Customer Reviews

Mischief (Unabridged)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I was fortunate enough to read the e-serial novel Nightmare House last summer. Clegg dealt with Harrow's history in that one, which involved the ultimate haunted mansion, where black magic, spirit summoning, and gruesome murders took place. I was so enthralled that I went ahead and ordered the hardback from Cemetery Dance, which is coming out sometime this year. I would recommend that you buy this first, just to get the true nature of Harrow, its founder (Justin Gravesend), who was heavily into the black arts, and its chamber of horrors. It's not necessary, though, because although Harrow is the backdrop of this story it is Jim Hook who is the central figure. Having lost his father and older brother in a car accident, he is determined to live up to their legacy. The pressure becomes too much, and he is caught cheating on a history test. Then comes the Cadaver Society, who are determined to save him from being expelled and make him one of their own. They try to brainwash him into thinking that his father had an illicit affair the night he and his son were killed. The Club puts Jim through a series of mind-numbing initiation tests. The first involves sleeping with a corpse in a mausoleum. After he passes that test, he seeks out the girl whom his dad had had that affair with. The girl tells him the truth about that night (I won't spoil it.) and he goes back to the dorm. The boys snatch him up for the final initiation test, where they take him into the bowels of the Harrow mansion. They stick him in a small chamber with another corpse, that of a boy named Miles, whose ghost has haunted Jim since the beginning of the story. Thus begins a trip into a hell which Jim may never come out of. Does he? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out. What I like most about Douglas Clegg's work is that he doesn't rely too heavily on gore to get his message across. He weaves his plots together with an intriguing twist that always keeps the reader guessing until the final climax of the story. He is definitely an author to watch out for.

Forget the chills, the gripping, sleep-robbing prose and meld with the main character of Mischief. That's what Mr. Clegg does for his readers with this tale -- he pours an apathetic individual into the skin of Jim Hook and offers the reader an opportunity to spend time as another -- and not just any other.

Jim Hook walks, he talks, and you'll soon believe he could be found on Any Street, USA. By slipping into Jim, you're immersed in a seemingly real event of love, fear and breathtaking terror. When you re-emerge as yourself, you're heart will be racing just as if you experienced the horror in the flesh. Jim Hook is a character that will live with this reader her entire life. Thank you, Mr. Clegg.

I've been a fan of Douglas Clegg since I first read Goat Dance, and I've never been disappointed with any of his works. Since the publication of his debut novel in 1989, he's been one of the few horror writers who never turned his back on the genre - and his books always deliver the goods. My personal favorites include his larger scope novels (Goat Dance, The Children's Hour, and You Come When I Call You are all excellent reads), and while somewhat shorter, Mischief is very satisfying read - a tight, fast-paced story that is compelling from the opening prologue to its conclusion. Harrow is a facsinating setting for this tale, and Clegg populates the novel with real, identifiable people. Don't be the last one on the block to discover this truly talented writer.

Despite being unimpressed by Halloween Man, I wanted to give Clegg another chance and checked out Mischief. Unfortunately, it didnt really change my mind about Clegg whatsoever.

As I see it, there are three different types of horror/thriller writers: there are the fairly literate and imaginative ones like Stephen King or Clive Barker. Then there are the ones who write well, have good imaginations and clearly have fun with the genre  think Bentley Little or John Saul. Then there are the hacks  the writers that just crank out endless reams of fiction and are neither decent writers nor imaginative. From what Ive been able to see, Clegg falls somewhere in between the last two categories.

Clegg can write when he wants to. His characterization is good. The pacing of his stories is decent and his ideas are okay. Mischief, however, was a typical horror story that could have been written by any author, anytime. There was nothing about it that caused it to outshine any other examples of its genre that Ive read recently.

For readers unfamiliar with Douglas Clegg's e-serial novel NIGHTMARE HOUSE, this serves as an excellent introduction to his Harrow Mythos. For readers of the e-serial, this is a fine return to their favorite house of horrors. For Harrow just happens to be a haunted house -- a Hudson Valley monstrosity one could easily imagine as part of some weird subdivision of Hell, nestled between Jackson's Hill House and the Overlook Hotel.

This time around, Harrow's heyday as a mansion has long ended. It's now a private boarding school.

Enter Jim Hook, a sympathetic & realistically portrayed adolescent. Jim's father and brother both attended Harrow. Jim's about to encounter both the haunting of Harrow and the secret Cadaver Society (sort of a cross between Yale's "Skull and Bones" society and Peter Pan's Lost Boys). What Jim finds within Harrow threatens to tear his world apart.

By narrowing down the focus to Jim's personal encounters with Harrow's mysteries, Clegg has created a very successful novel, where the horror is at times claustrophobic. But there are also tantalizing glimpses of the hold Harrow has on others, showing just how deeply the house's roots of evil are sunk into the cursed soil of Watch Point.

Foremost a novel about the loss of innocence, this is another wonderful story from Clegg, who continues to amaze me by writing some of the best horror being published today.

For the first time, I picked up a Douglas Clegg novel. I've heard great things about this guy so I was curious. But based on this novel, I have to admit that I was really disappointed.

The story revolves around an old school that has a dark past. We have a young boy going to this school (the boy also has a dark past) and slowly, strange things start happening to him.

That's pretty much it. The story has been told a million times, and much better (if you want a great book about a haunted school, read Dan Simmon's Summer Of Night, one of the best horror books ever written). It doesn't help that Clegg doesn't really have a style. His writing in primitive and boring. This reads more like a young-adult novel than a full, fleshed out horror novel.

I will not give up on Clegg just yet, but this story just didn't cut it for me. In a horror book, I look for something different, something that will be able to grab me by the throat from the very first page on. I want something that will bring me on a wild and strange ride. Mischief did none of that. The story is predictable and not very original.

Fortunately, this one's a quick read. If you're looking for something as a quick fix in between books, than this could be a good one. But if you're looking to be blown away or if you're looking for something more than a very unoriginal tale of ghosts and spirits, than skip this one. It didn't do it for me and it won't do it for you either.

This is the fourth Douglas Clegg book I've read, and is easily my least favorite so far. I heard about Clegg over the summer and read his "Nightmare Chronicles" short story collection. I was impressed by that and went on to read "You Come When I Call You" and "The Halloween Man," both of which I enjoyed quite a bit.

I've been a fan of the horror genre for quite a while now, but it's been some time since I've tried reading a new author. I don't think Clegg's writing is as good as Straub's, King's, or McCammon's, but his books tend to be a lot of fun to read.

I guess I was surprised by how poorly written "Mischief" is. The story's language is very sloppy. It feels like it was written quickly and not really revised other than for technical errors.

The story is interesting enough, and for a while, in the beginning, there was a love story that I thought was going to become really involving and save the book from the less-than-stellar writing. But, as in "You Come When I Call You", the love story is dropped half-way through. I think this is too bad. Clegg is talented at getting two characters together and beginning to engage them, but he doesn't follows up.

Still, I don't want to be too harsh in this review. I did enjoy the book and plowed through it pretty quick, which is something for me since I'm such a slow reader normally. I still look forward to reading more books by Clegg. This just isn't his best. I'd recommend reading "Nightmare Chronicles" first.