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FURNACE by Muriel Gray

FURNACE

by Muriel Gray

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48002-4
Publisher: Doubleday

Furnace ($23.95; Oct.; 368 pp.; 0-385-48002-4): Scottish novelist Gray, whose debut performance was the well- received The Trickster (1995), plunges even deeper into Stephen King territory with this remorselessly grisly supernatural thriller set in the Virginia hills and also the remoter ``worlds'' of alchemy and Scots folklore. When trucker Josh Spiller inadvertently runs down a baby carriage that ``accidentally'' rolls into his path, his visit to the (improbably named) town of Furnace becomes an initiation into an imported brand of Satanism, whose minions include a friendly sheriff and a compassionate councilwoman. For nearly half its length, Furnace seems merely a clever variation on King's Desperation, but Gray is a very skillful writer and her story's furious denouement conceals a vivid succession of nasty shocks and surprises. An enjoyably lurid entertainment that will almost certainly shape-shift into a blockbuster movie. (Book-of-the- Month Club selection)