The Uncanny [Hardcover]

Andrew Klavan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 1999

Richard Storm is passionate, hot-blooded, and running out of time.  Sophia Endering is cool, beautiful, and haunted by a centuries-old mystery.  Now the Hollywood filmmaker and the troubled young woman have come together in a race against the unbelievable, the unthinkable, and. . . The Uncanny.

Richard Storm reached the top of his profession producing horror films based on classic English ghost stories.  Now, with his life beginning to unravel, Richard is searching for something to believe in.  Fleeing Hollywood for London, he embarks on a desperate quest: to find evidence that the great old stories bear some truth, that the human spirit lives on after death.  

What he finds is Sophia, a woman caught in a nightmare more chilling than any of his film horrors.  Propelled by a furious love, haunted by a terror he can barely confess to himself, Storm pursues Sophia through the labyrinth of her family's madness and their involvement in Nazi art thefts, down a trail formed by the classic ghost stories themselves--into the very heart of the uncanny.  .  .  .


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Trolls, he thought. That's what it was. Religious people believed God ran the world. Atheists figured it was indifferent nature. But it was trolls. Sadistic little homunculi in leather jackets with lots of zippers. Hiding behind the scrim of being. Working the machinery to maximize human suffering for their own amusement."

A wealthy Hollywood cowboy-cum-movie-producer travels to England in the hope of seeing a ghost, or a voice from beyond: "Something uncanny, you know. Anything. One lousy uncanny thing." He hangs out with a marvelous old woman--a professional skeptic armed with a sword cane and an ever-puffing pipe with a skull-shaped bowl--and the other staff of a semi-tabloid rag called Bizarre! He meets the woman of his dreams, who is billed as being utterly inaccessible and frigid to boot. Then before you can say "conspiracy theory," Andrew Klavan has whipped all of them into a humorous confection with elements of German romantic art, English Gothic architecture, 19th-century ghost stories, Norse mythology, South American cult leaders, Nazi witchcraft, and the Holy Grail. Even the ghost of M.R. James has a key role in the plot.

It's not a deep novel--you get the sense that Klavan doesn't take one iota of it seriously--but it's good supernatural fun. --Fiona Webster --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Few people can resist a ghost story, and this one by two-time Edgar Award winner Klavan (True Crime, LJ 4/15/95) is bewitching. Set in England, with the requisite crumbling abbey haunted by a nun, it concerns a man's demonic quest for eternal life. Klavan updates the old-fashioned ghost story to include a Hollywood producer protagonist, the Nazi theft of some of Europe's best art, and a religious cult. The plot moves forward smoothly, the characters are plausible, and the literary quotes are enriching. Most noteworthy, though, is the structure: The story line is interrupted several times by ancient ghost stories. Intriguing in their own right, they also hold important clues to the current mystery's solution. Recommended for most collections.
-?Dorothy S. Golden, Georgia Southern Univ., Statesboro
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (June 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517443600
• ISBN-13: 978-0517443606
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,815,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writer of America's Edgar award five times and won twice. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Don't Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Empire of Lies. He is currently writing a series of thrillers for young adults called The Homelanders. The first two novels in the series are The Last Thing I Remember and The Long Way Home. Klavan is a contributing editor to City Journal and his essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other places. His satiric video commentaries can be seen on PJTV.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than its reputation here...., June 2, 2002

By 

Branden Poole (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Uncanny (Bookcassette(r) Edition) (Audio Cassette)

I'd like to preface this by saying that this is the first of anything that I've read by Andrew Klavan; thus, I'm not burdened by Klavan's other novels. Hey, "True Crime" may be a masterpiece, and "Animal Hour" could be fantastic, I don't know. I did read this novel, "The Uncanny", however, and I was very pleased with it.

I profess a weakness (like Storm in the novel) for English ghost stories, so perhaps the novel spoke to me more so than my fellow reviewers here. Overall, I found the book to be well-written and very interesting. It wasn't scary, as some of the others have pointed out, but I don't think Klavan was trying to upstage King here. What he's written is an interesting and entertaining thriller, filled with some clever supernatural / occult additives, and the result is entirely pleasing.

Recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it!, March 14, 2001

By 

Monique (CHICAGO, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Uncanny (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read the other reviews here. If a book is called " The Uncanny" I guarantee it's of the horror genre. Why everyone expected a "True Crime-ish" novel is beyond me.

Richard Storm, a horror movie producer,leaves Hollywood on a quest to London to see if any of the old ghost stories bare any truth. Is there really life after death? When Richard falls in love with Sophia Endering,an art dealer, he finds more then he was looking for. It's a rollercoaster ride through nazi art theft, ghost stories and "The Devil himself". To much said will give away the surprising twists in the story.

This was a great horror novel!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Pale Ghost, August 13, 2000

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Uncanny (Mass Market Paperback)

Andrew Klavan is a talented writer who has given us two really exceptional books: "True Crime" and "The Animal Hour." In those books, Klavan created characters and situations that were complex, puzzling, interesting, and original. With "The Uncanny," Klavan attempts to revamp the traditional ghost story by setting it in modern times and giving us "hip" characters like Richard Storm and Sophia Eberling. Somehow, for me, it just didn't work. The setting at the "Bizarre" magazine was novel, but not all that interesting. The ghost story itself was lame and poorly conceived. Although the book has flashes of brilliance, they are far too few, and overall, you're left with a rather unsatisfying ghost story. Read Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" for better chills!

Michael Butts