FORGOTTEN BOOKS FRIDAY: MORE OCTOBER READING

Continuing with recommendations for creepy books to read this month:

• James Herbert, Ash (2012).   Herbert's final book, and the last in the David Ash Trilogy.  Sceptical paranormal detective David Ash is sent to secluded Comraich Castle in the wilds of Scotland, where a man had been found crucified in a looked room.  A haunted castle story that will chill you to the marrow.  (This one has an interesting cast of characters, including Princess Diana, her secret son, Lord Lycan, Muamma Gaddafi, and Robert Maxwell.)  Herbert (1943-2013) was the premiere Briitish horror writer of his day.  among his books were The Rats (the first of a four-book series), The Fog, and The Secret of Crickley Hall.  His books have sold 54 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages.
• Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas (2003).  Odd Thomas (his real name) is a 20-year-old short order cook who can see dead people.  He can also see badachs, supernatural beings who congregate wherever some vilent occurence is about to happen; the more bodachs, the greater the tragedy.  Odd races blindly as dark forces gather to unleash a major catastrophe on Odd's small California town.  Odd is a fully-realized character who has not got a full grasp on his supernatural powers.  Also he is ometimes accompnaied by the mute and tortured ghost of Elvis Presley.  There are seven books, two novellas, and three graphic novels in the series, and all are recommended.  Thye may be the best things Koontz ever wrote.
• Compton Mackenzie, The Rival Monster (1952).  A humorous novel which brings back characters from two earlier acclaimed books by Mackenzie, Whiskey Galore and The Monarch of the Glen.  This time, the Loch Ness monster is apparently killed in a collision with a flying saucer, but a new monster has been spotted in the Outer Hebrides.  You've got to love this one.  Mackenzie (1883-1972) was a prolific writer of "fiction, biographis,, history and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur, and Scottish nationalist."  His sister, Fay Compton, starred in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
• Roger Mavell,The Dreamers (1958).  Five inhabitants of an English village are having the dame dream, with possible lethal consequwences.  Tasked with tracking down the source of the dream and its power is African Dr. King, who, in addition ot being a medical doctor, is also a witch doctor.  This psychological horror novel takes place during World War Ii and the poitical turmopil of Nazi Germany.  The book can also be viewed as a study of personal identity versus societal change, with its focus on idealogical manipulation, propaganda, and the destructive consequences of totalitarianism.  Sound familiar?
• Richard Marsh, The Beetle:  A Mystery (1897).  A Gothic horror novel released the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula, vastly outselling the classic vampire tale.   A shape-shifting Egyptian entity seeks revenge on a British member of Parliament.  Many scholars have latched onto this work, offering critques on "postcolonial studies, women's studies, post-structuralism and psychoanalytic studies, narractive stidues, and new materialism studies," focusing on "narrative and gender, imperialism. alterity, gender performativity, and identity."  What gets lost in this critical maze id that The Beetle is a rip-snorting yarn, with "found-documents, crime, police work, engagement with other cultures, complicated love triangles, the uncanny, and monstrosity."  That's why you should read this oone.
• Edgar Mittleholzer, The Bones and My Flute:  A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner (1955).  A Dutch slaveowner commits suicide after his family is killed in a 1763 slave revolt in British Guianna.  His ghost now haints whoever comes in contact with his will until his bones and his flute are ocated and buried in a Christian ceremony.  The book is memorable and highly regarded, and is viewed as an important piece of Caribbean literature.
• Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie (1940).  A romantic fantasy, for those who liked The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Bid Time Return.  An artist encounters a young girl who inspires hi tom paint portraits.  Every time he meets her, several years older, and apparently "slipping throuigh time."  Both touching and frightening. 
• Ray Russell, The Case Against Satan (1962).  A pre-Exorcist novel of a young girl's possession by a demon.  Or is it?  The reader never learns if the possession is real or not, but that's not the point of this chilling novel.  An unfrogetttable, chilling book that deserved a larger reception.
• Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worn (1911).  Lost in the shuffle of Stoker's novels because of the overwhelming popularity of Dracula, is The Lair of the White Worm, published a year before the author's death.  Based on the legend of the Lambton Worm, the story tells of Adam Salton, an Australian who visits his elderly great-uncle's estate in England.  There. he finds the estate is covered with black snakes; there have been deaths or near-deaths recently of snakebite.  There also, he witnesses a woman murdering a servant; the woman is rumored to be the "White Worm" in human form.  The novel has been panned for its "clumsy style," and critic R. S. Hadji cited it as number twelve on his list of the worst horror novels ever written.  Even Lovecraft, bless him, called the novel's development "almost infantile."  I loved it.
• Peter Tremayne, The Morgow Rises! (1982).  Before he embarked on his best-selling mystery series about the 7th century Celtic nun Sister Fidelma, wrote a number of quicky paperback horror novels, including this one about a legendary Cornish sea monster.  Formulaic plot devices abound here and this book will never rise above what it intends to be --a fast entertaining way to pass a couple of hours.  Tremayne's paperback horror novels -- including The Ants, The Curse of Loch Ness, Zombie!, and The Snow Beast! -- are the literary equivalent to a bowl of popcorn or a bag of potato chips -- sometimes they are just what you need.  
• Leonard Wibberley, A Feast of Freedom (1964).  Okay, this isn't a horror novel, or anything llike it, but I really think it belongs on this list.  While visiting cannibals on a small Pacific island, tjhe Vice President of the United States ends up in a stew and is eaten.  While I don not wish such a fate to befall our Vice President, the conceit remains very amusing.  Wibberley, the author of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick novels, including The Mouse That Roared, makes good use of his satiric skills here.
• Jack Williamson, Darker Than You Think (1948).  Based on a novelette of the same title (Unknown Worlds, December 1940), this is considered a definitive werewolf novel.  An ethnological expedition to Mongolia startles the world with an announcement that there are humans who can transform into animals.  Before the expedition's spokesperson can reveal the proof of this assertion, he dies mysteriously.  Investigating this is journalist Will Barbee, who discovers that, in the distant past, Homo sapiens warred with Homo lycanthropus;  the survivubg werecreatures, who can turn into animals other than wolves, remain hidden among humanity, waiting for the coming of the Child of the Night, who will lead them to ultimate victory.  Action, suspense, and a "hefty sense of evil" mark this tour de force.

An even dozen great reads for your October pleasure...some scary, some humorous, and some (admittedly) not as well-written as others, but all worth your time.  Enjoy.