Angelus!

by Peter Tremayne

The exclusive college of St Peter Damian stood in one of the most beautiful ports of the remote Irish countryside. Yet there was nothing beautiful about the nightmare sequence of rape, mutilation and gruesome death that beset the college that fatal autumn.

Ed Devlin, the young Irish-American tutor who thought he'd achieved a lifelong ambition in getting a post at St Peter Damian, had no idea of the vicious vortex of slaughter into which he was about to be drawn. Soon the regular ringing of the college's Angelus bell took on overtones of demonic terror as it tolled out ever more horrific messages of carnage most foul . . .

Genres: Horror

239 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1985

About the author

Peter Berresford Ellis (born 10 March 1943) is a historian, literary biographer, and novelist who has published over 90 books to date either under his own name or his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. He has also published 95 short stories. His non-fiction books, articles and academic papers have made him acknowledged as an authority on Celtic history and culture. As Peter Tremayne, he is the author of the international bestselling Sister Fidelma mystery series. His work has appeared in 25 languages.

Reviews

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nasty-spirited, callously-written Horror novel that somehow works well sitting all by itself (or maybe with other Tremayne Horror novels). The sequence of deaths, as a supernatural evil manifests in human form at an isolated boys' school, are inventively chilling - and that off-putting cover (on my edition) happens in the novel, and is perhaps more disturbing in text, and context.

An appreciation, or tolerance, for the way short, cruel Horror novels were in the 1970s and early 1980s, needs to be brought to the dissection table, in this case, because this tight effective scare-fest is the epitome of the Horror quickies of its time. If it's Stephen King's sentimentality you like, so that the Horror goes down with some sugar, then don't come to this. It is irredeemably vile, in the best way. What makes it work, ultimately, is a terrific plot that gets more done than the page-count suggests.