Can you hear the distant howling of hounds and the thunder of ghostly hooves? It's All Souls' Eve and Zamiel the Demon Huntsman has come to claim his prey! He's headed straight for Castle Karlstein, where the evil count has hatched an evil plan; he'll sacrifice his two young nieces to save himself. Can Lucy and Charlotte outwit their uncle and his oily henchmen to escape their dreadful fate? From the award-winning author of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife comes a spooky, funny thriller just right for those middle-grade readers looking for horror--and humor.   "I might have occupied my mind usefully with Improving Thoughts, but the only improvement I could imagine then was a pair of wings, to enable me to fly to freedom. And, of course, a Head for Heights. I cleaned the dust from the window and peered out hopefully, but there was nothing but a Horrid Precipice, with jagged crags several thousands of feet below." Such are the woes of young Charlotte, locked in a tower room of her uncle's gloomy Castle Karlstein in 19th-century Switzerland. Escaping this predicament seems the least of her worries: in a solemn blood pact, her evil uncle, Count Karlstein, has promised to sacrifice his two orphaned nieces, Lucy and Charlotte, to Zamiel the Demon Huntsman--on midnight of All Souls' Eve--in return for his current riches. First, however, the heartless Count and his "lip-licking, moist-handed, creeping, smarming" secretary, Herr Arturo Snivelwurst, will have to catch Lucy, too--and it is no small task with the headstrong, 14-year-old Hildi Kelmar; her 18-year-old, handsome-in-a-scowling-sort-of-way brother, Peter; and the intrepid English teacher Miss Augusta Davenport on the girls' side. As Miss Davenport herself points out, "an English gentlewoman can rise above any circumstances, given intelligence and a loaded pistol." The events in this delightful gothic farce unfold quickly in a variety of narrative voices, artfully building in suspense to a powerful, terrifying, deeply satisfying stand-off between the Count and the Demon Huntsman of Impenetrable Darkness himself. Subplots and loose ends are gracefully, happily, justly tied up in the light of day, finally allowing readers to exhale. British novelist Philip Pullman, masterful storyteller and creator of the bestselling adventures The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife , mesmerizes us again with his playful, suspenseful thriller Count Karlstein , released in the United States 16 years after its appearance in the United Kingdom. Readers young and old will revel in every angle, twist, and turn of this breathlessly paced, very funny page-turner. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson Grade 5-8-In this deliciously gothic thriller there are enough demon huntsmen, evil guardians, and brooding castles to please even the most desensitized reader. The telling of the tale changes hands from beginning to end, but the principal narrator is Hildi Kelmer, a teenage maidservant at Castle Karlstein. When she hears that Count Karlstein plans to offer up his two young nieces to Zamiel the Demon Huntsman on All Soul's Eve as part of an old bargain, she must move quickly to get the two innocents to safety. However, getting from point A to point B in this story is a long, involved process, mined with almost every gothic device possible. Among the cast of characters are Hildi's brother Peter, who recently escaped from jail where he was serving a sentence for poaching; Miss Davenport, a formidable Englishwoman and former teacher of the orphan girls; goodhearted Max the Coachman, whose bad luck with sausages has landed him with the slick debonair outlaw Doctor Cadaverezzi; and Max's true lost love, the faithful but ditzy Eliza. Each of these characters is flawlessly drawn, and the changes in narrative voice would be obvious, even without the changes in typeface. However, it is the intricate plot, with its interconnected twists and turns and cliff-hanger chapter endings, that will really sell this book. The pacing is delightful, with horrific crescendos every few chapters, and comic relief in the others. After the excitement of Zamiel's visit, the literary tidying up of plot threads is a welcome relief. Try this for those readers not ready for Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, but beyond the pale horror of R. L. Stine's "Fear Street" books. Patricia A. Dollisch, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Gr. 6^-9. Including the sort of atmospheric touches the author is known for, Pullman's latest is an energetic combination of melodrama, suspense, horror, and comedy. Multiple narrators tell the story, with 14-year-old Hildi Kelmar, servant in the home of despicable Count Karlstein, setting things up and doing most of the talking. It seems that her villainous employer is planning to sacrifice his young nieces to the Demon Huntsman, to whom he has sold his soul in exchange for his title. What Karlstein doesn't bargain fo