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Gilded Needles

Michael McDowell,

Mike Mignola (Illustrator)

Christopher Fowler (Introduction)

4.09 · Rating details · 612 ratings · 79 reviews

Welcome to the Black Triangle, New York's decadent district of opium dens, gambling casinos, drunken sailors, gaudy hookers, and back room abortions. The queen of this unsavory neighborhood is Black Lena Shanks, whose family leads a ring of female criminals-women skilled in the art of cruelty.

Only a few blocks away, amidst the elegant mansions and lily-white reputations ...more

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Kindle Edition, 265 pages

Published June 25th 2015 by Valancourt Books (first published 1980)

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Jan 22, 2015 Char rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: review-for-valancourt, crime, revenge-tale, 80-s-horror, valancourt-books, dark-fiction, psychological-horror, valancourt-books-reviews

4.5 stars!

This book was SO MUCH fun! Set in the early 1880's in the city of New York in a district called The Black Triangle,(where crime runs rampant and poverty reigns), McDowell brings the city and this district vividly to life. Abortions, prostitution and gambling are just a few of the dark deeds that are common here.

Black Lena Shanks and family run their all female criminal empire here without interference from police or anyone else. That is until the The Tribune decides to run a series of 4.5 stars!

This book was SO MUCH fun! Set in the early 1880's in the city of New York in a district called The Black Triangle,(where crime runs rampant and poverty reigns), McDowell brings the city and this district vividly to life. Abortions, prostitution and gambling are just a few of the dark deeds that are common here.

Black Lena Shanks and family run their all female criminal empire here without interference from police or anyone else. That is until the The Tribune decides to run a series of articles about the Triangle in a supposed effort to clean up the district. (Said effort being mostly a publicity stunt designed to better the Stallworth family's standing in the community.)

At the heart of it, this is a tale of revenge. Black Lena Shanks runs her small empire in the Triangle until Judge Stallworth sentences 3 members of her "family" to death. From that point on, Black Lena is set on seeking revenge. When the Stallworth family members each receive an engraved invitation to their own funeral, the diabolical plans of Black Lena are slowly unveiled and woe to anyone that gets in her way.

Mr. McDowell's descriptions of the poverty and living conditions in the Black Triangle were harsh and unflinching. There's nothing supernatural going on in this book, as there is in so many other McDowell stories. The horrors here are all too human. I thought I would miss that supernatural element, but I didn't. In fact, I think this book shines as yet another example of McDowell's understanding of human nature. His observations are always spot on-sometimes cutting, sometimes humorous, but always witty and true. I found these observations even more entertaining than the supernatural stuff that McDowell did so well.

I have come to adore this author over the last year or so. It's easy to see why he was so popular among horror lovers in his day and I think it's easy for new fans like me to fall in love with his work now. He's written screenplays for popular movies, (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas), and those movies were great, but for me it's his novels that speak the loudest. His style, his descriptions, his observations-those are the things that make McDowell one of the greatest horror writers of his time, and even in this time. Maybe even of ALL time. I'm happy to debate the subject with you.

This revenge novel was excellent and I give it my highest recommendation! ...more

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Jun 28, 2015 Kimberly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: valancourt, revenge

4.5 stars!

GILDED NEEDLES, by Michael McDowell is another tale rich in atmosphere that has been re-released by Valancourt Books. I quickly became a McDowell fan after reading some of his supernatural-themed titles. In Gilded Needles, he takes a much different approach. We are presented with an elaborately vivid tale of two vastly different families living in New York.

The Shanks family, headed by matriarch Black Lena Shanks, live in the "wicked", poor area known as the Black Triangle. They have ...more

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Aug 23, 2015 Jon Recluse rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror, thriller

A dark historical thriller set in the infamous Black Triangle of 1880s New York, where crime is rampant, every vice is available for a price, and even the law can be bought.
When a "crusading" judge declares war on an all female criminal empire by sentencing three of its members to death, his entire family receives invitations to their own funerals in the opening salvo of a campaign of revenge and terror from the "queen" of the Black Triangle......Black Lena Shanks.

And Hell hath no fury....

...more

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Sep 09, 2017 BrokenTune rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

“You are falling into inanity,” said Judge Stallworth coldly. “I have told you, the lower classes do not take revenge upon the upper."

My third McDowell and I think I am a little in love with his writing. How else did I just enjoy a work of horror fiction with a blood-curdling and violent revenge plot at the heart of its story?

In an earlier update I mentioned that I could see some similarities between Gilded Needles and The Godfather. I still believe this is true. Except that Black Lena Shanks “You are falling into inanity,” said Judge Stallworth coldly. “I have told you, the lower classes do not take revenge upon the upper."

My third McDowell and I think I am a little in love with his writing. How else did I just enjoy a work of horror fiction with a blood-curdling and violent revenge plot at the heart of its story?

In an earlier update I mentioned that I could see some similarities between Gilded Needles and The Godfather. I still believe this is true. Except that Black Lena Shanks and her daughters are far superior in every aspect to any of the Corleones:

1. They seek to grow their business interests openly.

2. They do not pick fights with rivalling families for reasons of business. When they escalate operations, it is for deeply personal reasons. And, yet, they limit extent of their wrath and try to shield the innocents bystanders.

3. They are not afraid to take on "the man" - or in this case, the police, a senior judge, the newspapers, and pretty much all of "polite society".

I loved the scene-setting that McDowell uses in the first chapters to give us that panoramic view of the Black Triangle (a district in the underbelly of New York) on New Year's Eve 1881: we get to be drawn right into the crowd and mingle with prostitutes, opium addicts, drunks, the sick, and all the other destitute characters that make up the society outcasts. All of whom are outside the law, because the law neglects them, and outside of society because they do not deemed to belong.

Here is another aspect where Gilded Needles compares with The Godfather: I was struck that the society described in The Godfather excluded and dismissed minorities (and women) as valueless disposables. In Gilded Needles, the society is based on an inclusion of minorities - and most of the main characters and acting agents of the plot are women. Granted, most of them were murderous, but still, if McDowell's aim was to create an alternative society that thrived on differences, this worked incredibly well.

Gilded Needles was published in 1980. When reading, I could not help thinking the McDowell was not only writing about 1882, but also about his observations about society at the time of writing. There are descriptions of political scheming that could have easily been set in any modern decade, as could the observation how the legal system may not in fact offer equal protection to all members of society, and let's not even go into the treatment of minorities by society.

Anyway, there was a lot more to this book than a crazed gang of villainous women going on a killing spree to satisfy their feelings of revenge. But of course, one could also enjoy the book just with that plot alone. If not, why do we find The Godfather so gripping?

As I don't generally like horror (readers of my posts may have noticed), I've been trying to figure out what it is about this book that drew me in so much. All I can come up with is that McDowell was an author who really understood the art of writing: His characters are spot on, his scenes are dripping with atmosphere, we get this narration that just shows us everything that is going on without telling us how to feel about it:

In the drugstore, which was neither larger nor brighter nor appreciably cleaner than Lena Shanks’s pawnshop, three fat, gaudy whores, whose vermilion lay half a dollar deep upon their cheeks, huddled at a small low table, on which stood three large glasses of absinthe. There was a short candle jammed in the mouth of a bottle and its guttering flame shining through the liquid in their glasses cast green shadows onto their pallid, pudgy hands.
Their gossip hushed when Maggie entered and they watched her closely and with evident mistrust. The shop was run by a young man whose hair had fallen out, whose skin was scarred with the smallpox, and whose eyes worked at cross purposes.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said slyly to Maggie, “what can I get for you?”
“Powdered opiate,” replied Maggie. “Three ounces.”
“Twelve dollars,” the druggist replied and, plucking out of a little wooden box his one- and two-ounce weights, dropped them onto one side of his scales. Then from a large jar filled with white powder he measured the opium, slipped it into a pink envelope, and slid it across the counter to Maggie.
“Can’t sleep?” he inquired in an oily voice. “Bad dreams? Pain in the tooth?” Mischievously he had listed the common lies of the addict. ...more

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May 05, 2016 Nancy Oakes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Gilded Needles is without a doubt one of the darkest, creepiest tales of revenge that I've ever had the pleasure to have read.

The setting of Gilded Needles is New York, 1882. The first thing that struck me on opening the book was the most excellent panoramic view of the city as the old year changes into the new. The author provides us here with a glimpse across the spectrum into what's happening at that moment, giving us a peek at the lives of "... the poor whose poverty was such that they Gilded Needles is without a doubt one of the darkest, creepiest tales of revenge that I've ever had the pleasure to have read.

The setting of Gilded Needles is New York, 1882. The first thing that struck me on opening the book was the most excellent panoramic view of the city as the old year changes into the new. The author provides us here with a glimpse across the spectrum into what's happening at that moment, giving us a peek at the lives of "... the poor whose poverty was such that they would die of it," the "criminals whose criminality was no final guarantee against the poverty they tried to escape," the "mildly prosperous and moderately respectable," and finally, for the "very rich who needn't trouble themselves with respectability." But most importantly for the purposes of this book, there is the "Black Triangle," a "little space that lies west of MacDougal, between say Canal and Bleecker Streets." It is a place where "horror festers," located "within half an hour's walk of the most fashionable houses of the city." It is in this small slice of the city that "Black" Lena Shanks and her family run their criminal enterprises; everything from illegal abortions, receiving stolen goods, selling dead bodies, you name it. However, the denizens of the Black Triangle aren't limited to the poor or the criminal -- it is also a favorite locale for the more "respectable" citizens on its outskirts for gambling, picking up prostitutes, and whatever other pleasures they desire that are definitely not found say, in Gramercy Park.

It is just one of these "respectable" people who sets this story in motion. Young Benjamin Stallworth is having his fun slumming in the Black Triangle, when he notices Lena. She recognizes his eyes, remembering the time when a certain Judge Stallworth sentenced her husband to death and had her children taken away while she also went to prison. In the meantime, the Judge and his son-in-law, Duncan Phair, have decided to build their political and social clout by trying to take down the criminals and exposing the "evils" of the Black Triangle, publicizing their efforts in the newspaper. But while the plan seems to be working, one particular event sends Lena and her family over the edge, and now she's looking for revenge. And it definitely isn't going to be pretty. The novel goes back and forth between the Shanks family and the Stallworths, who really don't help themselves with their own arrogance and their lack of understanding of human nature.

Gilded Needles is written in a way that reminds me so very much of the 19th-century "city mysteries" novels I've read, exposing the city's dark, seamy underbelly and scratching off the veneer of respectability among the upper classes. McDowell has captured the style of this sort of old novel while making it his own; he is one of the best dark fiction writers whose work I've had the pleasure to have read. Gilded Needles is seriously one of the most horrific non-horror stories I've read in a while -- bleak, very Dickensian and well, let's just say that it's definitely not for the faint of heart. At the same time, it is absolutely one of those books that once picked up will not easily be put down, and to be honest, I was still shaking after I'd finally turned the last page.

I highly, highly recommend this one -- a definite no miss for readers of dark fiction and historical crime fiction. ...more

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Jun 20, 2019 Terry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, 2019-ha-a-z-challenge, 2019-book-challenge

This book didn’t grab me at first. But after continuing through, I did end up enjoying it. I’ve been a fan of some of McDowell’s other books, and I’d rate this one just like those - very well written, especially effective settings and a good story. I wouldn’t classify this as a horror, more of a thriller, I guess. Worth the read!

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Mar 25, 2018 Tom Mathews rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, audiobook, read-in-2018

It may seem counterintuitive but some of the best horror I’ve read has no supernatural elements in it at all. Michael McDowell’s Gilded Needles is just such a book. The Alabama native applied his mastery of the Southern Gothic genre with all of its genteel depravity, racism political machination and wretched poverty, and applied it to the most unlikely setting, Manhattan.

Set in the New York City in 1882, it is an eminently believable story of hatred and revenge pitting two families, the staid ...more

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Sep 30, 2016 Kate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 3-kindle-loanable, zreading-challenge-2016

The upper class Stallworths, looking to gain political favour, decide to wage war on the sqalid NY district called The Black Triangle. The Shanks family, known for all manner of criminal activity, get caught in the crosshairs of the family's investigations in the area. When matters turn deadly, Black Lena decides to seek vengeance for the loss of her kin.
Set in the late 1800s, this book is rich in historical detail and you get a complete sense of the era. The authors descriptions of life in the ...more

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Oct 31, 2017 John rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned-books

Great story that's very different for this author. It's fictional history with horrors that are 100% believable, but not really Horror.

The Audible version, at times, sounds like the old show "The Untouchables" because of the narrator's voice, but he does decent voices. There are a LOT of characters and things to think about, so while you're thinking about one thing you might lose track and need to hit the "Back 30" button. lol

Great, great story!

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Mar 04, 2017 Lukas Anthony rated it really liked it

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...

"Gilded Needles" is the tale of an all-female crime circuit and the lengths they go to exact revenge on a judge who prosecuted one of their family...and it's terrific!

I REALLY enjoyed this. I was expecting more of a horror theme based upon the author's previous work but in truth it's more of a crime drama that happens to have some murders thrown in. I thought the author did a great job setting up not only the seedy setting, but the characters (and ...more

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Oct 20, 2018 Bill rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-mount-tbr-challange

Listened to this one on audio and dug it. The narrator did a great job. It was a little slow going in the beginning but found its grove in the later chapters.

Written very well, this one is pretty dark and the language reminded me bit of John Connolly’s Matthew Corbett’s series. That’s a good thing, btw.

Don’t be messin’ with the Shanks family. Lessens you want to get a party invite with your name on it. You don’t want that. Seriously.

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Sep 14, 2016 Kimberly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: group-read, re-read, valancourt, revenge, 80-s-style

*re-read 9/2016: rounding up to 5 stars!

4.5 stars!

GILDED NEEDLES, by Michael McDowell is another tale rich in atmosphere that has been re-released by Valancourt Books. I quickly became a McDowell fan after reading some of his supernatural-themed titles. In Gilded Needles, he takes a much different approach. We are presented with an elaborately vivid tale of two vastly different families living in New York.

The Shanks family, headed by matriarch Black Lena Shanks, live in the "wicked", poor area ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2019 Marie Helene rated it liked it

Shelves: own-kindle, usa, fiction

3.5 stars

Not a book, but a Russian doll.

First doll. Here we have historical fiction (set up in New-York during the Gilded Age) and it is well documented by the author. Not bad, but where are we going?

Second doll. The aristocratic Stallorwths vs the lowly Shankses. We enter crime territory. To be honest this part of the story dragged

Third doll. About time. Revenge with a capital R! A truly scrumptious dish that was worth the wait

...more

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Sep 19, 2017 Latasha rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, reads-for-reviews, books-i-own, audio-books

this is unlike any of the other Michael McDowell books I've read. I wouldn't say this one is his best but Black Lena is mean and devoted to seek her revenge.

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Jun 28, 2015 Matthew rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, valancourt-books, 2015, kindle-unlimited

Gilded Needles is both twisted and entertaining and I loved reading every page of it. McDowell does a really good job of making you truly hate and despise certain characters throughout the story and that just makes the vengeance visited upon them even sweeter. The descriptions of the Black Triangle really left me with a bad taste in my mouth(the taste of stale beer mixed with the smell of an outhouse to be exact). For whatever reason I enjoyed feeling like I was thrown into this disgusting part ...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Robert rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

I've enjoyed other Michael McDowell books very much, particularly his 6 volume Blackwater series and the scary horror tale The Elementals, but this revenge story was a pretty grim affair, populated as it was with mostly unpleasant, unsympathetic characters and winding down to a fairly predictable outcome.

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Aug 01, 2015 Andi Rawson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4.5 stars.

Another great read from Michael McDowell. Gilded Needles is set in New York City in the late 1800's. For those who aren't familiar with McDowell's writing, his often formally written prose is laced with both subtle humor and outright wit. Although I felt that a few parts of the book could have been shorter, the story itself is captivating and well-paced.

The Stallworth's are a wealthy family living in one of New York's wealthier neighborhoods. The Shanks' are a family of criminals ...more

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Oct 06, 2015 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Gilded,Needles

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It had me guessing what would happen next. It was a fun twisted revenge story.

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Jun 26, 2017 Nate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: valancourt, 2017

Gilded Needles is a sublime novel of revenge by Michael McDowell.

I'm not typically fond of stories set in New York City in the 19th century, although there are a few exceptions. I can gladly say that Gilded Needles is most certainly an exception, as by the time I was around 40% through this book (both ebook and audio), I could not stop reading.

An amazing, in depth analysis of life in New York City in 1882, McDowell pulls no punches in analysis of the Black Triangle neighborhood and those that ...more

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Apr 18, 2017 Kimberly rated it it was amazing

Great read

Always a good read when written by Michael McDowell. Will be searching for another. Would recommend to others for sure

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Sep 14, 2017 Robert rated it it was amazing

Fantastic period piece set in Mew York in 1882 filled with revenge and murder. Two families, both with a grudge against the other, try to eliminate one another.
McDowell was a true master in whatever setting he chose and this book is a gem.

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Jul 13, 2015 Benjamin Bauer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Holy shit. A more satisfying revenge yarn you'd be hard-pressed to find. A practically Dickensian one no less!

Now, the back of the book, at least the Avon edition, makes it sound as though the Stallworths are the heroes and that Black Lena and her crew are the villains of this tale. Truthfully, this book doesn't concern itself with black and white delineations like that. Both sides do equally horrid things to one another. But contrary to the synopsis, I found Lena and her family immensely more ...more

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Jan 06, 2016 April rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Bleaker than Dickens' "Bleak House" McDowell's novel set in 1882 New York City details the horrific lengths individuals will go to in the face of death, poverty, and loss. The city is a character in itself, full of the dregs of society; pocket-picking street urchins, backstreet hustlers, swindling prostitutes, and a host of other law breakers. In the midst of this miasma of the destitute, stands the upper class, so divided from the poor they cannot even begin to comprehend the horribleness ...more

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Oct 17, 2019 Neville Longbottom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

This was definitely different than the three other books I’ve read from Michael McDowell, which were all southern gothic horror with supernatural elements. This switches gears entirely to be a revenge story in 1880s New York City with nothing supernatural. It’s definitely a harsh and gory story, but it takes a while for the actual revenge plot to get started.

I think the strong point of this book is the characters. Lena Shanks and her family of female criminals are super compelling. They have ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Lee Dunning rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Of all the old books I've reread recently, this one held up the best over the passage of time. I've never read any of Michael McDowell's other books, which I'm sorry about now, so I may have to try to find old, used copies. Apparently, his work is normally more firmly entrenched in the horror genre, where "Gilded Needles" is very much set in the real world, albeit a harsh and dangerous one. The true horror, I suppose, is the means by which humans will subjugate and judge one another. There is no ...more

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Jan 26, 2016 A.R. rated it it was amazing

The supreme revenge taken by a invincible family of criminals on a "righteous" family of would-be saints and stern lawyers is mind-boggling. Filled with the terror of gory deaths and ruined lives, this novels stuns with its visceral intensity. What can I say? The immensely-talented man did it again!

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Jul 11, 2017 Matthew Stefan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Revenge Junkies

Beginning this book, I must say I was a bit bored. This book seemed to be a gothic repeat of Tale of Two Cities. This opinion didn't last. By the end of the book, I was grinning ear to ear as Black Lena got her revenge. It is a bit of a slow burn for the first 100 pages, but it really picks up towards the end. Overall, a very satisfying book!

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Oct 30, 2019 Gaju rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have heard great things about Michael McDowell, a horror author most prolific during the '80s. From my understanding, he was never super well-known (like Stephen King or Clive Barker) but his works have gained a cult following since his death in 1999. This is the first of his novels that I have read, and I am blown away by how much I enjoyed it.

Gilded Needles follows two very different families - the Stallworths and the Shankses - living in New York in 1882. The Stallworths are high class, ...more

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Oct 31, 2018 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This fascinating period piece focuses on a war between two families, one rich and captained by a judge, the other from the wrong side of the tracks and the law, headed by a German immigrant matriarch. The sympathies seem pretty firmly on the side of the criminals which is just one instance of the layered richness of this book.

The setting of New York City in the 1880's provides a great vehicle for an examination of power and its abuse and is faithfully rendered. I'm particularly interested in ...more

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Dec 11, 2019 Brittany (Lady Red) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I love this so much.
There’s an episode of Ripper Street called “Become Man” that is wonderful and tragic and made me fall for a fictional character.
This book is what I wished that episode would have been. Girl gags, poor people who use the fact that rich people think they’re stupid against them, lesbian characters that aren’t dead at the end, asshole fake moral people getting their just deserts, what’s not to like.
It’s also a beautiful edition published by Valencourt.
#supportqueerauthors

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Valancourt Books: Audiobook out now! Gilded Needles (1980) by Michael McDowell	9	22	Apr 03, 2018 07:35AM
paced reading hor...: September Group Read - Gilded Needles 100% spoilers	35	25	Oct 02, 2016 10:33PM
Supernatural Frea...: Ramble As You Read: Gilded Needles	7	5	Nov 16, 2015 01:14PM
Valancourt Books: Gilded Needles (1980) by Michael McDowell	12	18	Jul 16, 2015 08:25AM

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About Michael McDowell

Michael McDowell

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Michael McDowell is a prolific horror writer who has distinguished himself with a varied body of work within the genre. He was born in Enterprise, Alabama, in 1950 and died of AIDS-related illness in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1999.

His first horror novel, The Amulet, relates the tragedies that befall various individuals who come in possession of a supernatural bracelet in a small town.

In ...more