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Customer Reviews of Mischief

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.

Douglas Clegg's Mischief!
Mischief is a great book!

I practically devoured this in one sitting because it's a real page turner. Douglas Clegg is now my favorite horror writer, up there with the best. The first book I read of his was You Come When I Call, and it was this shocking saga of terror and now, Mischief. Mischief is more quiet horror that's nearly a coming of age story twisted into a ghost story. It even feels literary without being difficult to read. One of the most interesting aspects was how Clegg manages to create a mounting feeling of dread and horror without any gore to speak of in this one, and how even at the end (I won't spoil it for you), the subtlety of the last pages adds a chill that's also quite moving.

Mischief is not for people who want blood in their face, that's for sure. It's atmospheric and fascinating, and as with You Come When I Call, Clegg juggles various storylines within the story that all add up in a kind of literary puzzle to the final conflict of the story. I would suggest people read these books back to back to get a sense of the range here. You Come When I Call is very much in your face horror with shocks on every other page and what feels like a cast of thousands. Mischief is a fast read with a slow build all circling around one character and the small world he touches.

As with the end of You Come When I Call, I found Mischief very moving and disturbing but with this kind of redemptive moment, another thing that feels different in horror fiction.

I highly recommend Mischief, give it five stars. I will admit that you might have to be a serious reader of fiction to really move through this book. Someone who comes at it wanting gore and gross outs will have to look elsewhere. It captures an aspect to the coming of age story really beautifully and a lot about the school rings true and a lot about what it was like to be a teenager having made a mistake seems right on the mark. Mischief is also a good hybrid of a literary novel with a solid popular fiction of the genre of horror.

Other recommendations: Peter Straub's Magic Terror, Bentley Little's The Town, Stephen King's Bag of Bones, Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show, Christopher Golden's Strange Wood, Dean Koontz's False Memory, Douglas Clegg's You Come When I Call.

dull haunting
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.