Christopher Pike Master of Murder and Monster

In Master of Murder, Marvin Summer is a famous writer of teen horror books.  He writes under the pseudonym, Mack Slate.  None of Marvin's classmates has any idea that their favorite writer is a student at their school.  Marvin enjoys picking up his fan mail each day, but his joy turns to fear when he opens a letter that states, "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE."  The letter was sent from Marvin's town.

Marvin soon realizes that events in his town are mimicked by events that he wrote in his current series, Mystery of Silver Lake.  Or is it the other way around?  Mack Slate's hit series is coming true in real life.

Mystery of Silver Lake is a great series name.

Master of Murder is so delightfully screwed up. The characters are all crazy and make absolutely horrible decisions.  This is a fun book.

Fans of this book will want to read both of Pike's Tales of Terror books.  Each one contains a Marvin Summer story.

In Monster, Angela Warner is horrified when her best friend, Mary Carlson, rushes into a party with a gun and begins killing people.  Angela helps the police stop Mary as Mary pursues her boyfriend, Jim.  After Mary is arrested, Angela asks her what happened.  Mary tells an unbelievable story of how several football players and cheerleaders have turned into monsters. They eat other people.

Mary warns Angela to stay away from Jim, because he is one of the monsters.  Angela believes none of it, and she immediately begins dating Jim.  What a smart girl.

Of course the reader knows that everything Mary says must be true and that Angela is an idiot.

Angela has a friend named Kevin Christopher, whose name strangely changes later in the book. That aside, Kevin Christopher is an interesting name for Christopher Pike to use in one of his books, since Pike's real name is Kevin Christopher McFadden.

This is an excellent book and is similar to modern young adult dystopian novels.