Jake has problems of his own. In the metaphysical Mobius Continuum, it appears that his blue life-thread - the emblem of his humanity - is gradually fading, changing to red.
And not only red but blood red, dreaded insignia of the Great Vampire!
Could this be the downside of Harry Keogh's legacy? And if so, are the Necroscope and Trask's ESP-talented Avengers - his team of precogs, telepaths, and locators - hastening in pursuit of their own hideous doom? Earth's fate is undecided, mankind's destiny on hold, the future a page as yet unwritten.
And the future was ever a devious thing...
Don't forget to look at Brian Lumley's website: http:// www.brianlumley.com
Praise for Brian Lumley
'Vast in scope ... This new novel carries on the tradition in fine form. During an explosive start, the novel introduces Jake Cutter, another of Lumley’s gutsy populist heroes. A climactic encounter in the Australian mountains gets the action roaring [at] the story's finale' Publishers Weekly (E-Branch: Invaders)
'Lumley is an excellent contemporary horror writer` The Guardian
'One of the best writers in the field' John Farris
'Wide-angle horror of a scope too rarely seen in modern fiction ... a feast for a horror fan' F. Paul Wilson
‘Necroscope fans will find themselves reading as fast as Lumley can type’ Kirkus Reviews

About The Author
Brian Lumley's list of published books now runs to some forty volumes. A prolific author, he has seen the bulk of his work in print in the last sixteen years, following a full span of twenty-two years of military service.
1986 saw the first publication of his groundbreaking horror novel Necroscope whose instant success led on to four more books (Wamphyri!, The Source, Deadspeak and Deadspawn) in the original series, the related Vampire World trilogy and, most recently, the two volumes of Necroscope: The Lost Years. In Britain all of these books have seen multiple reprints. In America, Lumley's books have sold well in excess of two million copies.
Meanwhile, Necroscope comic books, graphic novels, a role-playing game and quality figurines have been created from themes or characters in the books. The novels themselves have been translated into many languages and published all over the world.
Brian Lumley is a past winner of the British Fantasy Award for his short story, Fruiting Bodies. He won the Fear Magazine Award for Necroscope Ill: The Source. And at the World Horror Convention, Phoenix, 1998, he was awarded the title, Grandmaster of Horror …

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Brian Lumley Necroscope Avengers Pbk published September 2001 by NEL at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0-340-79248 5

E-Branch Volume 3
They're on the run! Now that their monstrous vampire 'gardens' under London, in Australia and on the Greek island of Krassos have been razed, two 'Lords' and a 'Lady' of the Wamphyri - Malinari the Mind, Lord Szwart and the hag Vavara - have joined forces, leaving a trail of undead destruction as they flee headlong from Ben Trask's E-Branch and the dead-waking Necroscope, Jake Cutter.
But headstrong Jake has problems of his own. In the metaphysical Mobius Continuum, it appears that his blue life-thread - the emblem of his humanity - is gradually fading, changing to red.
And not only red but blood red, dreaded insignia of the Great Vampire!
Could this be the downside of Harry Keogh's legacy? And if so, are the Necroscope and Trask's ESP-talented Avengers - his team of precogs, telepaths, and locators - hastening in pursuit of their own hideous doom? Earth's fate is undecided, mankind's destiny on hold, the future a page as yet unwritten.
And the future was ever a devious thing...
Don't forget to look at Brian Lumley's website: http:// www.brianlumley.com
Praise for Brian Lumley
'Vast in scope ... This new novel carries on the tradition in fine form. During an explosive start, the novel introduces Jake Cutter, another of Lumley’s gutsy populist heroes. A climactic encounter in the Australian mountains gets the action roaring [at] the story's finale' Publishers Weekly (E-Branch: Invaders)
'Lumley is an excellent contemporary horror writer` The Guardian
'One of the best writers in the field' John Farris
'Wide-angle horror of a scope too rarely seen in modern fiction ... a feast for a horror fan' F. Paul Wilson
‘Necroscope fans will find themselves reading as fast as Lumley can type’ Kirkus Reviews
About The Author
Brian Lumley's list of published books now runs to some forty volumes. A prolific author, he has seen the bulk of his work in print in the last sixteen years, following a full span of twenty-two years of military service.
1986 saw the first publication of his groundbreaking horror novel Necroscope whose instant success led on to four more books (Wamphyri!, The Source, Deadspeak and Deadspawn) in the original series, the related Vampire World trilogy and, most recently, the two volumes of Necroscope: The Lost Years. In Britain all of these books have seen multiple reprints. In America, Lumley's books have sold well in excess of two million copies.
Meanwhile, Necroscope comic books, graphic novels, a role-playing game and quality figurines have been created from themes or characters in the books. The novels themselves have been translated into many languages and published all over the world.
Brian Lumley is a past winner of the British Fantasy Award for his short story, Fruiting Bodies. He won the Fear Magazine Award for Necroscope Ill: The Source. And at the World Horror Convention, Phoenix, 1998, he was awarded the title, Grandmaster of Horror …

New Books by Brian Lumley at Amazon.co.uk

Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Brian Lumley at Alibris.com

Brian Lumley Necroscope Defilers Pbk published January 2001 by NEL at Ł5.99 ISBN: 0-340-79246-9

E-Branch Volume 2
Jake Cutter is reluctantly learning how to be a Necroscope - how to use the Mobius continuum to travel instantaneously from place to place, how to talk to the dead - but the dead don't like him much. It seems Jake's got a hitchhiker in his mind, a dead vampire named Korath. Since Korath holds the key to the Mobius equations, Jake can't just kick him out ... though he's certainly trying!
Jake's not sure he really wants to be a member of E-Branch, the supersecret ESP-powered organisation that's dedicated to eradicating the vampire infestation of Earth. To the freewheeling, passionate Jake, the E-Branchers seem a little stuffy and hidebound - except for the lovely Liz, whom Jake wants to get to know better, body and mind. But Liz is a telepath, and if Jake's not careful, she'll find out about Korath. And that will likely be the end of Jake Cutter.
In Australia, Jake helped E-Branch destroy the aerie of the mind-master, Nephran Malinari, one of the trio of Great Vampires who came to Earth from the vampire world. Malinari escaped and went to ground with the hideously beautiful Lady Vavara. Vavara has taken over a holy monastery on an idyllic Greek island and turned the nuns into most unholy creatures of fearsome appetites for all things carnal.
Jake wants revenge against the Italian mobsters who killed the woman he loved, and nearly killed him. As far as he's concerned, E-Branch can search for Malinari, Vavara, and the metamorphic Lord Szwart without him until he's satisfied his own bloodlust. But it seems vampire-hunting is truly Jake's job now - the men he's trying to kill aren't men at all, but vampire spawn, hidden for two generations in human guise!
To defeat them, Jake will need every weapon in Necroscope's arsenal, including the power to call the unsleeping dead out of their mouldering graves ...

About The Author
Brian Lumley's list of published books now runs to some forty volumes. A prolific author, he has seen the bulk of his work in print in the last sixteen years, following a full span of twenty-two years of military service.
1986 saw the first publication of his groundbreaking horror novel Necroscope whose instant success led on to four more books (Wamphyri!, The Source, Deadspeak and Deadspawn) in the original series, the related Vampire World trilogy and, most recently, the two volumes of Necroscope: The Lost Years. In Britain all of these books have seen multiple reprints. In America, Lumley's books have sold well in excess of two million copies.
Meanwhile, Necroscope comic books, graphic novels, a role-playing game and quality figurines have been created from themes or characters in the books. The novels themselves have been translated into many languages and published all over the world.
Brian Lumley is a past winner of the British Fantasy Award for his short story, Fruiting Bodies. He won the Fear Magazine Award for Necroscope Ill: The Source. And at the World Horror Convention, Phoenix, 1998, he was awarded the title, Grandmaster of Horror …

New Books by Brian Lumley at Amazon.co.uk

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Kim Newman Dracula Cha Cha Cha Pbk published May 2001 by Pocket Books at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0-671-02209-1

See Review by Jay Russell - one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears)
Anno Dracula 1959
Rome, 1959. Remember? The Via Veneto, la dolce vita. Coins in the fountain, trysts in cafes, midnight bacchanals, parties till dawn. We danced giddily to the music of the Dracula Cha Cha Cha.
Jet setters, intellectuals, artists, film stars, socialites, vampires - everyone who was anyone among the living and the undead was making the scene in the External City that year. Celebrities rollicked; warm blood flowed. Paparazzi were flashing bulbs everywhere, and the vampire press had gathered to cover the upcoming social event of at least several centuries: the October wedding of Vlad, Count Dracula, in Italian exile from Transylvania, to the Moldavian princess Asa Vajda. Rumour had it that the marriage marked the first step in the vampire king's campaign to restore his power and position as Lord of the Undead.
Vampire star reporter Kate was there. She got detoured in her pursuit of a scoop on the royal couple not by coins but by corpses in the Fontana di Trevi. All over Rome, in fact, vampire elders were falling in the gory path of a flamboyant murderer known only as the Crimson Executioner. Undead British secret agent Bond, a vampire with a license to kill, was called in on the case, but ultimately the fates of all of us - the lovers, knaves, monsters, and revelers, as well as Count Dracula himself - were determined by the ancient-of-ancients Mater Lachrymarum: child, saint, harlot, crone, and Italy's own Mother of Tears.
You don't remember? Once you've read Kim Newman's blood-chilling new volume, which continues the vampire history of his Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron, you will never forget.
Dracula Cha Cha Cha sees the reunion of the previous protagonists of Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, together with a fascinating and iconic array of characters. From the unscrupulous American Tom Ripley, to a vampiric Commander Bond, from actor/director/story-teller Orson Welles to the Mater Lachrymarum - a spirit even older than the Lord of the Undead himself.
‘He writes with sparkling verve and peppers the text with cinematic and literary references. Dracula Cha Cha Cha has full rations of gore, shocks and sty laughs’ The Times
`Engaging, breathlessly clever’ SFX
‘Newman is endlessly inventive in his creation of this world and deeply touching in his characterisation’ Dreamwatch
Praise for the Anno Dracula Series
'A ripping yarn, an adventure romp of the best blood, and a satisfying… read' Washington Post Book World
'Powerful... compelling entertainment... a fiendishly clever banquet of dark treats' San Francisco Chronicle
'Anno Dracula will leave you breathless... one of the most creative novels of the year' Seattle Times
'A major novel, original in concept, witty and inventive in execution' Science Fiction Chronicle
Praise for Kim Newman
'Newman's prose is a delight, his attention to detail spellbinding' Time Out
'Newman delivers a splendid congeries of fact fiction and nightmare' Daily Mail
About The Author
Kim Newman is a highly respected film writer and broadcaster, well known for his regular appearances on television and radio. He is the author of The BFI Companion to Horror (ed), and is also a multi award-winning, best-selling horror novelist, an enthusiastic pundit of SF writing, and one of Britain's great eccentrics.
Born in Brixton in 1959, he grew up in Somerset, graduated in English at Sussex University, before coming to London in 1980 working with the Bridgwater Arts and Entertainment Collective as a Kazoo player and cabaret performer. He is the author of several specialist film books and is a regular film reviewer for Empire and Sight And Sound magazines.
Kim has published several highly successful novels: The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, The Quorum, Life's Lottery and his earlier reworkings of the Dracula mythology Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron plus three collections of short stories: Famous Monsters, The Original Dr Shade and Seven Stars.
Anno Dracula won the Children of the Night Award for Best Novel from the Dracula Society and the Best Novel Award from the Lord Ruthven Assembly. It was also a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. The Quorum, Dr Shade and Anno Dracula have all been optioned for movies.
Kim is currently working on a new novel An English Ghost Story, and with Eugene Byrne, a novel cycle entitled The Matter of Britain. He also promises to continue the Anno Dracula sequence of novels. He lives in Islington, north London and has written 8 1/2 novels.

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Kim Newman Andy Warhol's Dracula: Binary 2 Pbk published January 2001 by Gollancz Millenium at Ł4.99 ISBN: 1-85798-760-8
'Moving like a wraith in an ever narrowing gyre around the very solid Andy Warhol is Ion Popescu, a vampire transplant from Romania, reborn here as Johnny Pop. Revelations leap at you from every page. You nod in recognition, you smile in wonder (in envy if you're writer) at the marvels of interconnectedness and correspondence between Johnny Pop's 70s and the decade the rest of us survived.' F. Paul Wilson
'A seriously swinging tale that takes a fond swipe at the decade everyone loves to remember. Like some deranged pop art, it is full of colour and large characters and, also like art, you can seemingly spend hours in its company' amazon.co.uk
'Suddenly Andy Warhol's life makes sense' SFSite.com
'Wonderfully clever' The Times
About The Author
Kim Newman is a highly respected film writer and broadcaster, well known for his regular appearances on television and radio. He is the author of The BFI Companion to Horror (ed), and is also a multi award-winning, best-selling horror novelist, an enthusiastic pundit of SF writing, and one of Britain's great eccentrics.
Born in Brixton in 1959, he grew up in Somerset, graduated in English at Sussex University, before coming to London in 1980 working with the Bridgwater Arts and Entertainment Collective as a Kazoo player and cabaret performer. He is the author of several specialist film books and is a regular film reviewer for Empire and Sight And Sound magazines.
Kim has published several highly successful novels: The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, The Quorum, Life's Lottery and his earlier reworkings of the Dracula mythology Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron plus three collections of short stories: Famous Monsters, The Original Dr Shade and Seven Stars.
Anno Dracula won the Children of the Night Award for Best Novel from the Dracula Society and the Best Novel Award from the Lord Ruthven Assembly. It was also a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. The Quorum, Dr Shade and Anno Dracula have all been optioned for movies.
Kim is currently working on a new novel An English Ghost Story, and with Eugene Byrne, a novel cycle entitled The Matter of Britain. He also promises to continue the Anno Dracula sequence of novels. He lives in Islington, north London and has written 8 1/2 novels.

New Books by Kim Newman at Amazon.co.uk

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Anne Rice Blood and Gold Published October 2001 by Chatto & Windus at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0 701 16719 X
Blood and Gold is the latest mesmerising and exotic vampire novel from the mistress of the genre.
Here is the gorgeous and sinister story of Marius, patrician by birth, scholar by choice, one of the oldest vampires of them all, which sweeps from his genesis in ancient Rome, in the time of the Emperor Augustus, to his meeting in the present day with a creature of snow and ice. Thorne is a Northern vampire in search of Maharet, his `maker’, the ancient Egyptian vampire queen who holds him and others in thrall with chains made of her red hail `bound with steel and with her blood and gold’.
When the Visigoths sack his city, Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory that was Rome, he is there, still searching for his lost love Pandora, but bewitched in turn by Botticelli, by the Renaissance beauty Bianca, with her sordid secrets, and by the boy he calls Amadeo.
Criss-crossing through the stories of other vampires from Rice’s glorious Pantheon of the undead, haunted by Pandora and by his alter ego Mael, tracked by the Talamasca, the tale of Marius, the self-styled guardian of `those who must be kept’ is the most wondrous and mindblowing of them all.
Praise for Anne Rice
Memnoch Te Devil
`Rice’s most passionate and inventive work since Interview with the Vampire, Memnoch has a half-maddened fever-pitch intensity and tells a tale as old as Scripture’s legends and as modern as today’s religious warfare.’ Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone
'Lavish descriptions, rapid narrative, gorgeous costume, and larger-than-life heroes, all against the biggest concept of them all: immortality.' Guardian
The Vampire Armand
`She always has sympathy for her devils... it is not just the epic plot but Rice’s voluptuary world that’s the main attraction... Elegant narrative... Anne Rice fans will be delighted..’ Washington Post
`Fans of Rice’s bestselling Vampire series will rush out to buy this new one... inventive fare.’ Mail on Sunday

About The Author
Having lost her mother when she was 15 years old and later on a daughter to leukaemia, Anne Rice created tales of vampires and everlasting life to help her through the pain. She attended college in San Francisco with her husband, poet Stan Rice who she married after high school.
She has written many novels about vampires, witches and all the things your parents told you didn't exist through which she has built an adoring readership, regularly answering readers' questions on the Internet.

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Christopher Rice A Density of Souls Pbk published January 2002 by Pan at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0-330-48933 X

In the brooding milieu of New Orleans, four friends are about to discover the fragile boundaries between loyalty and betrayal. Once inseparable, Meredith, Brandon, Stephen and Greg enter high school only to learn that their friendship cannot withstand the envy and rage of adolescence. Their individual struggles are fuelled by the generations of family feuds and furtive passions hoarded within their opulent Garden District homes, and soon two violent deaths disrupt the core of this closeted society.
Five years later, the former friends are drawn back together as new facts about their mutual history are revealed and what was once held to be a tragic accident is discovered to be murder. As the true story emerges, long-kept secrets begin to unravel and the casual cruelties of high school develop into acts of violence that threaten to destroy an entire community.
A Density of Souls marks a stunning debut and its series of shocking twists will leave you reeling. Bold, compelling and haunting, this is American gothic in a new and intriguing guise.
‘Less than Zero meets Donna Tartt spiced with Stephen King’ New York Magazine
About The Author
Christopher Rice is the son of Anne Rice, bestselling novelist, and Stan Rice, the poet. He grew up in New Orleans and now lives in Los Angeles. This is his first book.

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Phil Rickman The Cure of Souls Published December 2001 by Macmillan at Ł16.99 ISBN: 0-333-90623 3
The third chilling mystery for Rev. Merrily Watkins as diocesan exorcist.
As high summer bakes the rich, heavy earth of the Frome Valley in north-east Herefordshire, dark shadows gather - quite literally - around a converted hopkiln where the last owner was savagely murdered.
Though the local vicar dismisses claims by the current occupants that the place is haunted, their story is soon splashed over a Sunday newspaper - and the diocesan Deliverance Minister, the Revd Merrily Watkins, is directed by the Bishop of Hereford to defuse the situation. Merrily, however, is already contending with a similar problem involving a woman’s claim that her adopted teenage daughter is possessed by evil.
In both cases Merrily remains unconvinced but, in this summer of oppressive heat and sudden storms, nothing is ever going to be quite what it seems. As she is drawn into a tangle of trickery, deceit, corruption and sexual menace, her hastily conducted exorcism produces unhappy results. With Merrily’s increasing paranoia putting both her faith and her future on the line, and the whole concept of Deliverance now facing public trial, she and her good friend Lol Robinson can only try to uncover the secrets of Knight’s Frome - a village concealing a past as twisted as the bines on the hop-plants once surrounding it.
The two of them discover how local history became entwined with the legacy and superstitions of the Romany gypsies who once harvested these crops. It seems the Rom have long memories - allegedly on both sides of the grave - and for them the darkest hour could be noon, the time of no shadows.
'Dark ritual and psychic unrest confront Britain's first female exorcist. Watkins is an endearing fictional creation, fallible and interesting in her own right, and the genre in which she makes her mark is an intriguing one . . . a series and a character to watch’ Publishing News
`A highly sophisticated crime novel . . . its complex narrative grips like a clamp. Rickman makes us care about his characters . . . is brilliant at dialogue’ Andrew Taylor, Crime Time

About The Author
Phil Rickman was born in Lancashire. He has won awards for his TV and radio journalism, and his highly acclaimed earlier novels are Candlenight, Crybbe, The Man in the Moss, December, The Chalice and The Wine of Angels. He is married and lives on the Welsh Border.

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Phil Rickman A Crown of Lights Pbk published December 2001 by Pan at Ł5.99 ISBN: 0-330-48450 8

When a redundant country church is bought by a pagan couple, the local evangelical minister reacts with fury. A modern witchhunt begins and Merrily Watkins, diocesan exorcist, is expected to keep the lid on this cauldron. But when the truth begins to emerge, her loyalty to the Church is seriously tested. Meanwhile, there is the problem of the man who won’t be parted from his dead wife. And the ancient mystery of the five local churches dedicated to St Michael, slayer of dragons. Also, a killer with an old tradition to guard . . .
`Supernatural events subtly introduced… paragraphs like lightning flashes… has you ransacking the English language for adequate words of praise. ‘Faultless’ springs to mind…‘ John Whitbourn, SFX
'A steaming brew that teeters on the edge of serious violence. A cracking read' Tribune
About The Author
Phil Rickman was born in Lancashire. He has won awards for his TV and radio journalism, and his highly acclaimed earlier novels are Candlenight, Crybbe, The Man in the Moss, December, The Chalice and The Wine of Angels. He is married and lives on the Welsh Border.

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Peter Straub Koko Pbk published May 2001 by HarperCollins at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0-00-710367-0

`KOKO. . .’Only four men knew what it meant. Vietnam vets. One was a doctor. One was a lawyer. One was a working stiff. One was a writer. All were as different as men could be - yet all were bound eternally together by a single shattering secret.
And now they are joined together again on a quest that could take them from the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York, hunting an inhuman ghost of the past risen from nightmare darkness to kill and kill and kill...
`Complexly plotted, thickly layered evil . . . the ultimate horror!’ New York Times
‘Brilliantly written… an inspired thriller… his finest work’ Washington Post
`An enormously entertaining and scary story . . . rich, complex, dark and tough to put down.’ New York Daily News
`A dead-centre hit . . . a gripping, enthralling, non-stop read.’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘A blood-chilling hair-raiser!’ Los Angeles Times
‘A masterpiece . . . a crime novel, a suspense novel, a horror novel and a study of human relationships. Fascinating and complex.’ Houston Post
‘Gripping . . . The characters are realistic and complex, and the story continues to resonate in the mind long after the final page is turned.’ Publishers Weekly
‘Vastly entertaining and brilliantly written . . . evokes bizarre fevers and brimstone terror . . . Peter Straub flexes all his muscles . . . his style is at its peak . . . Koko is his finest work . . . with an inspired, wonderfully handled ending . . . judged as a thriller it deserves to be compared to the best.’ Washington Post
‘Remarkable . . . an unusual and wonderfully suspenseful thriller . . . evokes a fascinating and frightening picture of war and its aftermath.’ Boston Herald
About The Author
Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was educated at the University of Wisconsin, Columbia University and University College, Dublin. He is the author of fourteen novels, including Ghost Story, Shadowland, The Talisman (with Stephen King), Koko, Mystery and The Throat. He has won the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award and two World Fantasy Awards, and his books have been translated into twenty one languages. For a decade he lived in Ireland and England, and he now resides in New York City, where he is working on a new collaboration with Stephen King: Black House, a sequel to their acclaimed co-written bestseller, The Talisman.

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Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Peter Straub at Alibris.com

Peter Straub Mr X Pbk published February 2001 by HarperCollins at Ł6.99 ISBN: 0-00-651375

Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan has a paralysing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious figure in black whom he calls Mr X. Now with his birthday fast approaching, Ned has been drawn back to his home town of Edgetton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother is dying. On her deathbed, she imparts to him the name of his long absent father and warns him that he is in grave danger: Despite her foreboding he embarks on a search through Edgerton's past for the truth behind his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family. But when Ned becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths, he begins to realize that he is not the only one who has come home. . .
'Mr X marks Straub’s triumphant return to the tale of the paranormal and the supernatural. When Peter Straub turns on all his jets, no one in the scream factory can equal him. The plot is challenging, the characters are intriguing in their complexity and the language is a delight’ Stephen King
`No one is better than Straub at having whole communities rocked by the forces of wickedness.' Observer
'Simply take a small sown hr southern Illinois, filled with twisting alleys and strange buildings peopled with folk with Dickensian names, who are all oddly related to each other. Add some peculiarly nasty murders spiked with incest and skulduggery going back several generations. Then throw in a dash of time travel with a hint of brimstone and creeping blue fire. Straub stirs in a strong contemporary narrative, an ambiguous hero and a clutch of deliciously decadent relatives who simply leap from the page … spices it with a twist of bittersweet jazz and shakes the whole concoction well with the mastery of the seasoned storyteller with the power to shock, intrigue and chill… Peter Straub, who shot to literary prominence twenty years ago with his groundbreaking novel Ghost Story, returns with panache to the supernatural which over the years he has made so much his own. Powerfully told ... it's a must for every horror aficionado, but also recommended for anyone who enjoys the challenge of a meaty, meandering whodunit.' Daily Express
'A dauntingly tangled mystery ... continually surprising… wonderfully devious.' Miami Herald
'In this bravura new outing, Straub returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural . . . One of the most invigorating horror reads of the year.' Publishes Weekly
'Entertaining . . . another monster thriller.' Chicago Tribune
'An enthralling, complex tale’ Amazon.com
About The Author
Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was educated at the University of Wisconsin, Columbia University and University College, Dublin. He is the author of fourteen novels, including Ghost Story, Shadowland, The Talisman (with Stephen King), Koko, Mystery and The Throat. He has won the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award and two World Fantasy Awards, and his books have been translated into twenty one languages. For a decade he lived in Ireland and England, and he now resides in New York City, where he is working on a new collaboration with Stephen King: Black House, a sequel to their acclaimed co-written bestseller, The Talisman.

New Books by Peter Straub at Amazon.co.uk

Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Peter Straub at Alibris.com