Books

Off Season ARC

A beautiful New York editor retreats to a quiet Maine beach town – 

 

Nearby, a savage human family lurks in the woods, watching, waiting…

 

And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people will learn just how primitive we all are, and that there are no limits to the will to survive.

Off Season

A beautiful New York editor retreats to a quiet Maine beach town – 

 

Nearby, a savage human family lurks in the woods, watching, waiting…

 

And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people will learn just how primitive we all are, and that there are no limits to the will to survive.

Hide and Seek

They were young. They were looking for kicks. They decided to play an innocent game in a strange old house.

 

First it turned ugly. Then it turned brutal. Finally it became a nightmare of horror and violence.

 

None of them was ever the same again.

Cover

In the silence of a green wilderness, they were to learn terror…

 

The celebrated novelist. The model. The agent. The playwright. The photographer. The wife. Refugees from modern civilization off for a weekend in the woods. Far away from the clash and clamor of the city…and amenities like telephones, hospitals, and policemen. Soon, they’ll stand naked against a battle-scarred soldier whose cunning and ferocity rival any force of nature, a survivor of our most frustrating war still fighting the enemy in every person he sees. Soon, during the long days and deadly nights, all the trappings and trivia of their lives will be stripped away…until all that’s left is a desperate, elemental need to survive and fight together – if they can – to defeat the killing machine that threatens them all.

She Wakes

She Wakes

…And feeds on the living, who are so easy – so pleasurable – to kill.

 

She Wakes

…And her unearthly awakening summons Jordan Chase, a man who hears the voices of ancient gods and feels the power of sacred places – who knows he must fulfill a destiny which may ensure his death.

 

She Wakes

…And seeks out Robert Dodgson, a writer who came to Greece for sun, ouzo and women- luring him and his friends into a nightmare of unimaginable pain and terror.

 

She Wakes

…To seduce and destroy, to drench the world in blood. And nothing human can stop her.

The Girl Next Door

The Suburbs.

 

A contented time in a quiet place for most. 

 

But not for all.

 

For on a tranquil, tree-lined street, in a dark basement, fourteen-year-old Meg and her little sister Susan are about to learn everything there is to know about the savagery in the human heart.

 

And an entire neighborhood, young and old alike, will either turn away from the madness, or succumb to it, joining in the slow, sadistic torture of a victim too beautiful and too innocent for her own good. Here, only one young boy will dare to reach out to make an agonizing choice between love and compassion – and violence and evil.

Offspring

The story behind the gruesome legend…

 

It shocked horror fans everywhere – Jack Ketchum’s Off Season, the brutal and harrowing story of an inbred family of cannibals in present-day Maine. Some reader were horrified, others outraged. Yet no one could put the book down. An instant cult classic.

 

Now the legend lives on.

 

A new generation of terror.

 

The local sheriff of Dead River, Maine, thought he’d killed them off ten years ago – a primitive, cave-dwelling tribe of predatory savages. But somehow, the clan survived. To breed. To hunt. To kill and eat. Now the peaceful residents who came to Dead River to escape civilization, are fighting for their lives. And there’s only one way to do it:

 

Unleash the primal savagery lurking in their own hearts.

Стервятники (“Vultures”) (Off Season and Offspring) (Russia)

Translated by Vyacheslav Shutov.

 

From a 2017 Interview with Darker Magazine (in Russian):

 

Readers in Russia know you mainly from the rather messy-made edition of «Vultures» [Off Season] and «Stai» [Offspring].The nineties were a paradise for horror lovers in Russia, although most publishers wanted to spit on copyright, high-quality covers / translations, etc. What do you think about this book? Did you receive any money for it?

 

Not a cent. These books were stolen by the editor of a magazine…and sold without my knowledge. Then one day I received this book in hardcover by mail, on the cover – a frightened man in the form of either a New York policeman, or the pilot of a Nazi attack plane, surrounded by zombie-like creatures. There was no return address, so where she came from, I don’t know.

Road Kill (Joyride) (UK)

Released as Joyride in the United States.

 

Wayne keeps a record of offences. The kids who trash his fence, the dog that dumps in his yard, the guys  who give him stress in the bar – they’re all in his book. He hasn’t hit back yet, though the urge is strong. He’ll give in one day. He wonders why he hasn’t dared. So far.

 

Carole doesn’t want to do it but murder seems like the only solution. The only way to solve the problem of her ex – drunken, sadistic, clever. If the courts can’t protect her and the police can’t keep him away, how else will she ever be free?

 

On the sunny mountainside, above the creek, that’s where Carole has the courage to solve her problem. Her lover, Lee, has the baseball bat but she’s the one with the rock – and the nerve and desperation to crush a man’s skull and pitch him off a mountain.

 

Wayne sees it all. Every moment. It’s the very best day of his life. Because it points the way down the road for him. The killing road. And the way he plans it, he and Carole and Lee are all going to do a little traveling together…

Joyride

Howard Gardner deserved to die. For years he abused his wife. Physically. Verbally. Psychologically. Even after the separation, he kept coming back for more.

 

Carole and her lover, Lee, knew there was only one way to get him out of their lives. Murder. They planned every detail. And they thought they committed the perfect crime.

 

But a stranger saw them do it. His name was Wayne Lock, and he wanted to be their friend. He wanted to share the thrill of murder. And he wanted to take Carole and Lee on a road trip straight to hell. An all-out killing spree. The ultimate experience…

Stranglehold

Lydia Danse is a devoted wife, with a wonderful son to raise and nurture. But now her family is being torn apart by a vicious man submerged in his own insanity: her husband. She will do anything to get her son away from him. But Arthur Danse is not a man who surrenders his possessions. He holds on tight to what is his. And he never lets go…

Only Child (Stranglehold) (UK)

Released as Stranglehold in the United States.

 

Arthur Danse doesn’t live by the normal rules. He knows he has been put on earth for a purpose – to show people the the world is a dark and terrible place. To say no to Arthur Danse is to receive a lesson in fear and pain. No matter who you are. Wife…lover…stranger…or eight-year-old son.

 

Lydia McCloud is one of life’s givers. A nurse whose own hard upbringing gives her a special sympathy for those in need. Lydia doesn’t discover the real Arthur until it’s far too late. Until she’s married to him and their son Robert has become the centre of her world. And she’s forced into the battle of her life for the sake of her only child…

Off Season (UK)

This edition is slightly different than the original American edition, but not as complete as The Unexpurgated Edition.

 

From the Afterword to The Unexpurgated Edition (edited to avoid possible spoilers):

 

“There was one…change I made…for the British paperback.

 

At the very end of the original, [a character is] in the ambulance, shot up with painkillers and speculating through her haze on whether these people who are treating her are paramedics or doctors. She hoped they were doctors, reads the line.

 

A few months after the book was published I got a letter from a fan who said he’d enjoyed the read immensely. Until he got to that line.

 

He went on to say that he was in fact a paramedic and in [her] situation, she’d be far better off in the hands of a trained ambulance crew than with a bunch of doctors. I checked it out and he was right of course. Whoops. I hadn’t done my homework. I wrote back and apologized and thanked him for bringing the error to my attention and promised that if the book ever went into another printing anywhere I’d fix it.

 

In ’95 the Brits at Headline came along and I did.

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