Stepmother (1983) under the pseudonym Axel Young. Both books were over-the-top parodies of Sidney Sheldon-type suspense novels. In the mid-1980s, McDowell wrote the "Jack and Susan" mysteries for Ballantine Books, featuring characters reminiscent of the influential Thin Man films. The series included Jack and Susan in 1953 (1985), Jack and Susan in 1913 (1986) and Jack and Susan in 1933 (1987). The books chronicled the adventures of an eternally youthful couple and their ever-changing dog. McDowell had contracted to do one for each decade of the century, but he bowed out of the contract after three. His screen credits include Beetlejuice (1987), and collaborations on The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Thinner (1996). McDowell also wrote the novelization of the film Clue in 1985. The film was based on the board game and featured three different endings; however, the novelization was based on the shooting script and includes an additional fourth ending that was cut from the film. He also contributed screenplays to a number of television horror anthologies, including Tales from the Darkside. McDowell was one of seventeen contemporary British and American horror writers interviewed by Douglas E. Winter in his 1985 interview book Faces of Fear. Of his writing, McDowell says in this book: "I am a commercial writer and I'm proud of that. I am writing things to be put in the bookstore next month. I think it is a mistake to try to write for the ages." Stephen King described McDowell as "the finest writer of paperback originals in America today". Bibliography The Amulet (1979), reissued in 2013 by Valancourt Books, with a new introduction by Poppy Z. Brite. When the citizens of Pine Cone, Alabama, begin to die in shocking and grisly ways, Sarah Howell suspects a strange piece of jewelry is the link between the deaths, and that her hateful, vindictive mother-in-law Jo is behind it all. Cold Moon Over Babylon (1980), reissued in 2015 by Valancourt Books, with a new introduction by Douglas E. Winter. A young girl's mysterious disappearance in quiet Babylon, Florida, awakens a horror in the Styx River that draws the Larkin, Redfield and Hale families into a supernatural web of murder and madness. Gilded Needles (1980), reissued in 2015 by Valancourt Books, with a new introduction by Christopher Fowler. When an enemy from her past unwittingly sets in motion the destruction of her family and livelihood, cunning criminal mastermind