COLD MOON OVER BABYLON (1980) written by Michael McDowell. Lakewood, CO; Centipede Press; 2023. 1st trade (UNSIGNED) hardcover edition. OUT OF PRINT.

Publisher description:

Babylon, Florida — located in the state’s panhandle — is home to the historic and winding Styx River. The very same river checkered with a dark past that the Larkin clan knows all too well. One that they would just as soon forget if they could. But the river ebbs and flows like time, siphoning the souls from the dead and marking the minds of the living.
       Babylon is also where the sibling pair of Jerry and Margaret Larkin live with their grandmother, Evelyn, on a blueberry farm just a stone’s throw from the river. It’s a modest living with little reward and little in the way of sustenance, which is just a paltry yield that the soil and climate are only too kind to allow. Though the farm is as much a part of their family as it is their home, even if its mortgage is drowning them in debt. But that’s just the least of their worries.
       When Margaret doesn’t make it home from school one rainy night, Jerry and Evelyn contact the authorities and conduct their own search to no avail. Then her corpse washes up on the banks of the river just outside their estate. She’s yet another victim of its watery grave, and yet another reminder to Jerry and Evelyn of their family turned upside down and torn apart.
       Ruled a homicide, Margaret’s death sparks a manhunt for the killer, who’s suspected to be one of their own. Picking up the trail gone cold may require more cunning and even more bloodshed than this close-knit community are ready to handle or even understand, for the cold moon over Babylon has other ideas.
       Brandishing a flare for the supernatural, Michael McDowell’s Cold Moon Over Babylon resists the urge to fit any typical horror mold. Like a methodical serial killer, he takes his time setting the plot and mood, building up its grace, and then enjoying every last menace his psychological probing conjures. And just when you think you’ve solved the mystery, another hand bursts from the undertow, beckoning you under.
       As you’ll soon learn, the moon overhanging any small town may often signify the eggshell white of purity and virtue inherent in its people. But not in Babylon. It acts as a beacon signal, casting the pale, fleshly glow of a corpse rising and reclaiming its retribution. And with McDowell’s Cold Moon Over Babylon, you’ll find that glow cast on the viscous, swollen sheen of the Styx River, where what lies beneath comes forth in the light, hell-bent with perdition and all its trimmings.
       This edition of McDowell’s masterpiece of terror features new dustjacket and interior art by Ben Baldwin, a new introduction by S. T. Joshi, and a bonus story by Michael McDowell, “Miss Mack.”
      The book is bound in cloth, with a top edge stain, dustjacket, foil stamping on the cloth, and ribbon marker. 

Fine in fine dj.