Dead Lines

John Paul Rowan thinks his life is bad, so he checks out. Then he finds out what bad really is. Meanwhile, two young ladies take over his apartment (after a little cleaning and painting it looks pretty normal again) and find some of the previous occupant's stories. With a little reading and a little supernatural twiddling, the writer figuratively and literally finds his audience. This book clicks on so many levels you'd swear it was wearing taps. From Katie's mysterious eye scar to the reprintings of Rowan's short stories this book flows and scares with ease. Skipp and Spector were always at their best writing about the Big Apple; "The Light At The End" and this are two of the best horror books I have ever read. Find it, buy it, read it. And try to wonder what would happen if there really were Old Ones, and they really did get tired of their witching day being celebrated with Count Chocula and Austin Powers costumes....

Ah, yes, Skipp and Spector, where are they now when we need them the most? This was the fourth of their six collaborations, and as usual, it is definitely fantastic! In essence, it is a book of short stories intertwined with a framing/interlude device. The stories and the framing device are brilliantly horrifying, insightful, and at times, even bittersweet. FIND THIS BOOK AND READ IT! That goes for all of their work: The Light At The End. The Cleanup, The Scream, Dead Lines, The Bridge, and their last, but not least work, Animals. CHEERS! PJH

NYC: A self-pitying writer hangs himself in the opening scene. Some months later, a young lady moves into his apartment and discovers his collection of stories, which are reprinted in the book. He's, you know, around and he gets interested in her as a way back into the world he so casually left behind. Some of those stories (especially the one about the Halloween when the Old Ones got tired of humans not taking their day seriously enough) haunt me to this day, and I read this book _years_ ago. Skipp and Spector never got enough credit for the power and viscerality of their writing. Read anything you can find that was written by them (except maybe for "Animals", that one wasn't so good).

If you can get a hold of it, read it. After taking over a loft, the new owners discover a box of unpublished short stories. Each is wonderfully written, and could stand alone, but the power of the novel is in how the main characters become drawn in to and addicted to the short stories, even as their lives become horribly altered by reading them. As will yours be.