Long before the film there was the written word. Long before we settled down in
front of video or now DVD players for our fright-fests, we would read tales of 
terror by candlelight.
For most, this has been lost, however there are still those that prefer the pages
to celluloid or even both and why not?
This section then is for you. To help you to search through the rubbish and find
stories worth your time to read. If you're an avid reader of horror novels then
why not join 'Castle Dracula' as an official 'staff member' reviewing them.
To do so, just click on the 'Join My Staff' link in the menu to the left for details
of this and other vacancies.

- The Deceased -
- Tom Piccirilli -
- Leisure Horror - 2000 - 

Jacob Maelstrom's family haunts his dreams.
Mother, always calm, forces a smile. You should come around more often.
Isaac Maelstrom, his father, is a writer like Jacob, tapping on his typewriter
from the attic study. 
Sister Rachael (six years older than Jacob), constantly taunts him, sometimes
seductively. You've just got to come and visit us more often. We've all missed 
you. 
Older brother Joseph is a wheelchair-bound cripple. He's bitter and resentful, 
as if his childhood accident were Jacob's fault. 
In this dream, Jacob finally confronts Rachael. Why didn't you finish me the same
way? 
She replies, You already know.
You see, Jacob's family is dead, all of them murdered ten years ago, except 
Jacob. Though he doesn't remember, he suspects Rachael did the deed. Challenged
by his sisters invitation, he decides to go home, to Stonethrow Island, to find 
out what happened, to remember. 
As I said before, Jacob is a writer. His agent (as well as his dead fathers), 
Robert "Bob" Wakely, implores him not to go back to the mansion. Bob insists 
Isaac Maelstrom and Rachael had warned him to stay away. Tell Jacob not to do 
this to himself. But Jacob doesn't heed Bob's warning and heads for Stonethrow. 
Bob's secretary, Lisa, is privy to this conversation. She's pregnant (by Bob) 
and not having known him long, is undecided between abortion and marriage. But
she has a plan. She's thinking of her friend Katie, a fan of the Maelstroms 
(both father and son) and a student who's been trying to get an interview with
Jacob, for her dissertation. Lisa now knows where Jacob will be this weekend 
and calls Katie with the good news. They'll show up uninvited, and if Katie 
gets her interview, Lisa will glean information from Jacob about Bob. But she 
doesn't know that Katie's thesis is bullshit. 
Having recently been released from the hospital (the ding-a-ling-wing), Katie
wants to hear how eleven-year-old Jacob Maelstrom survived the butchery and
how he's handling the horrors of his past. After all, he must be ill, even 
insane for what he went through back then, the blood, the gore, the terror.
In the dark of night, Jacob arrives on Stonethrow Island where the dead and
the living soon come together unwillingly ten years after the carnage. 
Assailed by cries and ghostly screams, he hears a voice calling him Lucifer.
Elizabeth. Whoever she is, he knows she held power in the past. 
And the misguided, misinformed Lisa and Katie arrive in the middle of a blustery
storm that knocks out the bridge. 
Now they're trapped and none will emerge unchanged.
Thus sets the stage for Piccirilli's novel, steeped in depravity and incest,
the secrets of a tormented family soon to be unearthed by the deceased.

Reviewed By Terry Wright.

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