"Frightening haunted house horror story"

Art imitates life when former street prostitute Tony Foster lands a job as a production assistant for the television show Darkest Night. The show stars a vampire- detective while for years Tony was the food supply and lover of Henry Fitzroy, the four hundred and fifty year old vampire. Tony has fought supernatural entities for years but he never expected to fight them in the mundane world of television.

Last year on the set, he fought the Shadowlord who came from another dimension (see SMOKE AND SHADOWS) and the Shadows who the people on the set. Current filming is in Caulfield House, which comes alive closing them in and keeping outsiders from entering. Several murders/suicides keep replaying with the spirits trapped in endless reruns of what they did when they were alive. The house feeds off of these scenes and wants the eighteen living people trapped inside to repeat the murder- suicide cycle in order to feed on the essence of the dying. Tony, who found out he was a wizard when he battled the Shadowlord, seeks a way to destroy this malevolence, otherwise he and all his companions will die over and over again in a dance that has no ending.

In SMOKE AND MIRRORS, Henry Fitzroy makes a cameo appearance as the focus is on Tony who has to develop his own wizardly skills and become a leader if he is to defeat the evil that is Caulfield House. Over the course of seven books, Tony has changed from a street prostitute to a member of mainstream society who wants to battle evil whenever it comes his way. Not since Hell House has a haunted house horror story been so frightening.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 3, 2005