SHOCK WAVES

From Westwood (He Came From the Shadows, 1991), a disappointingly lackluster horror story about an apparently human creature who seduces women and then draws their life essence. After killing two in a British village, he's about to claim a third—17-year-old Leigh—when the ghosts of his past victims rise up to tear him apart. Despite the author's weak efforts at misdirection, readers will know who the killer is as soon as Leigh meets him; and though he supposedly has ages of experience, he leaves a wide trail of incriminating evidence. Westwood creates little atmosphere or dramatic tension, only hints at the creature's nature and motives, and kills it off in a gruesome, contrived, and absurdly well-timed fashion. Slow-moving and perfunctory. (Fiction. YA)