Slippin' Into Darkness

Baltimore: CD Publications [Cemetery Dance], 1994. First Edition; Limited Edition; Signed Edition. Cloth. Fine/fine. Alan M. Clark. A fine first edition in a fine dust jacket. As New. SIGNED by both the author, Norman Partridge, and the illustrator, Alan M. Clark, on the limitation page. Midnight blue cloth boards with aquamarine eight-ball endpapers. Appears entirely unread. 285 pp. Octavo. The clock strikes midnight. It's April 8, 1994, and twenty-four hours of terror begin in a town on the California coast:12:03 A.M.: In a quiet cemetery, a man throws beer bottles at his lost love's tombstone. Graveyard baseball is the name of the game. The pitcher hasn't thrown a baseball or a bottle since he graduated high school in 1976, but his concentration is perfect, his control unmatched... until someone disturbs the game, and the pitcher explodes in a violent fury.1:12 A.M.: A secretive photographer climbs the stairs of his basement studio. Shadows drift across the cool green felt of a pool table in his living room. A young woman waits for him in the darkness. She is naked, her skin ghost-white, and her cold laughter stirs memories of a terrible night in 1976.1:38 A.M.: A wealthy thirty-five-year-old woman leaves her young lover's apartment, thinking of the husband she plans to divorce. Outside she meets a man from her past... a man from 1976 with a camera in his hands and a twisted blackmail scheme in his heart.3:31 A.M.: A battered pick-up truck bashes through the gates of an abandoned drive-in theater. Five members of the class of '76 project an old home movie that hides bitter secrets from the past... secrets that will forever change the future.So begins Slippin' Into Darkness, a wild ride of terror combining the relentless suspense of Thomas Harris, the moody atmosphere of Twin Peaks, and the sad longing of a Bruce Springsteen ballad. But ultimately this book is Norman Partridge, writing with the gloves off, taking horror and suspense in a direction all his own." --- Publisher's Website