Furnace - Softcover

Gray, Muriel

3.52

394 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006496407 ISBN 13: 9780006496403

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

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From the author of The Trickster, an unnerving tale of latterday alchemy and the horrors brooding beneath the placid surface of life in one small town in America.

Something is being born.
The darkness is its delight, deep and black and hot.
Its growth is unstoppable.
It knows who has summoned it.
It knows that its carrier is aware and afraid.
Its time is drawing near...

When long-distance truck driver Josh Spiller pulls into the small backwater town of Furnace, Virginia, he has a lot on his mind. He’s been driving for thirty-six hours straight after busting up with his pregnant girlfriend; he’s tired and hungry, and all he wants is to get some breakfast and rest up.

But Furnace has something special in store for Josh. Amongst the surprisingly affluent houses, the neat streets and smartly-dressed townsfolk lurks the stuff of living nightmare. A sequence of events is about to be unleashed that will test Josh to the edge of his endurance. A world of sorcery and malice is waiting to gather him in. For behind the prosperity of Furnace lie terrible secrets; and a terrifying fate in store for those who take an unwarranted interest.

Even now, as Josh searches for a place to stop, his electric-blue Peterbilt roaring through the gears, the eyes of the town are upon him.

The nightmare is beginning...

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Product Description:

1st Harper Collins 1998 edition paperback fine book In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Review:

Josh Spiller is a long-distance truck driver. Although his girlfriend is pregnant, he's got no major personal problems--until the day he rolls into a small town called Furnace, where a middle-aged woman pushes a baby carriage straight into his wheels and then vanishes. The dead baby's teenage mother and other passers-by swear the wind caused the carriage to roll, and the police take Josh for a troublemaker when he insists on writing a statement to the contrary. Shaken, Josh hits the road again, only to find that it's not so easy to get away from Furnace; something inhuman is hot on his heels. A pretty hitchhiker recognizes a mysterious scrap of writing in his truck as ancient runes spelling out--on human skin--a horrific curse. From then on, all roads lead back to Furnace as Josh races to unscramble a weird puzzle involving a wealthy town councillor, the Philosopher's Stone, and a demon who will destroy Josh in three days unless he returns the runes to their rightful place. The rotating point of view can be confusing, and the language occasionally doesn't ring true to a non- Scottish ear. Nevertheless, this is a grand, terrifying tale.

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