HEIRS OF DARKNESS

A sturdy but slow-moving and rather shrill contemporary gothic: young widow and wee child trapped on farm with creepy in-laws. Beth and son Paul go from L.A. up to Covenant Farm after husband Jon dies—accident? suicide?—in a car crash. And no wonder he never talked about his family. There's Jon's vacant ma, an alcoholic lech of an uncle, a vicious aunt, one hulking retarded cousin, one evil-macho cousin (Beth succumbs briefly, to her own disgust), a mad grandma, hints of incest, and lots more. "Everyone here is mad," Beth writes in her hysterical journal. Or are those really ghosts conversing with little Paul—and did grandpa Carl really make a deal with the devil? Beth quakes a lot and allows herself to be made a helpless prisoner. She does escape, of course, and tolerant fans of dumb-damsels-in-dire-distress will be able to escape for a while with this first adult effort by a familiar presence in juveniles.