Prologue is to be credited for bringing back so many of these old pulp novels into print, or at least e-print. I had heard of Vin Packer (a pseudonym of Marijane Meaker) for years, but never read one of her books. I'm not sure if I have ever even seen one in a used book store, or if I did, it must have cost more than I was willing to pay. But I'm glad I paid the small price for this one.

First, however, I must point out that Prologue doesn't seem to have done much than just scan in the text. There was one part of the novel that was clearly garbled and missing a few words as well as a few other obvious errors created by scanning and OCR'ing. These were easy to recognize, but some of them could have been caught with a simple spell check. On the other hand, there was nothing to equal the wonderful line in one of John McPartland's books I downloaded from munseys.com (the world's 2nd best website after LibraryThing): "I wrapped my anus around her."

But back to SOMETHING IN THE SHADOWS. This is not really a pulp novel at all. It is a very serious, very strange story of a scholar slowly going bonkers after his cat is run over. Oddly, the scholar is named Joseph Meaker (the same as the author's real last name). At the beginning of the story, Meaker is just a bit of a loner, a guy who doesn't want to stay up late with his wife and her advertising agency coworkers whom she invites to spend the weekend at her and Joseph's Bucks County, Pennsylvania home. He is more interested in reading letters and poems written by his Hungarian girlfriend from college, which he keeps in a hidden file, and studying the various hex-signs on Amish barns. I know this is beginning to sound a little obtuse, but Meaker draws you into the story so well that though it proceeds for perhaps half the book before things really take off, yet you are never bored. This is because Joseph and his wife Maggie are fascinating characters. At first, Maggie is a bit unlikable, but as the book goes on, she turns out to be the normal one.

Joseph comes to believe that his neighbor from the end of the country road they live on, a doctor named Lou Hart, ran over his cat in his Mercedes, and he sets out to get revenge. His first move is to invite the doctor and his wife over for dinner. Their wives become friends, and Joseph and Lou actually turn out to have quite a bit in common. Lou has a dramatic backstory of his own, however, and it doesn't involve running over cats. I won't go deeper into the plot because it would spoil things, but the author puts together a series of events that lead to a shocking act of violence. The aftermath is just as well done, however. Basically nothing in this novel is routine or predictable. There is not much admirable about the male characters in this book, while the women show surprising strength in difficult circumstances. But you can't dismiss the male characterizations as the work of someone who didn't like men, because the psychology runs so true.

There are lots of other things that add to the story. The Pennsylvania setting is very well done. The various literary allusions are well integrated into the story. Meaker could really write. I will definitely check out more of her work. ( )