Reading a classic scary story is always a chancy thing. Some scary stories have been so superseded by subsequent stories that they seem quaint in comparison and we wonder what all the fuss was about. Dracula comes to mind here. The ones that stick around often have something else that makes them stick in the brain. Frankenstein doesn’t have much power to freak us out these days but has plenty of food for thought when it comes to the ethics of science. William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is the rare book that has both. Fifty-two years after its first appearance, The Exorcist still holds enough terror to make it a perfect Halloween read for me...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.