The Black Cat

If you're burned out on axe-murderer, horror and gruesome mysteries, take a shot with this grim tale. I read it under 'test' conditions, it being the only book in English when I was hospitalized in a foreign country. I read it twice through, and all the plot elements and characterizations held up beautifully. This is a nasty, uapologetically demented realistic psychological thriller that reads like a memoir. Not for the squeamish, it was so creepy that it made the horror I was going through in the hospital seem as scary as a walk on the beach. A thoroughly good read.