"TRULY FRIGHTENING." --Chicago Tribune There is pure evil at work, infesting the body and spirit, driving its victims to insanity, suicide, and murder. To cast it out, a Jesuit priest must take a frightening journey into the heart of a Southern family tormented by an unspeakable curse. "HARD TO PUT DOWN." --Philadelphia Inquirer As he unravels three generations of secrets and battles for the very soul of the family's last surviving member, he will wrestle with his faith in the face of lust and collide with dark forces hell-bent on destroying him. "A TERRIFICALLY AMBITIOUS BOOK." --Newsday Brilliantly imagined and compulsively readable, DARK DEBTS is a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller--a remarkable novel that will grip you with its nightmare vision of evil and hold you spellbound until the very last page. From the Paperback edition. Once you meet the Landrys of Georgia in this debut thriller by a veteran television writer, you'll never again use the words "a family from Hell" lightly. Dark Debts focuses on two couples: a Jesuit priest and reluctant demonologist named Michael Kinney, whose growing doubts about his calling are energized by an affair with a New Yorker editor; and Randa Phillips, a columnist for a Los Angeles alternative newspaper, who was the longtime lover of Cam, seemingly the sanest of the Landrys, until he killed himself, and is now involved with his only surviving brother, Jack. Michael Kinney, a Jesuit priest; Jack Landry, the last surviving member of a crime-ridden Southern family; and Randa Phillips, an alternative newspaper reporter, seem to have little in common. But during the course of Hall's novel, these characters confront murderous forces so evil that exorcisms must be performed. Such intelligent and interesting characters deserve more than the predictable, overwrought, escalating complications of a Satanic possession plot, however. Much like the skeptical reader, the protagonists question the concepts of possession all the way to the novel's denouement. Subplots of romance and religious faith supplement the demons' machinations, and many readers will enjoy the suspense. Hall is a television writer whose credits include M*A*S*H, Roseanne, and Moonlighting, and the film rights to her first novel have been purchased by Paramount. Buy wherever demand for supernatural thrillers warrants. -?Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P. L., Houston Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. The path for Hall's first novel, a successful hybrid of Anne Rice and Colleen McCullough, is strewn with gold--a 150,000 first printing, film rights sold to Paramount, and a huge promotional campaign. Does it merit such a push? Sure, on the intelligent thriller scale, we'd give it a 7. Considered "one of the women under 40 who is changing America" by Esquire , Hall is a well-respected television writer with shows such as Roseanne , Hill Street Blues , and M*A*S*H to her credit, writing experiences that have made her adept at executing snappy dialogue, solid psychology, well-paced action, and slick suspense. And the story, a tricky tale of demonic possession, isn't bad either; in fact, it's full of wit, romance, and some surprisingly articulate, on-target criticism of the Catholic Church. Hall's cast of sexy characters includes two bighearted but savvy women journalists, a handsome and deeply conflicted Jesuit priest with a shocking family history, a good-looking Georgian recluse trying to avoid the violent fate that claimed the lives of his parents and three brothers, a street priest from the Bronx specializing in exorcism, and a kind woman demonologist. Hall provides plenty of gothic moments when the "thing," a manifestation of pure evil, is present, but she never goes overboard. Hall should be applauded for writing genuinely entertaining commercial fiction grounded in serious thought instead of wasting paper on more pulp nonsense. Donna Seaman Gripping, much heralded horror debut novel by top TV scripter Hall. The five years Hall spent on writing, revision, and deep research reap big rewards for the reader in this very serious (and spiritual) shocker. The story: A dark debt, or curse, hangs over the family of a Georgia ex-Satanist. The Landry family has been working off this debt, unbeknownst to its infected members, with insanity, suicide, robbery, murder, and even mass murder. Cam Landry, a reclusive young Los Angeles crime writer who has just signed a publishing contract for $300,000, suddenly goes berserk, robs a liquor store, kills a clerk, then commits suicide. Cam's ex- lover Randa, a journalist for an alternative newspaper, wonders what could have provoked this senseless deed. Romance blooms when the determined Randa goes to the town of Barton, outside Atlanta, to talk with the last surviving Landry, hermit Jack, who knows that insanity, murder, and perhaps suicide likely await him as well. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Father Michael Kinney, a sexy young Jesuit who edits a far-out