title: The Nightmare Chronicles
author:  Douglas Clegg 
description: Clegg's (The Halloween Man, etc.) collection of 13 tales takes risks and is full of passions that sometimes burst forth violently. But his skill at elucidating the psychological lives of his characters in precise, revealing prose makes these emotions more disturbing than the violence itself. In the best selection, "The Rendering Man," a girl's lifelong obsession with the creepy local who turns dead animals into consumer goods discloses her own festering psychopathology. Subtle seeding of the tale with images of death and transfiguration gives its climax a haunting and visceral inevitability. The narrative device into which the stories are pluggedAeach is presented as a nightmare inflicted by a monstrous boy upon his kidnappersAis flimsy but succeeds in calling attention to several recurring themes: the predatory nature of human sexuality ("Chosen"; "The Night Before Alec Got Married") and "the secret rituals that all families have that would seem insane to outsiders" ("Damned If You Do"; "The Hurting Season"). Clegg's use of innovative metaphors catapults each story beyond a landscape crowded with the horror genre's usual monsters and madmen into a territory he alone can claim. (Sept.) FYI: Clegg is the author of Naomi, the much-touted e-novel in progress. <BR>Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  # Praise for Douglas Clegg
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  “Clegg’s stories can chill the spine so effectively that the reader should
  keep paramedics on standby.”
  
  
  Dean Koontz, New York Times bestselling author
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  “Douglas Clegg has become the new star in horror fiction.”
  
  
  Peter Straub, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story and, with
  Stephen King, The Talisman
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  “Douglas Clegg is the best horror novelist of the post-Stephen King
  generation.”
  
  
  Bentley Little, bestselling author of The Haunted
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Bad Karma
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## The Criminally Insane Series, Book 1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##
  
  
  Douglas Clegg
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [![Alkemara Press](Image00002.jpg)
  
  
  ![Alkemara Press](Image00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Get the Newsletter
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Criminally Insane Series
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Bad Karma
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Part I
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  