The Hellfire Club

A riveting new thriller from the award-winning author of Ghost Story. Nora, a bored housewife, married to a weakling of a husband, is kidnapped at gunpoint by Dick Dart, a man who is suspected of committing four recent murders. Now Nora can stay alive only by feeding Dart's ego and outwitting him without seeming to do so.

Straub's recent series of books, while excellent, have been dense and rather cerebral as horror books go. This one, while employing many of the same devices about family secrets and mysteries half-buried in the past, has an action storyline with a viscerally satisfying villain and a strong female protagonist. The premise is that the history of a famous fantasy novel not only concerns some eccentric authors, but collides with a wily killer on a rampage. The settings--in seedy motel rooms, New England houses, a bizarre private club and an over-the-hill literary retreat--are especially fun.