Morningstar

“Atkins knows how to tell a story and keeps this one thrumming with tension. Devotees of dark suspense will find it to their liking.”—Publishers Weekly “An audacious mix of vampires, ghosts, goddesses, and psychopaths. Wonderful stuff!”—Neil Gaiman “Morningstar is a wonderful book—intelligent, well-written and filled with memorable scenes and images.”—Bentley Little “Atkins is a brilliant supplier of shudders and splendors.”—Clive BarkerFACT: When Stephen Lumby was being slaughtered he lost as much sweat induced by mortal terror, as he would have lost on a two-mile run.FACT: Although the majority of Katharine Elizabeth Ferritti was found in a deserted hardware store, smaller pieces of her were still being discovered by sewer workers up to two months after her killing.FACT: Lumby, Ferritti and ten other people were all murdered in the first eleven days of June. Their ages ranged from eight to sixty-one. In each case, on the available surface nearest to the body, scrawled in the victim's blood, was a single word:MORNINGSTARFacts not released by the police: in each case, the cause of the death was rupture of the heart by a sharpened wooden stake; in each case the victim's mouth was stuffed with garlic.

From Publishers Weekly

Atkins's background as a writer of artistic splatter moviesAhe worked on the first Wishmaster film and three Hellraiser filmsAis obvious in this fast-paced but disjointed horror-suspense novel, first published in the U.K. in 1992 and now receiving its U.S. debut as the launch title for Stealth Press. A serial killer who signs the word Morningstar in the blood of his decapitated victims is stalking the streets of San Francisco. Donovan Moon, a flat-broke freelance journalist, gets a tip from a friend that Morningstar's crimes are marked by one other notable detail: his victims are all staked through the heart, killed as legend says vampires must be slain. A fortuitous phone call takes Moon to the penthouse apartment of Jonathan Frost, highly respected real estate developerAwho also claims to be Morningstar, aka Matador (the Spanish for "slayer"). Frost dreams of a hunter on his trail, and fears he will not survive their meeting. He offers Moon $50,000 to write his life story if he dies. Overall, the text reads more like a film outline than a novel, but Atkins knows how to tell a story and keeps this one thrumming with tension. Devotees of dark suspense will find it to their liking, and it's a good bet for the big screen. (Nov.) FYI: Stealth Press, which launched on November 1, offers high-quality bound books sold direct from publisher to reader on the Web. Other November 2000 Stealth releases include reprints of Peter Straub's Under Venus, Robert Vaughan's The Valkyrie Mandate and Robert H. Fowler's Jim Mundy. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Peter Atkins is the author of the novels Morningstar, Big Thunder, and Moontown and the screenplays Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III, Hellraiser IV, and Wishmaster. His short fiction has appeared in such anthologies as The Museum of Horrors, Dark Delicacies II, Hellbound Hearts, and Ghosts, and has been selected eight times for one or more of the various "Year's Best" anthologies. His short-story collection, Rumors of the Marvelous, was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award. He is the co-founder with Glen Hirshberg of The Rolling Darkness Revue, an annual folly they commit at whatever theatre will let 'em. He blogs at peteratkins.blogspot.com

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