Peter Straub

Spencer Mallon was a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion, and sexual favours, of his young acolytes. He invited his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual, and afterwards the only thing that remained was a gruesomely dismembered body - and the shattered souls of all who were present. Lee Harwell was not one of Spencer Mallon's devotees, but his curiosity about that fateful night haunts him. He decides to write a book about...

BRAM STOKER AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed thriller of supernatural horror from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story, Koko, and The Talisman.

“Ghastly, hide-your-eyes horror; when Peter Straub turns on all jets, no one in the scream factory can equal him.”—Stephen King
 
BRITISH FANTASY AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL
Every year...

In life, not every sin goes unpunished. For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past-- and get away with murder. In a seedy motel in Florida, a young man holds captive a little girl in a soiled pink dress. He is anxious, tormented, introspective. She is calm, passive,...

From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from twenty-five writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre.

Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar Allan Poe than with the sometimes-predictable hallmarks...

A near-fatal traffic accident and a resulting obsession with death drive Tom Pasmore to join his neighbor, famous retired detective Lamont von Heilitz, in investigating two very different murders.

On a brisk autumn day, a twelve-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America--and into another realm.

A boy, Keith Hayward, is drawn to an irresistible fascination with death and the taking of life. His Uncle Till, who has led a shadowy career as local celebrity "Ladykiller," recognizes his nephew's nature and tutors him in the art of doing ill without getting caught.

Contains forty-four classics of fantasy fiction, including selections from Washington Irving, Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, H.P. Lovecraft, and others.