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Last Update 6/23/24

Cinderwich by Cherie Priest, Apex, 2024

Two women investigate the possible murder of a third - who might have the aunt of one and the lover of the other - in a small town where various odd events have been happening. They meet three women who might fairly be described as witches, and others who want the notoriety to end, even though the mystery of the dead woman - whose body has disappeared - is the only attraction in the small town.  They find out more than they expected in a nicely crafted story, although I found the end disappointing. Although the major question is answered, there are at least half a dozen others that are left hanging. What happened to the body? How was she killed? What is the nature of the occult force in town? How did the three women learn about it? There should have been much more story. 6/23/24

The Night School by Michael Paine, Berkley, 2006

This is a quite good suspense novel involving efforts to open a posh private high school in a renovated building that happens to be built over the unmarked grave of a French officer who was murdered by George Washington. The ghost is very powerful. It can speak through electronic equipment. It can influence people within range and cause them to throw acid at each other, or bring firearms to school, or commit a massacre with an antique sword that was found during the renovation. The violence escalates quite rapidly and literally dozens are people are killed before the building collapses. It appears the ghost is at peace, but there is a hint at the end that it will reappear when the site is redeveloped as a mall.  6/7/24

Mistress of Dark Fantasy by Dorothy Quick, Armchair, 2023 

This collects almost all of this writer’s short fiction, most of which first appeared in Weird Tales. She was not a bad writer, but she used the same themes – star crossed lovers, reincarnated enemies, mysterious men and women who virtually hypnotize their victims, and dream sequences. The best story she wrote is “Turn Over,” her only venture into humor. A man who insists his family will have him turning in his grave arranges for a larger than normal coffin with sensors and alarms so that they can tell whenever he does so. And he does so a lot. Not a lost master but the stories are all readable. 6/7/24

Steel Ghosts by Michael Paine, Berkley, 2005 

A film company scouts an abandoned mill which was the scene of a large number of accidental deaths over the years. The ghosts of the dead inhabit the building and have no intention of allowing outsiders to interfere with them. Some intruders are burned to death by phantom rains of molten steel. Others die in various other ways. The situation boils along while a number of characters make their way through complicated interactions leading to the climax, where the mill and the town itself are destroyed. Much more overt than the author’s previous books, but somehow less suspenseful. 6/1/24

Owl Light by Michael Paine, Charter, 1989

A very atmospheric horror novel which involves the battle between science and religion. A conservative preacher and a college professor clash publicly about the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools. A mischievous young woman seduces them both, plus a confused and vulnerable high school student. The preacher turns out to be a hypocrite and a liar. The professor cheats on his wife, and is more interested in his career than his students. The woman, Sybil, is able to bring the dead back to life and she uses that power to kill the professor’s wife. Her presence ruins all three lives. 5/25/24

You Like It Darker by Stephen King, Scribner, 2024

The high point for me in this new collection is the complete novel included, in which a man has a vision of a buried body and gets into great difficulties after reporting it to the police. There is also a sequel to Cujo, along with a bunch of varied stories involving prophecies, alien visitations, an encounter with murderers on a remote road, inhuman creatures who can only be detected by using cell phones, a secret organization that prevents aircraft from crashing, and other plots. Despite the title, these stories are much less intense, violent, and scary than most of King's previous short fiction, but they are still all quite engaging. The novel alone is worth the price of admission - although I must admit $30 is a lot of money. 500 pages, though. 5/23/24

The Colors of Hell by Michael Paine, Charter, 1990 

Once again the author keeps the horror elements mostly off stage. There are two stories which converge. One is cast in the form of a memoir written by a woman who was searching for a magical source of glass and who found more than she bargained for, ending up as abbess of a convent which is ostensibly but not actually Christian. The second story involves her sister and a few others who come looking for her in order to settle their father’s will. The sister are not close and in fact do not meet until near the end of the novel, which ends with murder and some kind of breakdown, perhaps more than one. A young nun exhibits stigmata and experiences dark visions. The local revere the convent’s occupants, but prefer not to have much to do with them. What is really going on? I liked this but it was not up to the level of his first two books. 5/18/24

Cities of the Dead by Michael Paine, Charter, 1988 

I had forgotten how good this understated horror novel is. For one thing, it avoids the standard plots that dominated the genre at the time. It is the story of a tour guide in British controlled Egypt who is puzzled by the appearance of anomalous mummies, the arrival of a priest and several nuns who deliberately demolish ancient ruins, a quest for the secret of immortality, the animation of inanimate objects, and other lesser plot elements. There are some very creepy scenes even though the author keeps the overt stuff at arm’s length, allowing our imagination to fill in the gruesome details. A very promising debut novel. Paine was the pseudonym of John Curlovich. 5/11/24

The Instruments of Darkness by John Connolly, Emily Bestler, 2024

The latest Charlie Parker novel is more of a traditional detective story than usual and there is only one brief gun fight. A woman is charged with murdering her infant son and hiding his body. Parker is hired to look into the matter, which eventually leads him to a reclusive family, who maintain a shrine to a vaguely described evil being that might be a wendigo. The supernatural element is genuine in this one, although it is more a part of the setting than of the plot. There is also a gang of neo-Nazis, some soulless politicians, a corrupt police officer, an ambitious businessman who is willing to sacrifice his family in return for success, and a few other elements, but mostly the story conceerns the systematic uncovering of evidence leading to the violent climax. Read it in virtually one sitting, despite it being 500 pages long. 5/10/24

Tribulations by J. Michael Straczynski, Ibooks, 2004  

A journalist tries to track down a serial killer. She is assisted by a mysterious man who suggests that possession is part of the puzzle and he seems to have evidence to support his argument. The killer somehow becomes aware of the journalist and begins sending her emails. The police are baffled by the murders, which involve mutilation and desecration of holy places. The protagonist remains skeptical of the supernatural until the final confrontation. This was the best of the author’s three supernatural novels, but alas, also apparently his last. 5/3/24

Othersyde by J. Michael Straczynski, Dutton, 1990

A novel of possession, although not in the usual tradition. The possessors are from another reality, the othersyde, and they take control of people for limited periods of time, usually compelling them to murder people. Most of the story deals with two nerdist high school friends who become aware of the existence of the others and try to understand, and eventually resist, their interference. This is not one of those stories where good triumphs over evil and the boys ultimately fail in their efforts. I found much of this repetitive and the middle third of the story was a real slog. 4/30/24

Demon Night by J. Michael Straczynski, Berkley, 1988

This was an okay novel that I vaguely remembered enjoying, but it seemed rather pedestrian this time. A small town where a tribe was massacred in a cave, and where satanic rites were once performed, is menaced by demonic spirits that possess people and cause them to murder their friends and family. The protagonist lived there as a child and possesses a psychic power that enables him to control other people’s behavior and sense the activities of the demons. After a third of the citizens are killed, he gathers a few friends and deals with the menace. I wasn’t sorry to come to the end. 4/24/24

Straczynski Unplugged by J. Michael Straczynski, Ibook2, 2004

All but four of the stories in this collection were previously collected. The new ones include a satire on the television business, where the repeated appearance of a serial killer on a reality show boosts its ratings. The others include a fireplace that can cause all copies of a book to disappear if one of them is burned there, a story of a medical treatment that can cure mortal diseases, but only if the patient passes it on to someone else, and the best of the four, a creepy story about a woman who was molested by her father as a child and returns to his house after he dies for a confrontation with a possibly sinister toy and a repentant ghost. 4/12/24

Tales from the New Twilight Zone by J. Michael Straczynski, Bantam, 1989

I could have included this as fantasy or SF because all three genres are represented here. All the stories are adapted from episodes of the rebooted Twilight Zone from that period, and one is from a previously unproduced screenplay by Rod Serling. My favorites involve a woman who sees menacing faces in patterns, another woman who steals her daughter's youth, and a third in which a wife beater is thwarted when she creates an alll too physical in the form of a Doberman who defends her. Well worth a read. 4/11/24

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, Penguin, 2018

Translation of the 2014 Arabic edition. This is not a sequel but a kind of satiric pastiche. The setting is American occupied Iraq. The protagonist assembles a body from a variety of corpses, intending it to be a representation of the repressive and chaotic conditions under which the city lives. But the corpse becomes animated somehow and begins prowling the city, killing the living in order to sustain its own existence. This really is more of a political satire than anything else, but it has some creepy moments and a nice air of menace. 3/22/24

Baby Dolly by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra,  1991 

This was the author’s longest novel, and frankly it is way too long. The killer doll in this case is a kind of psychic vampire, introduced in a brief prologue, then followed through three generations of the same family, taking life in each and growing stronger. Eventually a grandmother recognizes the truth and decides to destroy the doll. The three intervening sections are quite similar and one of them could have been dropped completely without spoiling the story, and by doing so the pacing could have been faster and more entertaining. 2/25/24

The Living Evil by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1992 

This was almost a pretty good evil doll story, though as usual with Jensen, rather long winded. The doll massacres all but one member of a family during the 1800s, then another family in 1969. The one survivor in the latter case spends more than twenty years in prison and when she is released, she intends to destroy the doll. But during the interim, the doll has managed to become a full sized human woman and has married into the family. But she is still a crazed killer and she tries to strike again, but is finally destroyed and turns back into a doll.  2/24/24

Lost and Found by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1990 

This demon child/revenant ghost story did not make any sense to me. As a young woman, the protagonist had a miscarriage of the baby conceived by her adulteress lover. Her uncle buried the baby’s unformed body in the woods. Almost twenty years later, it decides it wants revenge – although I wondered for what reason. It kills the uncle first and then starts on other innocent people. The protagonist is troubled by dreams of the child emerging from the ground – although it gradually ages in appearance as the story progresses. Not a great success. 2/20/24

Victoria by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1990 

A killer doll story. There are actually two dolls, one good and one evil. Both are capable of moving about on their own, usually but not always when they are unobserved. When they are brought together, it sets off a series of violent and sometimes fatal incidents. The usual scares are moderately well done but not very original. The ending is very inconclusive. The dolls are not destroyed, although they are badly mangled, and are still capable of moving on their own. Held my interest, but just barely. 2/20/24

Heart-Beast by Tanith Lee, Dell, 1992

This is a very unusual werewolf novel – a subgenre I generally dislike. This was not really one of the rare exceptions that I did enjoy although it is certainly well written. The protagonist comes into contact with a cursed diamond that makes him turn into a beast for three nights following each full moon. He is incredibly strong, aggressive, and invulnerable to anything of the Earth. He kills a lot of people before getting involved with a similar idiosyncratic woman who possesses a piece of a meteorite – not of this Earth, with which she proposes to kill him. There is a great deal of angst that I found irritating and some personal interactions that I found interesting, but I would not call this one of Lee's better novels. 2/18/24

The Reckoning by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1992 

Although there is a good deal of padding, this is one of Jensen’s best books. A small town has been plagued by vanishing children for several years. Then one day there is a kind of localized earthquake after which the missing children are seen in various parts of the town, apparently unchanged by the passage of time. They are clearly bent on revenge and there are animal mutilations and other violent acts building to the climax. One of the main characters is an amateur taxidermist, and that telegraphs the surprise ending – he kidnapped and murdered the children, and then stuff their bodies for a museum in his secret basemen. Should have been a third shorter. 2/16/24

Pendulum by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1989 

A young girl is given a device that supposedly tells fortunes for people and she takes it to her school’s carnival. Although most of the outcomes are innocuous, a couple of people are told they are doomed to an early death. And then they start dying. There are several other plots wound around this including an insane murdered, a kind of werewolf, and others. Some of the subplots are never resolved or explained. The author would have been better advised to concentrate on her primary premise. 2/12/24

Death Stone by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1989 

More children in jeopardy. A young girl finds a jeweled ring in a well. There is also the skeleton of a woman who died thirty years earlier. No one knows who she is or how she died. The girl wears the ring and is suddenly aware that she is not alone, that she has attracted the presence of an evil entity which urges her to do horrible things. The secret is very obvious. The grandfather who warned the children against playing around the well was responsible and the supernatural events continue until he is murdered. 2/12/24

Personal Darkness by Tanith Lee, Dell, 1993 

Second novel of the Scarabae, fairly nontraditional vampires. The family’s long standing home has been burned down by the youngest of their group, Ruth, who then has independent and deadly adventures in London. The survivors of the fire become aware of another family of their kind, whose leader personally tracks down Ruth. There is more violence than in the first book, and a good deal of varied eroticism. Ruth is brought under control at the end and her mother, Rachaela, discovers that her life is about to undergo a significant change as the group settles into a new home and she discovers that she is pregnant. A final volume in the series followed. 2/9/24

Vampire Child by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1990 

A thoroughly awful book that mixes vampirism with children in jeopardy. A chance encounter turns a young boy into a vampire. When he kills his younger brother, his mother throws him out of the house and runs off with her daughter and her unborn son. The boy tracks them down, kills the baby, and is sent to a boys’ camp while his mother is held in jail. He kills a couple more people before one of the other boys realizes his nature and kills him. There are errors in police procedure, medical procedure, and lapses in logic and information that make the story disjointed and unrealistic. 2/8/24

Dark Dance by Tanith Lee, Dell, 1992 

The first in a trilogy of unconventional vampire stories. The protagonist is an extreme introvert who is driven by poverty to live with her father’s family. But the Scarabae are vampires of a sort. Most of them are centuries old and they suffer from various degrees of dementia because of age and inbreeding. They live in an isolated mansion with almost no outside contact. The protagonist ends up having an affair with her own father, who is due course decides to seduce his grand daughter. Very atmospheric and the first half is very effective, but the second half often feels repetitive and unnecessary. The sequels are better. 2/6/24

Celia by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1991 

One of the author’s better efforts, though the plot has holes. A woman kills her abusive husband and dumps his body into the swamp that he loved. She and her children take advantage of an underground railroad for abused families – it’s not clear why this was so since she did not expect any further trouble from the dead husband. The husband is resurrected as a kind of changeling – at times he looks human, at other times he is a giant octopus that walks on land. The husband gains psychic knowledge of the people who help her and begins killing them all, but always after the fact. Why didn’t he just go directly for his family?  In human form he is eventually shot to death, but he returns as the octopus, in which form he is finally killed by a loyal dog. Jensen was known for her killer doll stories, so Zebra packaged this with a killer doll as the cover art! 2/3/24

House of Illusions by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1988 

Two young girls go to live with their father for the summer. He works in a carnival that includes a sinister house of mirrors. One of the girls finds a necklace in the house and takes it away, and this leads to a series of deaths as a trapped magician conjures up killer clowns to destroy everyone they meet during their quest to recover the talisman. Far too long for its story, and I have quickly tired of the children in jeopardy motif that dominates Jensen’s novels. She barely bothers to sketch in characterizations for the adult characters. 2/2/24

Night Thunder by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1005 

Jensen’s final novel is actually one of her best, and it discards the menaced child and killer doll themes that dominated her work. Instead we have a cult that was wiped out during the Civil War, but which rises from the dead when a guardian tree is cut down. There are some plausibility problems – how could the revived dead suddenly acquire money and property – but the story itself is fairly suspenseful. The cultists recreate their own church and spread their evil powers until finally some of their victims unite and burn down the church while they are all inside. Not memorable but entertaining. 2/2/24

Smoke by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1988 

A little girl buys an old lamp at a garage sale and rubs it. Unfortunately, the genie imprisoned inside is evil and not subject to commands. It kills the girl’s mother and then follows her and her siblings to their new home, where it promptly kills two of the neighbors. It can take various shapes and it leaves the smell of smoke behind. The little girl is able to recognize it even when it is in a different form, and sometimes it’s invisible even disguised. The kids eventually manage to “destroy” the lamp and chase off the monster, but it is actually only dormant and a new child finds the lamp. 1/29/24

Annabelle by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1987 

Yet another child in jeopardy story, with the added cliché of killer dolls. A young girl sneaks into an abandoned mansion and finds a group of dolls who are psychically linked to a child who lived there with her insane mother – whose ghost pops up from time to time. The dolls begin killing people next to the child – her nursemaid, her mother, her brother, and later her father. An older sibling by another marriage arrives and after various adventures she and her boyfriend destroy the killer dolls and apparently exorcize the ghost. But the reader knows that the child is now possessed as the story ends. 1/27/24

The Sweat of Fear by Robert C. Dennis, Ballantine, 1973

The first of two books about an architect who develops psychometric powers – he gets visions of traumatic events by touching objects related to them. This is supernatural so I lump this in horror, but it is actually a murder mystery. The protagonist has visions of a murder scene and is eventually able to connect it to a real crime – the death of an elderly widow. There is a group of hippies involved, and one of them is eventually the second victim. The visions do not identify the killer, in part because he always wore a mask. The writing is excellent, the story is very suspenseful as well as logically developed. 1/24/24

Conversations with a Corpse by Robert C. Dennis, Ballantine, 1974 

The second and final adventure of an architect with psychic powers. This time he gets into a rental car and has a psychic flash of a man whom he believes was murdered. The police are more than skeptical – they have no report of anyone murdered. Despite his reservations, the protagonist decides to investigate on his own, and this time he runs into some obviously professional criminals who resent his interest, and who are not above eliminating him from the equation. Not quite as good as the first novel, but still very entertaining. 1/24/24

The Haunting by Ruby Jean Jensen 

This was the author’s penultimate, and longest, novel. It is basically a standard haunted house story. The first half takes place in 1910 and shows us an insane woman who consorts with demons. She is responsible for the death of a young girl, whose murder is blamed on a teenage boy, who also falls prey to the demons. The second half is set in the present. A real estate agent is inexplicably drawn to buy and move into the remote place – no electricity, no sewers, no telephone – where she invites her niece and nephew to visit. They promptly disappear and she has to confront the ghost of the past and the demons of the present. Far too long and sometimes dreadfully slow. 1/22/24

Jump Rope by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1988

Yet another child in jeopardy story. A young girl finds her father with his throat cut in the bathtub. She also sees her own doppelganger in the house, and after that several other people see the doppelganger fleetingly and hear her singing. The girl’s siblings begin to die, strangled, pushed off a roof, etc. The solution is confusing. Somehow the shock of finding her father caused the girl to split into two separate bodies – one of which is only intermittently material. The mother is the actual murderer. A livelier plot than usual for Jensen but the story does not make any sense. 1/19/24

The Elemental by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Fontana, 1964 

Eight stories of horror including mostly traditional plot elements. A curse from the past, a mad killer, a sentient house, and a reanimated corpse all wreak havoc in one form or another. As with the author’s previous collections, none stand out but none are awful. He was a workmanlike if rarely inspired writer.  They are generally serious in tone – a lot of his fiction was meant to be humorous - but break no new ground and have no particularly noteworthy variations.. I’d rate this at about midlevel for his work, not his best collection but far from his worse. 1/12/24

Wait and See by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1986 

Another children in jeopardy novel. This one involves the animated skeleton of a devil worshipping teenager who tried to make her lover agree to a suicide pact. He backed out after she was dead and then hid her body in the river but he  has been having nightmares ever since. More than two decades later, his estranged wife and three kids go to stay at his aunt’s farm. His aunt always believed that he murdered her daughter and she wants to avenge herself on his children. But the skeleton kills her instead. Mediocre.  1/12/24

Home Sweet Home by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1985 

This is more or less a Psycho ripoff. A woman is facing major surgery so her husband allows an acquaintance to take their ten year old son to his remote cabin, whose location is unknown, for two weeks. The other man is secretly insane. He kidnaps children, tortures and kills them at his cabin, while keeping the skeleton of his mother in another room and occasionally taking on her identity. It is not supernatural. The premise is laughably implausible. Had to force myself to finish.  1/8/24

Best Friends by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1985 

A pretty standard horror novel about a young boy who has created two imaginary friends who are evil, deadly, and out of his control. Tensions build among family and neighbors and there are a couple of lurid deaths. A kind of glorified babysitter is the protagonist and she feels increasingly menaced and slowly begins to understand what is going on. She is helpless to do anything about it, however, and ultimately the boy creates a third imaginary/real creature to dispose of the first two. 1/8/24

Chain Letter by Ruby Jean Jensen, Zebra, 1987 

Although this is pretty much what you’d expect from the title – teens find an old chain letter in an abandoned asylum and those who do not forward it die in odd ways – it is also constructed so badly that it’s a failed pastiche. The time people have to send the letters varies. People can send letters on behalf of other people. There is an apparent zombie and also a poltergeist, not to mention a possessed dog. The protagonists are bland kids whose only notable characteristics are unpleasant ones. The climax is a complete cheat – you can break the chain permanently by burning up the original letter. Dreadful. 1/4/24

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