modified to be a prep school. A new arrival is
forcibly initiated into a secret society that looks
suspiciously like a coven. Stories of unsavory
events in the building’s past continue to grow, in-
cluding several suicides, but the novel ends with-
out clearing up most of the mysteries. The story is
continued in two sequels, Infinite (2001) and
Nightmare House(2002, although previously pub-
lished electronically). The first title is reminiscent
of the classic THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
(1959) by Shirley JACKSON. A team of psychic in-
vestigators is sent to Harrow to identify the super-
natural forces at work there, but the evil is
insidious and clever and exploits their own insecu-
rities. The latter is actually a prequel to the others,
in which the new owner of the mansion faces a
host of standard elements from early horror fiction,
including ghosts and premature burial. Clegg later
added a novella-length story set even earlier, The
Necromancer (2003), which chronicles a young
man’s seduction by the dark arts. Apparently more
volumes in the informal series are planned.
Naomi(2000) is in some ways Clegg’s most in-
teresting novel, although a bit hastily told. The
protagonist becomes convinced that his dead
friend is still around and is taken on a fascinating
tour of a world hidden below New York City. Yo u
Come When I Call You(2000) is another King-in-
fluenced work. A demonic force believed to have
been destroyed is back, and the group of friends
who defeated it the first time must reassemble to
deal with it permanently. The Hour before Dark
(2002) is a sophisticated and initially ambiguous
thriller about two young people investigating a
murder by means of a form of mental projection
that allows them to detect supernatural influences.
A mummy rises from the dead in The Attraction
(2004), a surprisingly effective treatment of what
might have been merely silly.
Douglas Clegg has managed to survive and
prosper in the horror field even when the decline
in that genre has taken a heavy toll among his fel-
low writers. Although most of his themes and plot
devices are familiar ones, he assembles them in
new configurations and particularly in his later
novels demonstrates an increasing ability to pre-
sent believable and sympathetic, if not always like-
able, characters. The Nightmare Chronicles(1999)
collects most of Clegg’s better short fiction. It re-
ceived the Bram Stoker Award as best collection of
the year.Collins, Nancy(1959– )
Nancy Collins won instant attention and a Bram
Stoker Award for her first novel, Sunglasses after
Dark(1989), the first adventure of Sonja Blue, a
very atypical vampire heroine. Sonja escapes from a
mental institution and takes the reader on a tour of
a world hidden from our eyes but existing all
around us, one where the creatures of legend and
nightmares exist in a reality of their own that inter-
faces with ours. Sonja’s personality is split between
her savage vampire nature and her humanity, and
that struggle persists through the series that contin-
ued to be interesting but that never achieved the
success of its opening title. Sonja forms an uneasy
alliance with a private detective in In the Blood
(1991) as part of her effort to track down the local
vampire lord. She has a series of interlinked adven-
tures in Paint It Black(1994), gets involved in a
major conflict between rival vampire powers in A
Dozen Black Roses(1996), and hunts down some of
her own kind in Darkest Heart(2002). Although
Sonja continued to be an interesting character, her
latter adventures are much less innovative and
striking than her earlier ones.
Tempter(1991, but massively rewritten for the
2001 reprint) is another vampire novel, without
Sonja Blue, and is intermittently interesting but a
more conventional thriller than her other work.
Wild Blood (1993) and Walking Wolf(1995) are
both werewolf stories. The first follows the adven-
tures of an orphan boy who discovers that he is a
shape changer and seeks others of his kind, while
the latter, and better, of the two features a shape
shifting Comanche who had difficulty adjusting to
life among modern Americans, and not just be-
cause of his supernatural abilities. Angels on Fire
(1998) describes a battle between good and evil
agents against the backdrop of a modern city, but it
is at times emotionally flat and uninvolving. Lynch
(1999) is a straightforward story of a man return-
ing from the dead for vengeance with an Old West
setting and is the best of her later novels, quietly
effective and eerie.Collins, Nancy 61