Sheep

A grief-stricken family, a tragedy-haunted house on the cliffs of Wales and a small town's secret history are the plot threads that British author Maginn weaves together in this tantalizing novel, a synthesis of supernatural and psychological horror that was written before his Virgins and Martyrs (1995) but is only now being published Stateside. Contractor James Tullian moves his family temporarily to Ty-Gwyneth, an estate outside a rural sheep-farming town, to give them a fresh start following the drowning death of their young daughter. Shortly after James unearths a pile of charred bones near their home, his wife, Adele, begins incorporating gruesome images into her increasingly morbid still-life paintings. Meanwhile, their seven-year-old son, Sam, falls victim to peculiar fits and visions. Townsfolk suspect that the Tullians are succumbing to the legacy of madness and murder that overwhelmed the house's previous tenants, but James fears that his loved ones may be manifesting psychopathologies that predate their move and that now have found the perfect place to vent themselves. Maginn sifts the novel's truth from its mystery like an expert archeologist, meticulously exposing deeper and darker strata that underlie even the most innocent events. Oscillating between the bleak thoughts of his emotionally tortured characters and the stark, moody Welsh landscape, he creates a thick atmosphere of dread that forces the weight of the past inexorably down on the present, yet never impedes the brisk momentum of the tale. This is the rare example of a novel of subtle horror that should appeal to lovers of the fast-paced modern horror thriller. (Oct.)