Best Selling Books by Peter Straub

#1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub''s classic tale of horror, secrets, and the dangerous ghosts of the past... What was the worst thing you''ve ever done? In the sleepy town of Milburn, New York, four old men gather to tell each other stories--some true, some made-up, all of them frightening. A simple pastime to divert themselves from their quiet lives. But one story is coming back to haunt them and their small town. A tale of something they did long ago. A wicked mistake. A horrifying accident. And they are about to learn that no one can bury the past forever...

To coincide with the publication of Stephen King and Peter Straub''s extraordinary new thriller, BLACK HOUSE, here is the story that started it all. 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. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother''s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin. . . .

From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Talisman, “an intelligent…suspenseful page-turner” (The Wall Street Journal) from “two master craftsmen, each at the top of his game” (The Washington Post). Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her Territories “Twinner” from an agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories, and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories. When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades ago by a madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed “the Fishman,” and Jack’s buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help the inexperienced force find him. But are these new killings merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack’s inexplicable waking dreams—if that is what they are—of robins’ eggs and red feathers? It’s almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As this cryptic message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted tract of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story—the terrifying, “electrifying” novel (Stephen King) about a man who flees the wreckage of his life to face the ghosts of his past, only to encounter a sinister force, ready to kill. One summer night in 1955, a boy and his cousin plunge naked into the moonlit waters of a rural quarry. Only one of them emerges. Just as he had promised he would on that fateful night two decades earlier, Miles Teagarden—now divorced and a struggling writer—returns to his family home in Arden, Wisconsin. But the landscape he once knew so well has turned eerie and threatening. In the small town, his erstwhile friends and rivals, even his blood relatives, view him with suspicion. Their paranoia seems justified when another beautiful blonde teenage girl goes missing—much as his cousin Alison did all those years ago. Miles feels a dark force is at work, gathering strength. As the anniversary of the tragic night approaches, he begins to fear that Alison will find a way to make their date . . .

“As if Harry Potter was written for grown-ups, Peter Straub’s Shadowland delivers carnage, blood, pain, fairy tales, and flashes of joy and wonder, just like real magic.”—Grady Hendrix You have been there...if you have ever been afraid. Come back. To a dark house deep in the Vermont woods, where two friends are spending a season of horror, apprenticed to a Master Magician. Learning secrets best left unlearned. Entering a world of incalculable evil more ancient than death itself. More terrifying. And more real. Only one of them will make it through.

For more than two decades Peter Straub has engrossed, entertained, and terrified us with his dazzling blend of cool artistry and mad, spine-tingling imagination. With Mr. X, the bestselling author of Ghost Story, The Talisman (with Stephen King), and The Hellfire Club takes us into the darkest dimensions of the human psyche and proves once again that he is without peer in the realm of psychological suspense and horror, a master storyteller whose unique and powerful gifts qualify him to be called the Edgar Allan Poe of our times. Mr. X is Straub''s original and startling take on the theme of the doppelgänger. Ned Dunstan''s birthday is fast approaching, and every year on this date, Ned experiences a paralyzing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. Ned has been drawn back to his hometown, Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother, Star, is dying. Before she loosens her hold on life, she imparts to Ned the name of his father, never before disclosed, and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, Ned''s determination to learn as much as possible about his absent father ignites a series of extraordinary adventures that gradually reveal the heart of both his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family: He discovers that he is shadowed by an identical twin brother who can pass through doors and otherwise defy the laws of nature; he becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths; he investigates the secret shadow-world within Edgerton; he learns to "eat time" and remembers the one occasion when he and his sinister brother united into a single being. Finally, at the moment of battle, he must call upon everything he has learned to save his own life. Brimming with the author''s trademark wit, understated eloquence, vibrant characters, and brilliant sense of pace, Mr. X displays Peter Straub at the top of his form.

In his latest soul-chilling novel, bestselling author Peter Straub tells of a famous children’s book author who, in the wake of a grotesque accident, realizes that the most basic facts of her existence, including her existence itself, have come into question. Willy Patrick, the respected author of the award-winning young-adult novel In the Night Room, thinks she is losing her mind–again. One day, she is drawn helplessly into the parking lot of a warehouse. She knows somehow that her daughter, Holly, is being held in the building, and she has an overwhelming need to rescue her. But what Willy knows is impossible, for her daughter is dead. On the same day, author Timothy Underhill, who has been struggling with a new book about a troubled young woman, is confronted with the ghost of his nine-year-old sister, April. Soon after, he begins to receive eerie, fragmented e-mails that he finally realizes are from people he knew in his youth–people now dead. Like his sister, they want urgently to tell him something. When Willy and Timothy meet, the frightening parallels between Willy’s tragic loss and the story in Tim’s manuscript suggest that they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story comes “a dark, labyrinthian tale of murder and family relationships” (Chicago Sun-Times), starring an unlikely duo who must confront demons from the past and dark secrets that still haunt the present. Tom Pasmore, ten years old, survives a near fatal accident. During his long recovery, he becomes obsessed with an unsolved murder and finds he has clues to solving it that he shouldn’t. Lamont von Heilitz has spent his life solving mysteries, until he wanted to know nothing more of the terror of life and the horror of death. When a new murder disrupts their world of wealth, power, and pleasure, the two must form an unlikely partnership to find the killer.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story—and the master of American horror—tells the terrifying story of a woman who, in her desperation to flee the past, encounters an inexplicable aura of evil. Julia’s first purchase upon leaving her husband is a large, old-fashioned house in Kensington, where she plans to live by herself, well away from her soon-to-be-ex and the home where their young daughter died. She feels a peculiar affinity for the house right away, a feeling that deepens with each glimpse of a mysterious little girl—blond, like her daughter—in the neighborhood, and even in her dreams But the little girl and the big house have an inexplicable aura of evil. And Julia quickly discovers that escaping her past is not as simple as turning a key.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story comes “an inspired thriller” (The Washington Post) about four Vietnam vets linked by a shattering secret and their global hunt to track down a brutal killer. Koko. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They were Vietnam vets—a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a devastating secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York, searching for someone from the past who has risen from the darkness to kill and kill and kill.

A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son– fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill–vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother’s suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story brings the chilling Blue Rose Trilogy to an astonishing close—secrets unearthed, demons revisited, and mysteries solved. • “A masterpiece…. The most intelligent novel of suspense to come along in years.” —The Washington Post Book World Tim Underhill, now an acclaimed novelist, travels back to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois after he gets a call from John Ransom, an old army buddy. Ransom believes there’s a copycat killer on the loose, mimicking the Blue Rose murders from decades earlier—he thinks his wife could be a potential victim. Underhill seeks out his old friend Tom Pasmore, an aging hermit who has attained minor celebrity as an expert sleuth, to help him investigate. They quickly discover that Millhaven is a town plagued by horrifying secrets and there is a twisted killer on the loose who is far more dangerous than they ever imagined. Expertly tying together the events of Koko and Mystery, The Throat proves Peter Straub to be the master of the suspense novel.

Welcome to another kind of terror as Peter Straub leads us into the outer reaches of the psyche. Here the master of the macabre is at his absolute best in seven exquisite tales of living, dying, and the terror that lies in between. . . . AshputtleIsn’t It Romantic? “CHILLING.”“SKILLFULLY CONSTRUCTED.” –The New York Times–Kirkus Reviews (starred review) The Ghost VillageBunny Is Good Bread Winner of a World Fantasy Award“TERRIFYING.” “VERY, VERY SCARY.”–The Washington Post Book World –The Philadelphia Inquirer Porkpie HatHunger, An Introduction “DARK TWISTS AND“BRILLIANTLY SUBVERSIVE.” DARKER HUMOR.”–Locus –USA Today Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff Winner of a Bram Stoker Award “[A] TOUR-DE-FORCE . . . [THAT] WILL HAUNT READERS LONG AFTER THEY’VE CLOSED THE COVERS.” –The Denver Post “PETER STRAUB IS AN EXCELLENT WRITER. . . . HE MAKES US FEEL THE TERROR.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer

A graphic interpretation of a best-selling work by the award-winning authors follows the desperate quest of young Jack Sawyer between Earth and a mysterious parallel world called The Territories.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “One of the most adroit masters of the supernatural thriller” (San Francisco Chronicle) delivers a chilling novel about a man seeking the truth about what happened on a horrifying night on a Midwestern campus in the 1960s. • "Terrifying.... Impossible to put down." —Stephen King On a college campus, a charismatic guru and his young acolytes perform a secret ritual in a local meadow. What happens is a mystery—all that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body and the shattered souls of all who were present. Forty years later, one man seeks to learn about that horrifying night, and to do so he’ll have to force those involved to examine the unspeakable events that have haunted them ever since.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story and an American icon of horror explores the deepest, shadow-filled corners of his imagination in these sixteen stories. • "Straub''s shorter fictions are like tiny novels you drown in: perfectly pitched, terrifyingly smart, big-hearted, dangerous, and even cruel.” —Neil Gaiman, bestselling author of The Sandman No one and no place is safe from the darkness that he reveals. In “Blue Rose,” an adolescent sociopath inflicts secret violence on his younger brother; in “Mr Clubb and Mr. Cuff,” a stern estate lawyer hires a pair of "Private Detectives Extraordinaire" to investigate and seek revenge on his unfaithful wife; and in “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine,” a man and his much younger lover explore their decadent and increasingly sinister fantasies aboard a luxurious yacht on the remotest stretch of the Amazon River. Interior Darkness is a thrilling and terrifying testament to Straub''s unparalleled contribution to the world of horror.

“Superstar editor Datlow makes no missteps...." —Publishers Weekly Take a terrifying journey with literary masters of suspense, including Peter Straub, Kim Newman, and Caitlín R. Kiernan, visiting a place where the other is somehow one of us. These electrifying tales redefine monsters from mere things that go bump in the night to inexplicable, deadly reflections of our day-to-day lives. Whether it''s a seemingly devoted teacher, an obsessive devotee of swans, or a diner full of evil creatures simply seeking oblivion, the monstrous is always there—and much closer than it appears.

Experience the true nature of terror in this "deliciously imaginative" (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub. The quiet suburban town of Hampstead is threatened by two horrors. One is natural. The hideous unstoppable creation of man’s power gone mad. The other is not natural at all. And it makes the first look like child’s play... “Unspeakable horror…has ‘Bestseller’ written all over it.”—Los Angeles Times “Straub’s effects are quite spectacular…I was fairly awed by some of the more nightmarish scenes in Floating Dragon.”—The New York Times

Peter Straub has created a body of short stories and novellas establishes him as one of the best literary voices in the genres of horror and dark suspense. His list of accomplishments and awards is staggering: In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, Life Achievement World Fantasy Award, Grand Master Award from World Horror, Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild, he has won the Bram Stoker Award nine times, the World Fantasy Award three times, and one British Fantasy Award. He remains a living legend. Volume two features Peter''s novellas. Included in this collection: Blue Rose The Buffalo Hunter Mrs. God Bunny Is Good Bread Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff Pork Pie Hat A Special Place: the Heart of a Dark Matter The Process (is a Process All Its Own)

Nora and Davey Chancel live in an affluent Connecticut town that has attracted national attention as the site of four recent murders. When the Chancels go to the police station to identify an acquaintance thought to be the fifth victim, Nora is kidnapped at gunpoint by the menacing Dick Hart, who has just been arrested for the murders. Dart is an extremely clever, intuitive serial killer. During her ordeal, Nora grows in stature and courage, learning to stay alive by feeding Dart''s ego and feigning the role of accomplice.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story—and 8-time Bram Stoker Award winner—gathers 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfully imaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing. “Revelatory.... A remarkably consistent, frequently unsettling book.” —The Washington Post “[Straub] collects the best scary short stories out there.” —Time Dan Chaon “The Bees” Elizabeth Hand “Cleopatra Brimstone” Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem “The Man on the Ceiling” M. John Harrison “The Great God Plan” Ramsey Campbell “The Voice of the Beach” Brian Evenson “Body” Kelly Link “Louise’s Ghost” Jonathan Carroll “The Sadness of Detail” M. Rickert “Leda” Thomas Tessier “In Praise of Folly” David J. Schow “Plot Twist” Glen Hirshberg “The Two Sams” Thomas Ligotti “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story” Benjamin Percy “Unearthed” Bradford Morrow "Gardener of Heart” Peter Straub “Little Red’s Tango” Stephen King “The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet” Joe Hill “20th Century Ghost” Ellen Klages “The Green Glass Sea” Tia V. Travis “The Kiss” Graham Joyce “Black Dust” Neil Gaiman “October in the Chair” John Crowley “Missolonghi 1824” Rosalind Palermo Stevenson “Insect Dreams”

From New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub, the tale of a literary sojourn that turns into something far more sinister. Esswood House. Home and estate of the Seneschal family, aristocratic patrons of the literary arts for well over a hundred years. D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, and Henry James were privileged to call themselves guests. There was always talk of a hidden secret in Esswood’s past, and the Seneschal children were often so pale and sickly, but don’t all English manor houses have a few ghost stories to call their own? When Professor William Standish receives the rare honor of an Esswood Fellowship, and the chance to study the estate''s private manuscripts at close hand, he is thrilled beyond his wildest ambitions. But something seems amiss at Esswood House. He hears faint laughter in the halls, the pitter-pattering of small feet in the night; strange faces appear in the windows of the library, and there are those giant dollhouses in the basement . . . Never before published as a separate volume, Mrs. God is a very different kind of ghost story from one of America’s most celebrated authors.

The eighth in the first series of Little Books from Borderlands Press is A Little Blue Book of Rose Stories. This is a collection of two of Peter Straub''s stories which center around the "Blue Rose" mysteries which have been featured in some of his best novels. Stories included in this collection: "Blue Rose" "The Juniper Tree"

New York City police detective Bob Steele is determined to stop the killing spree of a man who calls himself, among other things, Fielding "Fee" Bandolier, a Vietnam veteran whose many victims'' voices talk to both men. At the same time, the evil within an abandoned pub in the Midwest, The Green Woman, calls both men to meet their fates within its walls.

Featuring original short stories by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Norman Partridge, Jack Ketchum, Brian James Freeman, Bentley Little, Ed Gorman, Ronald Kelly, and Steve Rasnic Tem! It was December 1988: George Bush had just defeated Michael Dukakis in the Presidential Election. Pitcher Orel Hershiser and the Los Angeles Dodgers had beaten the Oakland A''s in five games to win the World Series. People were waiting in line at movie theaters to watch Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Tom Clancy''s The Cardinal of the Kremlin and Anne Rice''s The Queen of the Damned were atop the bestseller lists. The most acclaimed genre books of the year were Thomas Harris''s The Silence of the Lambs and Peter Straub''s Koko. And twenty-two year old college student Richard Chizmar had just published the premiere issue of a horror magazine named Cemetery Dance. Twenty-five years later, there have been seventy issues of Cemetery Dance magazine. There have been more than 275 signed Limited Edition hardcovers in the Cemetery Dance book line. There have been awards including the World Fantasy Award, the International Horror Critics Guild Award, and the HWA Board of Trustees Excellence in Specialty Press Publishing Award, as well as nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, just to name a few. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of that premiere issue of Cemetery Dance, we''re proud to announce Turn Down the Lights, an anthology of authors who helped make the magazine what it is today. These original horror stories by Stephen King, Norman Partridge, Jack Ketchum, Brian James Freeman, Bentley Little, Ed Gorman, Ronald Kelly, Steve Rasnic Tem, Clive Barker, and Peter Straub capture the genuine love of the genre that pushes Cemetery Dance Publications forward year after year. Now, turn down the lights, flip the page, take my hand, and start the dance¿

A selection of short fiction--including outstanding early stories, new pieces, and two never-before-published novellas--features "Mrs. God," "The Buffalo Hunter," and other works.

Acclaimed pianist-composer Elliott Denmark returns to his home town to find the town itself torn apart and his own feelings torn between his wife and a woman who exerts a mystical power over him