The Night Class

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Summary: A horror novel about true terror
Review: Horror novels often rely on shock and gore, but there's another breed of book out there that is more quiet and subtle. The quiet horror is sometimes more chilling and important than all the blood-letting. The Night Class relies on heavy mood and atmosphere to create its unsettling effects (a la Tessier, T.M. Wright, Algernon Blackwood). Piccirilli (Hexes, A Lower Deep, The Deceased) has written his most taut and gripping novel yet. The scene is a college campus in the dead of winter haunted by ghosts and a mysterious murder. It is a psychologically astute tale with plenty of terrific shivers along the way. Piccirilli digs down deep to create a world slightly askew from the norm, where almost everything is menacing or offbeat. Top-notch suspense with a lot of spookiness and horrific moments, you can't do any better than taking The Night Class.

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Summary: Excellent and eerie mystery
Review: I can see why this book won a Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel of the year. Few authors are as capable as Tom Piccirilli of building up an unsettling and disturbing atmosphere of dread. Small details twist and coil and continue to add to all the other many touches of evil. The winter campus setting is also the perfect vehicle to tell this offbeat tale of a young man haunted by supernatural forces even as he tries to battle what appears to be a conspiracy of murder in the hallowed halls of his university. When Cal Prentiss returns from the winter break to find that a girl has been killed in his dorm room, he grows obsessed with bringing the culprit to justice. Is her ghost, and the spirit of his dead sister, actually haunting Cal or is he having a nervous breakdown as he suffers stigmata? Piccirilli takes us on a crazed investigation into the heart of malevolence and fear. Five stars, check it out.

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Summary: keeps your attention
Review: I really enjoyed this book, the only problem i had with it is that the ending leaves you hanging.

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Summary: One of the best -- A Bram Stoker Award nominee
Review: I was halfway through with Tom Piccirilli's THE NIGHT CLASS when I learned that the book had been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for the year's best novel. I'd have to agree that it deserves all the attention it can get. This is the kind of enticing novel that will grip you from page one (from the first sentence) and hold you spellbound all the way through. This is a strong mystery with a strangely twining plot line at its center.

Cal Prentiss returns from the winter break to discover that a girl has been murdered in his form room. If that wasn't bad enough, he's been haunted since childhood by the sight of seeing his sister commit suicide in front of him. As he approaches the end of his final semester at college (i.e., "time is running out"), he learns to face the so-called real world and all its hypocricy and irony.

Apparently a murderer is loose on campus, but no one seems to care except for Cal. As he grows ever more obsessed with learning all he can about the dead girl in his room, he is hounded by questions of what true evil might be. Cal suffers from stigmata and his hands bleed whenever someone close to him dies. The more he bleeds the more he realizes that someone is killing everybody he loves or cares about.

Piccirilli is a poet at heart, and his writing is so lyrical and beautiful in places that it should be read aloud. This is a haunting, fast read that will linger with you long after you've turned the final page. This is a brilliant, imaginative novel, and Piccirilli never settles for a quick payout where story, voice, style, or his narrative vision is concerned. THE NIGHT CLASS is one of the best of the year. Highly recommended.

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Summary: Eerie novel about a haunted university
Review: I was lucky enough to recently meet Mr. Piccirilli at a reading recently. Once he finished reading a passage from THE NIGHT CLASS I knew I had to grab the book, and I'm glad I did.

This is one of the best horror novels ever! You get drawn into this story immediately and there's no turning back. It's a terrific mixture of horror and mystery, with a cast full of funky, hip folks doing strange things for horrifying reasons. Not only is the book scary, but there's plenty of dark humor too.

I eagerly look forward to his next novel A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, and his new short story collection MEAN SHEEP (great titles!). They both sound like they're going to be killer!

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Summary: Awesome introduction to Piccirilli
Review: I've been hearing the name of Tom Piccirilli for the last couple of years but this is the first book of his that I've read. Man, I'm sorry that I waited. This is my favorite novel of the year!! It's so weird, with a great murder mystery at its core, and a VERY frightening ghost story attached. I've never read anything like it, where so much atmosphere is packed into the story line. Next up, I'm taking on A Lower Deep and Hexes! I know I won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A real grabber!
Review: I've read a few other Tom Piccirilli horror novels before, but this might be my favorite. There's only a few supernatural overtones to the story and those are handled very well. The Night Class is really a suspense-thriller that takes place on a college campus where a murder has occurred. As a student investigates he grows more and more caught up in a web of intrigue that involves the true nature of "higher learning." An instant classic.

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Summary: Stoker Award-Winner for Best Horror Novel of the Year
Review: If you haven't heard, the Horror Writers Association recently awarded Tom Piccirilli's novel The Night Class with being the best horror novel of the year. I happen to agree. This is a subtle, haunting, and sorrowful supernatural mystery that takes the idea of higher education to a whole new level. Atmospheric and intensely moody, the story takes place in a single night where the civilized mask is stripped from the face of a university to show the ugliness and horrors beneath. A lyrical, dreamy, and moving tale told by a master craftsman.

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Summary: Unique mixture of mystery and horror
Review: If you're searching for a powerful novel to read, then let me suggest Tom Piccirilli's THE NIGHT CLASS. Tom's been steadily working in the horror field for several years now, offering up his offbeat, bizarre, and yet literary works of dark fantasy and dark crime. TNC is a mixture of both. A mystery story with elements of the supernatural tossed in.

Our setting is a snow-covered campus during winter. Our protagonist, Cal Prentiss, is coming apart at the seams as his alcoholism takes greater hold. He's haunted by the images of his sister committing suicide in front of him as a child, and as he approaches the end of his final semester at college, he fears what lays in wait for him outside these hallowed halls.

But what stalks him on campus may be even more terrifying. Cal suffers from stigmata and his hands bleed whenever someone close to him dies. The more he bleeds the more he realizes that someone...or something...is hunting him across campus, killing those he cares about.

Piccirilli writes to tell an evocative and exciting story. He doesn't pad out the novel or stuff it full of unnecessary situations. This is a short, brilliant, unique piece of fiction, and Piccirilli never compromises his story, voice, style, or his vision to play to the most common denominator. THE NIGHT CLASS is well-paced and perfectly executed from start to finish.

Sit and join the class.

Rating:
Summary: A thinking man's horror novel
Review: Like Stewart O'Nan and Chuck Palahniuk, Tom Piccirilli writes literate tales meant to unsettle and disturb. He creates a wonderful uneasy atmosphere peppered with twists and moments of surprise. No boogeymen or monsters from the mountains, his horrors center on the haunted lives of his characters and their fear that life simply isn't worth living. This is one of the most subtle and literate horror novels ever written, a dark fusion of mystery, crime, and supernatural elements. Strange, weird, humorous, and ultimately enlightening, The Night Class should be taken by all.