Gloucester, Mass., lobsterman Richie Feehan has an unsettling experience at the start of this uneven horror novella from Golden (Wildwood Road
). When Richie pulls up one of his traps, he feels unexpected resistance, then he catches a glimpse of two green eyes peering at him from the water. More bizarre occurrences follow. Someone steals corpses from the Gloucester cemetery and defiles them. Soon the perpetrator adds living people to his list of victims. The old locals, of course, know what force is behind the atrocities—a being called the Shell Collector. If Golden gives his creature minimal backstory, he at least supplies plenty of convincing local color. (Mar.)
