The Pet - Softcover

Grant, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812518489 ISBN 13: 9780812518481

Publisher: Tor Books, 1987

Synopsis

Teenagers are being slaughtered by the Howler, a serial killer who stops in small towns just long enough to kill, just long enough to tear apart a family and a community. When he strikes in Ashford, the town reacts-setting limits on teens' activities, monitoring who goes where-and parents become paranoid.

Seventeen-year-old Don Boyd doesn't need the grief. He's already under siege-he's got family trouble, girl trouble, trouble with his high school classes and trouble with the jocks who rule the school. Surely the Howler will kill someone else, somewhere else, and then Don can go back to trying to escape notice.

But the Howler likes Ashford. And one frosty autumn night, the Howler chooses Don as his next victim. The attack is swift-but it doesn't go as planned. Suddenly the killer and the boy are surrounded by an unnatural mist, by green fire, by the sound of iron striking iron.

And then the real horror begins.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Grant has won three World Fantasy Awards, two Nebula Awards, and a Life Achievement Award from the British Fantasy Society, and been named a Grand Master of Horror, all for his contributions to the genres of horror and dark fantasy as both writer and editor. Editor of the award-winning Shadows anthology series and of the shared-world anthology series that began with Greystone Bay, Grant has written several bestselling novels, including The X-Files: Whirlwind, The X-Files: Goblins, and The Pet. Other novels include Jackals, Raven, The Nestling, and volumes in the Millennium Quartet, which begins with Symphony.

Using pseudonyms, including Timothy Boggs, Lionel Fenn, and Geoffrey Marsh, Grant writes humorous fantasy, action-adventure, and occasionally science fiction. Grant and his wife, author/editor Kathryn Ptacek, live in New Jersey.

From Publishers Weekly

We are in Stephen King country. In the small town of Ashford, N.J., young Don Boyd contends with more than his share of problems and pressures: the high school jocks who are bullying him, the girls he doesn't know how to talk to, the breakup of his parents' marriage, and the fact that because his father is the principal of his school the teachers involved in a labor dispute are taking it out on Don. Add one homicidal maniac, dubbed the Howler, who's already killed and mutilated several teenagers in New York. Don responds to his fears and desires by summoning up a powerful if ghostly stallion from one of his wall posters. The horse makes Don a hero by dispatching the Howler, but then it prowls the neighborhood, killing Don's tormentors and threatening his friends. As usual with Grant (The Nestling, this is an atmospheric ride that toboggans forward faster than readers' questions and doubts. A treat for horror fans.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0812518489
• ISBN 13: 9780812518481
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352