Looking for something morbid to read? gruesome? down-right scary?  riverwatch will pin you to your seat while the pages turn themselves.  This is a murder mystery with a gargoylic twist.
 

     Jake Caruso is an engineer contracted to renovate an old mansion in a quiet town of Vermont.  The estate is owned by Hudson Blake who lives in the nearby mansion named Riverwatch on the Quinnepeg River.  Jake's construction crew stumble on a buried crypt containing a sinister looking gargoyle.  What they don't know is that this is what Hudson Blake wanted found when he ordered the renovation.  They also don't know that this gargoyle is not a stone statue but a nearly immortal creature from the dawn of time called a nightshade.  This very intelligent winged beast hunts only at night and considers humans cattle to be toyed with and eaten. 
 

     Once it is out of the crypt, the murders begin: very grusome murders.  At one crime scene, Sheriff Damon Wilson isn't sure whether he has found one body or two in a room where entrails are hanging off the furniture.  A man's head is found in the toilet but a bloody pink slippered-foot is hanging out of a drawer (no body attached). 
 

     Someone knows what is going on.  It is Gabriel, a patient in a nursing home.  Now old, he was once quite strong: the last surviving member of the Elder Race--those beings who lived in Atlantis and assisted humankind toward civilized living.  Gabriel tells his story to a young man on the night-shift who has befriended him.  A writer of horror stories and inventor of roll-playing games, Sam Tavers is an excellent listener though he is unaware that Gabriel is preparing him to aid in the fight.
 

     Sam, Jake, and Kate are best friends.  Kate is working on "her thesis on the town's founding family, the Blakes."  As Gabriel seems to know a lot about the town of Harrington Falls, Sam takes Kate up to interview the old man.  But Kate's connection to this murder is more than academic: when Jake first saw the gargoyle he found a red jewel on the ground next to it.  He pocketed it, had it set on a chain, and gave it to his lover as a gift.  Now Kate is bound in nightmares as she hunts, murders, and feeds while mystically connected to the nightshade's mind by the bloodstone she is wearing.  And it gets worse when she witnesses the nightshade's attack on those she loves.
 

     Reading riverwatch reminded me of childhood sleep-overs where each kid would try to outdo the other with the most frightening tale.  I think that if this story would have been told, it would have won the honors for the night.  riverwatch didn't give me nightmares, but it did keep me awake turning pages!  So I do recommend it for all fans of horror.
 

KC Heath