I'm always on the lookout for new goodies to add to my ever-growing library of ghoulish grimoires and hell-bound horrors. So here's a small look at some of my most recent acquisitions. If you see anything that makes your heart tremble, your sphincter clench, or your pearls clutched, leave a comment below, and I'll see about getting to a read-through and review sooner rather than later.
Going in alphabetical order by author, we start with:
Morningstar by Peter Atkins (1992, Harper)
The Morningstar's light is as cold as death--and as warm as blood
San Francisco has seen its share of tragedy and terror. But nothing has gripped it quite so icily as a recent string of grisly murders. Nearly twenty victims -- men, women, even children -- all apparently unconnected, all gruesomely disfigured, all neatly signed by the artist: 'Morningstar'.
Like most of the city's citizens, freelance journalist Donovan Moon is afraid to leave his home. But no journalist can resist a scoop, and when a friend passes on a confidential police report about the murders, Moon finds himself inexorably drawn into an arena of death, destiny, and unholy power.
For while the murderer may be guilty of inhuman crimes, it seems that his victims are from innocent. To save his sanity (and his life) Moon must search for the truth amidst a whirlwind of terror, madness, and dark desire.
Perfection by Marc Berenson (1991, Zebra)
He didn't pick just any girl. She had to look just right. The right kind of hair. The right arms and legs. The right curves in the right places. Little pieces of perfection. And there were lots of them in Los Angeles.
After he killed her, he'd cut pieces off -- carve them up. Like a sculptor. Then he'd wrap his treasures in clean butcher paper and store them in the deep cold of his freezer. Where they'd be safe. Where they'd last forever.
For Tim Flannigan, the case, horrible as it was, was just another series of brutal murders. Then someone close to him was added to the madman's gallery. Looking at her dismembered body, Flannigan promised her memory that he would tear off a piece of the killer for himself. And it was a promise he swore to keep...at any cost.
Bishop's Landing by Richard Forsythe (1980, Leisure)
The House didn't invite them to enter. The Evil wouldn't allow them to leave.
Dr. Albert Conrad, a clinical psychologist, had been researching the causes and effects of phobias and panic-fear reactions. He developed an experiment to flesh out his research, but he needed stable volunteers.
After much searching, Dr. Conrad found four willing subjects. He took them to a supposedly haunted house in Bishop's Landing for the study, scoffing at the whispered warnings of the frightened townspeople.
The house was waiting. The Evil was patient, and would soon rise to shred the study of fear with such unearthly terror that the survivors would envy the dead!
The Dark by James Herbert (1980, Signet)
It came like a malignant shadow, numbing people's minds with icy tendrils of blackness and seductively whispered promises of infinite power. And somewhere in the night...a beautiful little girl set her home ablaze and watched, smiling, while her mother burned... the inmates of an asylum slaughtered their attendants and set out on a senseless rampage of bloody destruction... the slimy tunnels of the London sewer system echoed with the dragging footsteps of creatures that had once been human, but were now gathering to make war on mankind....
All over the city -- in private homes, quiet parks, a jam-packed soccer stadium, on the roads and streets -- madness raged as the lights began to dim, fade, and go out, and humanity was relentlessly attacked by an ancient, unstoppable evil....
Jericho Falls by Christopher Hyde (1986, Avon)
People are dying in Jericho Falls. Suddenly. Mysteriously. Horribly.
Deep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the driver of a van suffers a stroke. He careens off the road, smashes his vehicle, and is killed instantly. But his van holds no ordinary cargo. And soon the nearby picture-postcard village of Jericho Falls will be plunged into the most terrifying disaster imaginable.
A powerfully lethal virus developed by the government has been leaked into the peacefully innocent town. The effects are horrific. But it is only when Sheriff Jack Slater and other leading citizens turn to the outside for help that the true nightmare is revealed: Jericho Falls must be wiped off the face of the earth...
In the gripping, page-turning tradition of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain and Dean R. Koontz's Strangers, Jericho Falls will chill you with a story that could happen anytime...anyplace.
The Voice in the Basement by T. Chris Martindale (1993, Pocket Books)
They searched for the house of their dreams. Instead they found a world of nightmares.
There was something about the small house in the Indiana woods that wasn't quite right. At first Cathy Ballard thought it was the size. But she and her husband were soon to learn it was something beyond earthly dimensions. Like the banging doors...the taunting voices...the heartwrenching vision of a hollow-eyed, spectral boy...the rapacious monsters in human form. The house was haunted by angry, restless ghosts -- both the victims and the perpetrators of past, unspeakable acts.
Cathy, a young college instructor eager for a new life, and Mitch, her husband, have signed up for an advanced course in terror: a terror that will lure Mitch past the gate that separates the known from the unknowable, to a place where Cathy can't follow. Until, driven by desperation, Cathy and Mitch discover the darkly hidden, psychic bond that will guide them together through life...beyond death...to confront the paralyzing face of evil itself.
Walkers by Graham Masterton (1989, Tor)
The Oaks
The huge old building is decrepit but gorgeous -- just the place for Jack Reed to build a posh country club. But the old sanitarium holds a deadly secret within its ornately-carved walls. Sixty years ago the psychopaths who filled its halls mysteriously disappeared...and have never been found.
Now the empty rooms echo to the soundless screaming of madmen trapped inside the brick and plaster, walking endlessly through the maze that is The Oaks. Here ring the terrified shrieks of a little boy, Jack's son, dragging into the hellish prison of the walls, held hostage by Quintus Miller, leader of the insane. Quintus took the killers into the walls; now, he insists, Jack Reed will set him free -- or his son will die.
The Brass Halo by James Nugent (1987, Critic's Choice)
The eyes of the soldier doll blazed like hot burning coals, and an old hatred flared up in my own eyes that almost matched them as I made an attempt to step over the dead body.
The Presence had just goaded me on and I was more than willing to oblige. I promptly fell flat on my face, because the hands of the dead man had just reached up and clasped both of my ankles in a grip of steel. The fingers held me when I tried to get away.
I lost my revolver when I fell, and having it where it wanted me, the devil doll began to advance, energized by the supernatural power using absolute correct bayonet procedure.
And then the grinning fiend waving before me began its fatal lunge...
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985, Tor)
Dan Simmons is the new master of horror, and Song of Kali is the terrifying proof. Its premise is simple: Robert Luczak, an American journalist on assignment in Calcutta, experiences firsthand unforgettably horrifying proof of the existence of the Cult of Kali.
Despite the banishment of the evil Goddess of Destruction thousands of years ago, Her terrible power lives: in the bleeding souls of followers who kill to give Her life. Luczak's nightmarish ordeal at the hands of Kali's fanatical followers is an experience told with such narrative power that it will haunt your dreams for nights long after you finish reading.
The Light at the End by John Skipp & Craig Spector (1986, Bantam)
Unique, funky, masterful, and unbearably suspenseful, The Light at the End is the stuff of nightmares. It's a guitar fill fingered by Satan, bizarre graffiti splashed in blood, blinding light where light has never shone before. Come, step below the streets of Manhattan for a ride you will never forget.
Ten murders on the New York subway -- all horrible, all inexplicable, no two alike. The city's tabloids blare forth headlines about a "Subway Psycho". The cops comb the island, looking for a vicious hoodlum or an escaped lunatic. Both are wrong--for both are assuming that the killer is human....
Only a handful of people know the truth about the demonic force that has taken over Manhattan's cavernous underground.
The terrible way Rudy died one night in the echoing depths of an isolated subway tunnel.
The creature he has now become -- a cunning creature boasting ancient and unlimited evil.
Worst of all, they know the dreadful fate he has in store for millions of innocent people....
The Hyde Effect by Steve Vance (1986, Leisure)
The Mangler
In the hills of Southern California, a series of violent and gruesome deaths occurs within the space of a few hours. The murders are attributed to some unknown, savage animal.
Precisely one month later, college student Meg Talley is attacked in the same manner. Astonishingly, she survives, but when she insists that her assailant was a hideous monster-like creature, she is called 'hysterical'.
Journalist Douglas Morgan, private eye Nick Grundel, and horror novelist Blake Corbett, however, have each theorized that the mangling, incredible though it seems, may be the work of a werewolf. Now they team up with Meg to pursue an intensive investigation. When a suspect is apprehended and confined, the four are on hand. But neither skeptics nor believers are prepared for the bone-chilling terror and cataclysmic violence that will be unleashed on the night of the January full moon....
Lightsource by Bari Wood (1985, Signet)
A physicist makes a great energy discovery--and disappears. Her research partner dies in a plane crash. And a brutally ambitious oil executive plots his last lethal strike...
Torture. Blackmail. Even murder. There was nothing David Lucci wouldn't do to stop Emily Brand from going public with her plans for an inexpensive, safe source of unlimited energy.
Because of what Emily Brand had done to him, over twenty years ago, David was going to use all of NARCON's vast resources to see that she paid for it--with her life...
Have you read anything by F. Paul Wilson? He's not quite in line with these books, but I enjoyed the couple of his novels I have read.
I've only read The Keep by him, but I greatly enjoyed it. I've heard more than one person recommend his "Repairman Jack" novels. I should give one of those a go one of these days.
Do.