Born in Milwaukee, [b]Peter Straub[/b] is the author of fourteen novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. He has won the British Fantasy Award, two Bram Stoker awards and two World Fantasy awards. [b]Black House[/b] Twenty years ago, in The Talisman, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to aparallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her territories"twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have broughtcataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicidedetective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wisconsin. He hasno recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leavethe police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken thosememories. When a Series of gruesome murders occur in westernWisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by areal-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperiencedforce find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has amysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town?What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams, if that iswhat they are, of robins' eggs and red feathers? It's almost as if someoneis trying to tell him something as that message becomes increasingly impossibleto ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past,where he must find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house and the end ofa deserted track of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evilssheltered within it. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n5/n25571.jpg[/img] [b]Ghost Story[/b] In life, not every sin goes unpunished. GHOST STORY For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic bestseller is a work of "superb horror" (The Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n1252.jpg[/img] [b]In The Night Room[/b] Giving us the creeps again (after lost boy, lost girl), Straub concocts the tale of two authors who seems to be getting important communications from the beyond. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n15/n79712.jpg[/img] [b]Lost Boy Lost Girl[/b] A woman kills herself for no apparent reason. A week later, her son, Mark disappears. The boy's uncle believes an abandoned house is at the root of the trouble. He fears that in peeling back the house's hideous secrets, Mark came across its last and greatest secret. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n9/n49432.jpg[/img] [b]Mr. X[/b] Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan has a paralysing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious figure in black whom he calls Mr X. - and again his birthday is fast approaching. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n1/n5257.jpg[/img] [b]Shadowland[/b] This tale of supernatural horror from the author of "Koko", "The Talisman" and "Mr X." concerns two boys at a New England boarding school. Del introduces Tom to his world of magic tricks. But at Shadowland - Del's uncle's lakeside estate - their hobby suddenly takes on much more sinister tones. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n1253.jpg[/img] [b]The Hellfire Club[/b] Living with her weakling husband in a Connecticut town that has been the scene of four recent serial murders, housewife Nora Chancel is kidnapped by the acused killer and becomes his hostage on a perilous odyssey through New England, with the police in hot pursuit. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n2609.jpg[/img] [b]The Talisman[/b] Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most fantastic journey - an exalting, terrifying quest for the Talisman. Only the Talisman can save his dying mother and defeat the enemy who is out to destroy them. But to reach his goal, Jack must make his way not only across the breadth of the United States, but through the wondrous and menacing Territories as well. The Territories lie as firmly in the imagination as Atlantis or Oz; they are as real as every reader's own vision of that parallel world which can only be evoked in the mind's mysterious eye. In the Territories Jack finds a world little removed from the Earth's own Dark Ages: though the air is so sweet and clear a man can smell a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away, a life can be snuffed out instantly in the continual struggle between good and evil. Jack discovers 'twinners', odd reflections of the people he knows on Earth - most notably the dying Queen Laura, the 'twinner' of Jack's own imperilled mother. But only a few can flip from one world to the other like Jack's late father, his malevolent uncle Morgan Sloat, and Jack himself. As Jack makes his way westward towards the redemptive Talisman, a dual array of heart-stopping encounters challenges him every step of the way - from a terrifying period of captivity in an orphanage run by a sadistic religious fanatic, to the sudden and murderous attack on the Territories by the enemies of the Queen. Stephen King and Peter Straub have combined their talents to create an unforgettable epic of fantasy,adventure and resounding triumph. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n706.jpg[/img] [b]The Throat[/b] Writer Tim Underhill, the haunted Vietnam-vet hero of Koko, has been summoned by childhood friend John Ransom to his home town of Millhaven, the site of old horrors now plagued by new demons. After decades of silence, it appears that the Blue Rose killer has struck again - brutally murdering Ransom's wife. Assisted in his search for the truth by the reclusive amateur detective Tom Pasmore, Underhill is swiftly drawn into a dark labyrinth of lies and deceit, each turn punctuated by jolting shocks, leading inexorably back to the terrors of his own past - to mysterious events in the jungles of Vietnam; to the day he witnessed the killing of his young sister; and to the ensuing series of murders that rocked the city. [img]http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n2607.jpg[/img]