The Black Train

I am normally not a fan of ghost stories, but there has never been a book written by Lee that I have not loved. The story really grabbed my attention from the start and held me throughout the book. Black Train is creepy, gross (which I love) and full of surprises. I highly recommend!

Have yet to read a Lee novel I haven't loved, and this one might be the best (and definitely the creepiest) yet. Lee dices up horror from the past (the Civil War) and the present, to turn the "house with a bad reputation" novel into something new, shockingly macabre, and thrillingly grotesque. There are images in this book that literally chilled my blood. Needs to be on every horror fan's READ NOW list.

When I opened the HC small press GAST by Edward Lee, I was shocked to see that it was solely edicated to me...I have been a big fan/supporter of Lee's fiction since the early '90's but never thought a book by him would be dedicated to me...that said. GAST was a great read...gore, pornographic sex on a level no one writes...and a story filled with vibrant characters and twists and turns galore. Now Lee has dropped most of the absurd-like pornography and written a tighter verison of GAST. A thrillfest frm page one and the flashbacks show a side of Lee's fiction he rarely shows...but slowly that historical side of Lee is coming out in the Small Press. A great novel from a wonderful writer of the weird. Get on THE BLACK TRAIN for a HELL of a ride!

Leisure's latest offering, a reprinted version of "Gast", (Camelot Books), is staple Edward Lee - sexual, disgusting, revolting...and obsessively readable all the same. As he did in "The Golem", Lee crafts sympathetic characters readers connect to, gives them realistic circumstances, then drops them into the middle of hell. This is why his work is so attractive: his characters tug readers into the farthest reaches of "suspension of disbelief", pulling them down his twisted rabbit hole. When Justin Collier pulls into Gast, Tennessee, he's hoping for a respite from his divorce proceedings and an escape from dreary reality. He's got a book deadline to meet and a canceled Food Network show he'd like to forget. On the hunt for a final entry to round out his book on beer, the Food Network's former "Prince of Beer" is looking for some time alone. What he finds, however, is a physic hot-spot of lust, nightmares and decades old evil. The Branch Landing Inn is the former home of Harwood Gast: Civil War railway baron, Confederate supporter, and icon of evil. Unspeakable acts helped build his railroad, his fortune bankrolled by darkness. The rusting remains of those tracks still run behind The Branch Landing Inn. Gripped by ghostly desire not entirely his own, at the mercy of demonic residue, Justin is about to take a ride he may not survive. Perhaps Lee's greatest strength is not the gore and sex, but writing such likable characters. Collier is a confused mini-celebrity ambivalent about what little "fame" he owns, escaping from a dry, loveless marriage, which makes him the perfect target for Branch Landing's haunts. Also, as horrible as Gast is, just as horrible is the resigned malaise the owners of the hotel reside in, forever trapped in the house's cyclical, erotic emanations. Either way, there's enough substance here for everyone...if they've got strong stomachs, that is.