Mischief

Rating:
Summary: dull haunting
Review: Douglas Clegg wrote the wonderful "Nightmare House", and I couldn't wait to go on and read the second book in the Harrow Trilogy. While it wasn't near as bad as "You Come When I Call You", it was pretty dull in parts. I was really wanting something supernatural based, but there was little of that. The book is about Jim Hook, who attends a private prep school for boys. Jim got caught cheating on a test and is about to be thrown out of school. Jim is then introduced to a secret society called the Cadaver Club. This club was involved, somehow, in the death of Jim's brother and father years ago. Ok, this is where things get dense. What is the club's reasoning for wanting Jim? What is the history of the Cadaver Club? Clegg was very vauge on the origins and importance of the club. He hides motives with torture and brainwashing methods streight out of "The Mancherian Canidate". The haunted house angle is only introduced in the last ten pages, and I have to say I was pretty disappionted (though the Templer Knight skeleton was kind of cool). Jim Hook is pretty bland charactor, not appealing in the least bit; sad to say Hook is the best character of the bunch. But on the sunny side things, "Mischief" is a fast read and pretty exciting, in spurts. It's a shame it dosn't answere most of the questions it brings up. I guess I will go on to the next book and see if the story makes any more since.

Rating:
Summary: A simple but fun read
Review: Douglas Clegg's latest novel is actually the follow-up to his free electronic novel Nightmare House. However, Mischief takes place decades after the events in Nightmare House, and is therefore quite able to stand on its own.

The book tells the story of Jim Hook, a student at Harrow Academy, formerly the mysterious Harrow House. Struggling with secrets from his own past, Jim is swept up in the dark history of Harrow Academy and forced to face the evil that resides within the property.

Fans of Douglas Clegg's other novels (such as "The Halloween Man," and "You Come When I Call You") may be disappointed with "Mischief." Though it offers an entertaining continuation of the Harrow House mythology, it isn't as quite as entertaining as his other works and sometimes reads more like a "young adult" horror book.

However, Clegg's simple and clean writing style serves to contrast sharply with the sudden bursts of horror he surprises the reader with, making each scare leap off the page. Unfortunately with Mischief, I never felt these scares came quite often enough.

In conclusion, fans of Douglas Clegg or the Nightmare House e-novel will want to pick this one up, but the casual horror reader looking for a book has better options out there. It's an entertaining quick read, but not good enough to stand beside Clegg's other work. If you're a newcomer to Clegg's writing, try "The Halloween Man" or "You Come When I Call You" instead.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Halloween Read
Review: Douglas Clegg's Mischief is a quick, light read. It is not the type of horror novel that will have you afraid to turn the lights off. Instead it is the kind of eerie story your teenage friends once told around the campfire. It is a tale of chills and thrills that is entertaining even if not realistic.

Jim Hook seems like a typical high school sophomore. But life becomes far from ordinary when he enrolls in Harrow prep school for boys. Harrow is located deep in the woods of upstate New York. Once a prominent estate, Harrow holds many secrets in its walls, deadly secrets that Jim is about to uncover.

The nightmare begins when Jim comes across a mysterious book on witchcraft in the school library in which be becomes engrossed. The authors of the book once resided at Harrow. Soon Jim experiences what he believes are hallucinations and delusions. Strange voices speak to him and the sound of frantic claws scratch at his door. Then the big trouble begins when Jim breaks the Harrow Code of Conduct and faces getting expelled from school. The only way out of the situation is to join the Cadaver Society, a fraternity of misfits who can pull strings to prevent Jim from being reprimanded by school officials. Little does Jim know that by getting initiated into the fraternity he will be living and breathing evil. In fact, he may just be walking into hell.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome back to Harrow...
Review: For readers unfamiliar with Douglas Clegg's e-serial novel NIGHTMARE HOUSE, this serves as an excellent introduction to his Harrow Mythos. For readers of the e-serial, this is a fine return to their favorite house of horrors. For Harrow just happens to be a haunted house -- a Hudson Valley monstrosity one could easily imagine as part of some weird subdivision of Hell, nestled between Jackson's Hill House and the Overlook Hotel.

This time around, Harrow's heyday as a mansion has long ended. It's now a private boarding school.

Enter Jim Hook, a sympathetic & realistically portrayed adolescent. Jim's father and brother both attended Harrow. Jim's about to encounter both the haunting of Harrow and the secret Cadaver Society (sort of a cross between Yale's "Skull and Bones" society and Peter Pan's Lost Boys). What Jim finds within Harrow threatens to tear his world apart.

By narrowing down the focus to Jim's personal encounters with Harrow's mysteries, Clegg has created a very successful novel, where the horror is at times claustrophobic. But there are also tantalizing glimpses of the hold Harrow has on others, showing just how deeply the house's roots of evil are sunk into the cursed soil of Watch Point.

Foremost a novel about the loss of innocence, this is another wonderful story from Clegg, who continues to amaze me by writing some of the best horror being published today.

Rating:
Summary: Been there, done that
Review: For the first time, I picked up a Douglas Clegg novel. I've heard great things about this guy so I was curious. But based on this novel, I have to admit that I was really disappointed.

The story revolves around an old school that has a dark past. We have a young boy going to this school (the boy also has a dark past) and slowly, strange things start happening to him.

That's pretty much it. The story has been told a million times, and much better (if you want a great book about a haunted school, read Dan Simmon's Summer Of Night, one of the best horror books ever written). It doesn't help that Clegg doesn't really have a style. His writing in primitive and boring. This reads more like a young-adult novel than a full, fleshed out horror novel.

I will not give up on Clegg just yet, but this story just didn't cut it for me. In a horror book, I look for something different, something that will be able to grab me by the throat from the very first page on. I want something that will bring me on a wild and strange ride. Mischief did none of that. The story is predictable and not very original.

Fortunately, this one's a quick read. If you're looking for something as a quick fix in between books, than this could be a good one. But if you're looking to be blown away or if you're looking for something more than a very unoriginal tale of ghosts and spirits, than skip this one. It didn't do it for me and it won't do it for you either.

Rating:
Summary: A main character you would swear is flesh and blood
Review: Forget the chills, the gripping, sleep-robbing prose and meld with the main character of Mischief. That's what Mr. Clegg does for his readers with this tale -- he pours an apathetic individual into the skin of Jim Hook and offers the reader an opportunity to spend time as another -- and not just any other.

Jim Hook walks, he talks, and you'll soon believe he could be found on Any Street, USA. By slipping into Jim, you're immersed in a seemingly real event of love, fear and breathtaking terror. When you re-emerge as yourself, you're heart will be racing just as if you experienced the horror in the flesh. Jim Hook is a character that will live with this reader her entire life. Thank you, Mr. Clegg.

Rating:
Summary: Another great tale from an underrated author
Review: Having read "Halloween Man," i bought this one and enjoyed it. In "Mischief," the reader is introduced to Jim Hook, a student at a New England prep school. Very eerily similar to "Halloween Man" Clegg uses the "identity-conscious teen living in a shadowy town" premise, but this time, the town is replaced by Harrow Academy. If I could point out a flaw in Mischief, it would be characterization--the reader is intorduced to secondary characters whom we either don't care about, is used briefly , serving no purpose to the story, or both(such as the Headmaster .) There was no use in reading the epilogue since it served no purpose nonewhatsoever. A big plus would be its pace-- I read this in two and a half weeks (a record for me since it takes me about a month to finish a novel.)

Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece from Clegg
Review: I don't know what's more amazing about Doug Clegg -- the amount of books he's putting out this year, or the fact that they're consistently getting better and better. I really thought he wasn't going to be able to top THE HALLOWEEN MAN and THE NIGHTMARE CHRONICLES, but both YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU and MISCHIEF blow me away.

To go too much into detail on the plot would ruin the story's surprises, but what really impresses me about Mischief is Clegg's take on the main character. I find that very few authors can get inside the heads of teenagers accurately -- too many of them seem to put on paper stereotypes of what they think teens are like. There aren't too many authors besides Clegg (p'haps King) who bring you inside the head of teens so accurately that you never question the realism of the central character.

By the way, while it's true that MISCHIEF is loosely threaded into the eserial Clegg is doing, it's a completely standalone project. MISCHIEF is an addictive, spooky read that you'll remember long after you finish it.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, Entertaining Novel
Review: I have to disagree with some of the other reviewers who felt this book was unoriginal, and not worth your time. I found this book to be an exciting novel, and one in which you really began to feel for the characters.

Another plus, one which some other reviewers have mentioned, is the fact that it is a quick read. The style it is written with, and the pacing, make it a quick, enjoyable read.

I have read other Douglas Clegg books, and, while I admit it is not his best, it is still worth your time to read this novel. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: What this book has in atmosphere, it lacks in coherence
Review: I read Mischief in three days but not because I couldn't put it down--it was because I wanted to get through it. It's not so much Clegg's writing style or characterizations that bothered me. It was the lack of a coherent (or engaging, for that matter) story. The relationship between Jim and Lark takes WAY too long to develop and when it finally does, it is thrust into the background, almost as an afterthought. Jim's initiation into the Cadaver Society takes almost the entire book to complete and by the time it happens, the reader just doesn't care anymore. (That's not a spoiler--it says he gets initiated on the back cover of the book). A short list of the gaping plot holes would look something like this: 1) The Great Pup Caper--no bearing on the story at all. 2) The extraneous secondary characters (the headmaster, Ivy Martin, Kelleher)--no bearing on the story. 3) The books about the occult that the lead character finds--no bearing on the story. In short, Clegg would have done well to hire a good editor. Say, Stephen King's.

With all the aforementioned weaknesses of the book aside, Clegg does manage to pull off a few chills here and there. The idea of the Cadaver Society is a good one and the pranks they pull are bizarre in a scary way but all in all, these qualities don't make the book into a good one. You can't get blood from a stone.