As wiser horror-writers have discovered, the devil-cult/virgin-sacrifice formula is best when treated compactly, with hints of the terror-to-come surfacing in a subtle, accumulating way. Here, unfortunately, first-novelist Klein, editor of Twilight Zone magazine, goes fatally wrong in both respects: this is an unconscionably drawn-out and belabored variation on a standard plot; and all the evil secrets are on longwinded display hundreds of pages before the overdue finale. Jeremy Freirs, about to turn 30, is a minor New York academic, writing a thesis on gothic fiction, who happily rents a cottage on a New Jersey farm for the summer; his farmer/landlords are Sarr and Deborah Porath, a young couple belonging to an Amish-like religious community. What Jeremy and the Poraths don't know, however, is that Sarr's homicidal ancestor Absolom (b. 1868) is still around, in shape-shifting form: he's "the Old One," a devil-possessed entity who needs Jeremy as part of a midsummer sacrifice/ritual. Moreover, in need of a virgin for this wing-ding, the Old One, transforming himself into an eccentric N.Y. codger, arranges for Jeremy to meet librarian Carol, 22, a Catholic virgin who is soon visiting the Porath farm on weekends. And the only one who's Evil-aware is Sarr's mystical old mother, who doesn't know how to fight off the Old One's powers. For chapter after chapter, then, the characters are treated to inklings of the approaching horror - nightmares, dead cats, tarot cards, sexual fevers, and other standbys. ("Most of the livestock in the area's been actin' strange lately.") The Old One has to work hard to keep Carol from losing that virginity before the July 31 deadline - while (in codger/pal form) he introduces her to devilish mantras and such. Jeremy does get worried when a local cat becomes a killer, but he doesn't manage to leave the premises. So at long last, after day-by-day updates from the Old One ("the Woman has been tested and found ready, the Dhol lives clothed in human form"), it's time for the rape/drowning ritual to get underway. . . with a last-second, anti-demonic rescue by unappealing Jeremy. A shrewd editor would have cut this by half, producing a sturdy little chiller. As it is, it's lumbering and scare-less, the slowest-moving horror in recent memory. (Kirkus Reviews)
