Slippin' Into Darkness

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.