The Uncanny - Softcover

Andrew Klavan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 075152297X ISBN 13: 9780751522976

Publisher: Warner Books, 1999

Synopsis

The Uncanny is the story of Richard Storm, a producer of horror movies. He comes to England searching for the real counterpart of the ghosts that have made him rich. At a party he reads aloud the classic British ghost story which inspired his Hollywood career, and suddenly, uncannily, starts a chain of actions that literally brings to life his first horror movie. Harper Albright is a hunter, a rider of the tide of the Uncanny, whose credo is simply, "Believe nothing". Once young and beautiful, she has devoted her life to seeking out and destroying the evil Iago, her former lover, now the hunter of their son. Harper must destroy Iago before he can find all the clues to recreate the Philosopher's Stone, which will give him immortality at the cost of his son's life. With Richard's reading at the party, Iago's trail suddenly grows hot. A trail of ghost stories stretching from Storm's films back to the Middle Ages provide the clues which will lead to Iago.

About this title

Review

"Trolls, he thought. That's what it was. Religious people believed God ran the world. Atheists figured it was indifferent nature. But it was trolls. Sadistic little homunculi in leather jackets with lots of zippers. Hiding behind the scrim of being. Working the machinery to maximize human suffering for their own amusement."

A wealthy Hollywood cowboy-cum-movie-producer travels to England in the hope of seeing a ghost, or a voice from beyond: "Something uncanny, you know. Anything. One lousy uncanny thing." He hangs out with a marvelous old woman--a professional skeptic armed with a sword cane and an ever-puffing pipe with a skull-shaped bowl--and the other staff of a semi-tabloid rag called Bizarre! He meets the woman of his dreams, who is billed as being utterly inaccessible and frigid to boot. Then before you can say "conspiracy theory," Andrew Klavan has whipped all of them into a humorous confection with elements of German romantic art, English Gothic architecture, 19th-century ghost stories, Norse mythology, South American cult leaders, Nazi witchcraft, and the Holy Grail. Even the ghost of M.R. James has a key role in the plot.

It's not a deep novel--you get the sense that Klavan doesn't take one iota of it seriously--but it's good supernatural fun. --Fiona Webster

From the Publisher

He's searching for the miraculous. She's fighting to stay alive. Together, they might just have a chance. . . .

"Gripping...a modern ghost story...the results are exhilarating."
--Chicago Tribune

"Glamorous, eccentric and engrossing. . . .a sort of upscale X-Files."
--St. Petersburg Times (Fla.)

"Entertaining."
--The Orlando Sentinel

"Klavan pulls out all the stops . . . .The suspense is high, the fun factor higher."
--Publishers Weekly

"Shrewd...Lively...Fun."
--The Seattle Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Warner Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 075152297X
• ISBN 13: 9780751522976
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432