Лучшие книги Томаса Ф. Монтелеоне

Джим Холлоуэй пылал пламенем своих юношеских иллюзий. Его устремлениями было что-то неопределенное между актером, писателем, иллюзионистом, изобретателем и в свои 15 лет он не утратил ощущения удивительности и необычности окружающего мира, которое бывает в детстве. И вот однажды в поисках магазина Маэстро в совсем незнакомом городе он встречает тщедушного человека с увесистым свертком в руках, знакомство с которым помогло ему утвердиться в своих мечтах.

В одно из своих ночных дежурств Доминик Кейзен, ночной сторож в Барклайском театре, видит удивительный спектакль, актерами в котором были его мать, умерший отец и… сам Доминик в возрасте девяти лет.

The previous Pope died in his arms, blessing him with his last breath. He can perform miracles. His mother was a virgin. His DNA came from the Shroud of Turin. Peter Carenza is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy and a secret, Vatican-sponsored experiment. But is he the Second Coming, or something far, far worse?
Believers the world over hail Carenza as the new Pope and rejoice as he creates a new Church for the new Millennium. Few people know the truth -- that mixing science with the works of God has created not a Savior but the Anti-Christ.

Now the latest -- and last -- Pope scours the world for the human guardians of the Biblical seven seals, which must be destroyed before the final cataclysm can begin. Opposing him are a lone Archbishop, the female American journalist who chronicled Carenza's rise to power, and Peter's mother, a nun who truly hears the Word of the Lord.

The 27 reprints in Monteleone's story collection span the last 22 years and are as much a chronicle of the course horror fiction has taken in that time as they are of the author's career. Several are solid dark fantasies that strive for a subtle sense of unease rooted in the troubled emotions of their characters. In the best of them, "Rehearsals," a Twilight Zone–type memory tale, a man watches his childhood replay itself as a painful stage drama he's desperate to rewrite. "Love Letters" is a skillfully underplayed blend of supernatural horror and psychological suspense, written as an exchange of letters in which one correspondent reveals an increasingly inhuman sensibility. Monteleone (Eyes of the Virgin, etc.) has used virtually every classic horror trope, from vampires in "Triptych di Amore," in which a seductive lamia destroys celebrity artists over the centuries, to Lovecraftian monsters in the tongue-in-cheek "Yog Sothoth, Superstar." Some stories that originally appeared in narrowly defined theme anthologies don't hold up well on their own, while others add little to overly familiar themes. Nevertheless, these solidly crafted tales consistently evoke an enjoyably unsettling mood of horror. FYI:Monteleone's nonfiction collection, The Mothers and Fathers Italian Association (2003), won a Stoker Award.

Under the subways' roar, out of the deep, wet caves, comes the fury from Hell...

In the bedrock beneath New York, a beautiful news reporter and a hard-bitten cop enter an eerie maze of abandoned tunnels, searching for a train that vanished with all aboard---over half a century ago.

But under the city of skyscrapers and tourists, under the peep shows and the penthouses, within the clammy darkness, around the next turn...an unholy evil waits to disgorge itself in violence and blood. Now the final nightmare must explode. Now the killing frenzy must begin...