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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Horror Fiction Help XVIII

These sound familiar to anyone? 

1. From probably 1960s and certainly not newer than 1972ish. The cover art had a pair of women's (I think) shoes and the shoes had scary, moaning faces.

2. Something to do with a nightmare and a haunting. It has three golden monsters on from '91 and it looks like a apple paper back or an Avon but it's not. I think a character's name is little Jack.

3. I thought it was called "Little Angel" or a variant thereof. I remember the cover was an illustration of an innocent-looking little boy, around 10 years old, sitting next to a broken birdcage with feathers and blood all over the place. And he's got this "Who, me?" expression on his face. It was a rip-off of "The Bad Seed," and concerned an evil little psychopath boy, around 10 years old or so, who lived with his parents. His mom spoiled him rotten, but his dad suspected that he might be evil. Of course, nobody believed him. I remember the little boy tries to kill his aunt at one point by throwing her off a cliff, but she's hanging on for dear life and somehow manages to attach herself to the side of the cliff with her belt. And the little boy is bitching that she spanked him for wetting his pants when he was younger, and how much he wants her to die. She survives, but her arm is all bruised and dislocated from hanging onto the cliff for so long. Then his teacher ends up with a broken arm because he bum-rushes her on the playground and knocks her onto a pile of gravel. The dad tries to talk to her about the incident, and ask if she suspects his son, but she thinks the boy is innocent and he's crazy. The dad and the aunt team up to stop the boy, much to the mom's chagrin. But then the mom somehow gets on the boy's bad side and he tries to kill her, too. But the dad somehow stops him, and I think he accidentally kills the boy. At the end, the mom lays dying in the hospital and gives her blessing for the dad to marry the aunt, because she knew all along that they were more well-suited for each other. I used to love reading this trashy pulp novel, but I lost it a long time ago, and I'd love to figure out what it was called, and maybe read it again. Found! It's: 



 
4. The book is set in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane in a very cold region of America where a new doctor is trying a new form of treatment for a particular patient. This patient was guilty of a series of murders of women where he strung them up and basically bled them dry, possibly showering in their blood. He is heavily medicated but the doctor thinks that he can "get through" to him by cutting his medication. The book basically goes through flashbacks showing how the killer developed into what he is and introduces characters and sets up future confrontations between staff and patients. In the end the patients revolt and escape setting up a chase between the main good characters and the main bad characters in a violent snowstorm. As I mentioned, I cannot remember the name of the book but it may have had "Snow" or "Winter"in the title, but I can't say for sure. Found! It's that perennial used paperback I see in virtually every used bookstore I visit but have never read:



5. I read a book in which the one of the main characters in this short story collection, I believe i remember this correctly, fell in love with a sheep. There was another story that involved necrophilia. There was nothing graphic or gross. Instead, it was this amazing depiction of loneliness. I think it took place in big sky country, maybe Nebraska.  Found! It's: 

 

13 comments:

  1. #4 is probably ICEFIRE (1984) by Robert C. Wilson (The CROOKED TREE author, not the sf author of SPIN). I've never read it, but the synopsis in the first review on Goodreads matches up well with the description. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2068167.Icefire

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  2. Here's a much better description of ICEFIRE from Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-c-wilson/icefire-2/

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  3. Number 3 is maybe Wicked Angel by Taylor Caldwell? I did see that one of the alternate covers had the little boy with a bird cage.

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  4. Awesome, guys, I've contacted the seekers with your suggestions.

    And, oddly, I know both these titles/covers but was unaware of the contents. Thank you!

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  5. That's a weird coincidence. I had just mentioned that T.Caldwell novel Wicked Angel in the comments about ReadersDigest authors. It always stuck with me as a fun read. Apparently I'm not alone in that regard.

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  6. Love these posts... would you possibly consider just putting "Found" at the top of the found ones instead of formatting the text strikethrough so it is easier to read? I still like to read the descriptions for the found ones, but that strikethrough is sure tough on the eyes...

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  7. the Taylor Caldwell book sounds a bit like an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode I saw. I wonder if the novel evolved from an earlier short story.

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  8. Whoops, it was actually The Alfred Hitchcock *Hour*.

    The episode is called "To Catch a Butterfly" and it's pretty good.

    Also, there's a scene that makes me think Brian DePalma saw it.

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  9. DePalma saw something Hitchcock made? Huh, go figure! ;-)

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  10. I'd like to see that ep. of AHHour but it doesn't seem to be on youtube or Hulu. You must own the DvDs I guess, huh? The box set is way out of my reach though! $$$

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    1. Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour were rerun on late night TV a lot recently in Philadelphia.

      That's how I watched them. I ought to rent the DVDs from Netflix, anyway, because a lot of episodes probably got skipped.

      This is the episode's IMDB entry.
      http://imdb.com/title/tt0394096/

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  11. Ah, the days of regular television!I remember those. I don't have cable or even basic anymore, and i cut back on the NF DvD service . I just stream stuff through the internet. These new "Smart tvees" are nothing but glorified computers, with all of the headaches that that implies-updating aps, separate logins & passwords to remember, unexplained outages, calls to the Dom. Republic, & India for help...etc. etc. How I long for the days of analog and two or three knobs for controls! lol
    But thanks for the info anyway...made me nostalgic for a minute there. lol

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