Notable New Book Releases [Oct. 16 - Oct. 22]

These are the new releases that caught my eye this week. What did I miss? What were you excited about?

New Releases

Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season by Norman Partridge
Pub Date: October 15

Norman Partridge's Halloween novel, Dark Harvest, was chosen as one of Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books of 2006. A Bram Stoker Award winner and World Fantasy nominee, Partridge's rapid-fire tale of a small town trapped by its own shadows welcomed a wholly original creation, the October Boy, earning the author comparisons to Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Shirley Jackson.

Now Partridge revisits Halloween with a collection featuring a half-dozen stories celebrating frights both past and present. In “The Jack o' Lantern,” a brand new Dark Harvest novelette, the October Boy races against a remorseless döppelganger bent on carving a deadly path through the town's annual ritual of death and rebirth. “Johnny Halloween” features a sheriff battling both a walking ghost and his own haunted conscience. In “Three Doors,” a scarred war hero hunts his past with the help of a magic prosthetic hand, while “Satan's Army” is a real Partridge rarity previously available only in a long sold-out lettered edition from another press.

But there's more to this holiday celebration besides fiction. “The Man Who Killed Halloween” is an extensive essay about growing up during the late sixties in the town where the Zodiac Killer began his murderous spree. In an introduction that explores monsters both fictional and real, Partridge recalls what it was like to live in a community menaced by a serial killer and examines how the Zodiac's reign of terror shaped him as a writer.

Halloween night awaits. Join a master storyteller as he explores the layers of darkness that separate all-too-human evil from the supernatural. Let Norman Partridge lead you on seven journeys through the most dangerous night of the year, where no one is safe…and everyone is suspect.

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The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22 edited by Stephen Jones
Pub Date: October 18 [Kindle Edition]

The year's best, and darkest, tales of terror, showcasing the most outstanding new short stories and novellas by both contemporary masters of the macabre and exciting newcomers.

As ever, this acclaimed anthology also offers the most comprehensive annual overview of horror around the world in all its incarnations; a comprehensive necrology of famous names; and a list of indispensable contact addresses for the dedicated horror fan and writer alike.

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains the world's leading annual anthology dedicated solely to presenting the best in contemporary horror fiction.

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Reprints, Paperbacks, Ebooks

9 Ebooks from Robert McCammon

[More details here.]

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The Informationist by Taylor Stevens
Pub Date: October 18

[Read my review of The Informationist.]

Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she's never looked back.

Until now.

A Texas oil billionaire has hired her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. It’s not her usual line of work, but she can’t resist the challenge. Pulled deep into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the lands of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that she’s tried for so long to forget.

Gripping, ingenious, and impeccably paced, The Informationist marks the arrival or a thrilling new talent.

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The Mountain King by Rick Hautala
Pub Date: October 16

In the halls... of the Mountain King...

There are many legends and ancient tales concerning Mount Agiochook, the second tallest mountain in Maine. Some of these tales speak of a demon that resides on the rocky slopes near the mountain's snow-crested summit. Legend has it that a force of supernatural evil periodically emerges from the mists that shroud the mountain and comes down to the valley, looking to claim a life.

Sometimes the life it claims is an animal — perhaps a stray dog or a farmer's cow or a horse. At other times, it claims a human life, a straying hiker or a lost camper.

Mark Newman has hiked the numerous trails to the summit of Mount Agiochook many times. He has heard the stories and Indian legend, but he doesn't believe them.

Not until one September afternoon, when an early snow storm sweeps through the mountains, and he witnesses something he knows can't possibly be real.

But it is all too real!

Convinced that there is something lurking near the summit of the mountain... something terrible... something that won't be satisfied with claiming just one human life, Mark vows to hunt it down and destroy it.

What he doesn't know is that he, too, is being hunted. Under suspicion for the murders of his best friend and his wife's lover, Mark is being pursued by the local police, an angry mob, and something else... something he can't begin to comprehend until he confronts it, face to face.