Mischief [Hardcover]

Douglas Clegg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000

Douglas Clegg, Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning writer, has begun a story of haunting -- and something in a dark house that has been awakened. The mansion overlooks the Hudson River, just outside the town of Watch Point, New York. It has been empty for decades, but now, it's a private school for boys. And one of the boys, Jim Hook, should never have come to Harrow Academy. For, within the walls, something horrifying awaits him. A haunting more disturbing than any other; agroup of misfits and malcontents want Jim in their dark fraternity. And the house called Harrow is hungry. Length: 6.6 hours (Unabridged) - Read by Michael Taylor

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a banner year that has already seen his supernatural horror opus You Come When I Call You in mass market plus his dark suspense thriller Purity (Forecasts, June 5), Clegg now tallies a contemporary occult mystery. Harrow, a prep school housed in a converted mansion in the upper Hudson River Valley, seems "a solidly mediocre addition to the roster of private schools for boys." But its disturbingly dissonant architecture and shadowy historyAwhich includes a legacy of student suicidesAsuggest a singularly malign spirit. Its newest victim is teenager Jim Hook, who's abducted into the byzantine bowels of the school by a cloaked coven of students who call themselves the Cadaver Society. Desperate to be saved from shame, Jim consents to join them and endures ghoulish initiation rites that apprise him of the school's historical link to celebrity Satanists as well as stoke psychic trauma dating back to his childhood. Clegg introduces more characters and subplots than can be satisfyingly woven into this slim spookerAwhich is the second episode in a projected trilogy whose prequel, Nightmare House, is an e-serial evolving at the Harrow Haunting Web site (www. ehaunting.com). But despite the tale's lack of resolution, he draws eerily plausible parallels between the arcane rituals of academic institutions and esoteric occultists, and imbues Harrow with an atmosphere of menace thick enough to support further flights of dark fantasy. Given its Web connection and Clegg's growing reputation, the Harrow Haunting trilogy could be Clegg's most popular work yet. Simultaneous publication in mass market paperback by Leisure. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Douglas Clegg, Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning writer, has begun a story of haunting -- and something in a dark house that has been awakened...in Mischief, the most horrifying coming-of-age experience is happening in a house of nightmarish spirits.

The mansion overlooks the Hudson River, just outside the town of Watch Point, New York. It has been empty for decades, but now, it's a private school for boys. And one of the boys, Jim Hook, should never have come to Harrow Academy...

For, within the walls, something horrifying awaits him...a haunting more disturbing than any other...

A group of misfits and malcontents want Jim in their dark fraternity...

And the house called Harrow is hungry.

The new novel of terror from Douglas Clegg, author of You Come When I Call You, The Halloween Man, Bad Karma, and The Nightmare Chronicles. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 260 pages
• Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications; First Edition edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587670097
• ISBN-13: 978-1587670091
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,273,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For all kinds of treats, subscribe to my free newsletter at:

DouglasClegg.com

When you subscribe, you'll get updates and extras from me (including excerpts, short stories, screensavers, ebooks, and more).

I'm a novelist living on the New England coast. My first novel, Goat Dance, came out in 1989, and since then, more than 20 of my novels have been published.

I'd recommend: Neverland, Isis, Afterlife, The Words, Purity, or The Priest of Blood (and the entire vampire trilogy, The Vampyricon) if you're new to my fiction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Meandering and pointless, September 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mischief (Mass Market Paperback)

This book reads more like a stream of consciousness than it does a well-written novel. It's comprised of a series of unusual events (none of which make much sense or are explained well) that are loosely tied together with a razor-thin plot. The characters are dull and their actions and motives make little sense. The plot itself is nearly non-existent and meanders from one point to another without focus. By the end of the book I didn't care one way or another about any of the characters, and didn't even understand what was going on. Everyone seemed to be a confused idiot wandering around in an alternate reality. Mischief could have been the very first draft of what later became a good novel, but should not have been published as is. Clegg can write when he wants to, but this book doesn't cut it. If you're a fan and want to give it a try anyway, be my guest. But if you've never read Clegg before, don't use this as your starting point.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Douglas Clegg's Mischief!, October 6, 2000

By 

"mpaterson01" (Los Angeles California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mischief (Mass Market Paperback)

Mischief is a great book!

I practically devoured this in one sitting because it's a real page turner. Douglas Clegg is now my favorite horror writer, up there with the best. The first book I read of his was You Come When I Call, and it was this shocking saga of terror and now, Mischief. Mischief is more quiet horror that's nearly a coming of age story twisted into a ghost story. It even feels literary without being difficult to read. One of the most interesting aspects was how Clegg manages to create a mounting feeling of dread and horror without any gore to speak of in this one, and how even at the end (I won't spoil it for you), the subtlety of the last pages adds a chill that's also quite moving.

Mischief is not for people who want blood in their face, that's for sure. It's atmospheric and fascinating, and as with You Come When I Call, Clegg juggles various storylines within the story that all add up in a kind of literary puzzle to the final conflict of the story. I would suggest people read these books back to back to get a sense of the range here. You Come When I Call is very much in your face horror with shocks on every other page and what feels like a cast of thousands. Mischief is a fast read with a slow build all circling around one character and the small world he touches.

As with the end of You Come When I Call, I found Mischief very moving and disturbing but with this kind of redemptive moment, another thing that feels different in horror fiction.

I highly recommend Mischief, give it five stars. I will admit that you might have to be a serious reader of fiction to really move through this book. Someone who comes at it wanting gore and gross outs will have to look elsewhere. It captures an aspect to the coming of age story really beautifully and a lot about the school rings true and a lot about what it was like to be a teenager having made a mistake seems right on the mark. Mischief is also a good hybrid of a literary novel with a solid popular fiction of the genre of horror.

Other recommendations: Peter Straub's Magic Terror, Bentley Little's The Town, Stephen King's Bag of Bones, Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show, Christopher Golden's Strange Wood, Dean Koontz's False Memory, Douglas Clegg's You Come When I Call.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, December 4, 2004

By 

Cody James Wolfe "CJ Wolfe" (Seymour, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mischief (Mass Market Paperback)

Jim Hook, a resident student and famed alumni of Harrow Academy has a problem; he's about to be kicked out of school. Not so lucky for him, there are some kids willing to help, but there's a price. A hefty one.

This novel hooked me like a Marlin. Clegg brings Harrow School to life, scaring and entertaining from the start, but even more, his main character is interesting enough to get you engrossed in the novel simply for that reason alone. Jim's a kid with a past, one that's been dotted with heartache and death. He felt something once, something ghostly, something supernatural, and now he realizes that it's all tied to Harrow Academy. Everything.

And the ending to Mischief will absolutely floor you.

Clegg's a master. This was the first novel I've read by him, but certainly not the last. I just picked up The Infinite, and am looking forward to another great read.