Peter Straub

Tim Underhill, a haunted Vietnam veteran, courts destruction as he dares to look back to a dark past that holds the secret of the evil which signs its name Blue Rose.

Twenty years ago two friends spent a vacation in a remote compound in northern Vermont. One had come to work with a master magician. One had come to protect the other.

Tom's obsession with death and investigation of two unsolved murders-one in the present, and one in the past, is aided by Detective von Heilitz.

Novelist Tim Underhill, investigating the suicide of his sister-in-law and the disappearance a week later of her fifteen-year-old son, Mark, follows the path of a pedophilic serial killer which leads him to an empty house that holds echoes of horror.

Jack Sawyer, a twelve-year-old boy, begins a terrifying quest for the Talisman-for only the Talisman can save his dying mother and defeat their enemy.