Reign
by Chet Williamson
Bram Stoker Award nominee 1990.
One question raised by any horror story is: Why, if its supernatural monsters exist, haven't they been encountered before? Williamson (Ash Wednesday) resolves this problem in a believable, elegant manner, grounding his thoroughly enjoyable novel in our "normal" world. The story centers around a renovated theater in Pennsylvania and is arranged in three acts, plus overture and curtain call. The tension in Act I heightens as the reader must decide if this is a murder mystery, psychodrama, horror or fantasy, with Williamson offering clues to support each possibility. Theaters have a history of ghosts and accidents, but as the number of deaths at the Venetian mounts, the police become less inclined to accept verdicts of "accident." Owner/actor Dennis Hamilton has nothing obvious to gain from the killings, nor could he have caused them, but his strange behavior makes others wonder if he might not have a double or another personality – or something else entirely – that does want the deaths. Williamson's inventive resolution is sure to satisfy.
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Chet Williamson
Chet Williamson (born 1948) is an American author of books and over a hundred short stories published in The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, and many other magazines and anthologies.
Williamson was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, receiving a B.S. in 1970, and went on to be a teacher at public schools in Cleveland, Ohio, then he became a professional actor before becoming a freelance writer in 1986.
