Night Man

Jeter ( In the Land of the Dead ) achieves a nadir in lurid tedium. Concepts and suspense adequate to fuel a modest short story are drawn out mercilessly into a full-length novel of repetitive adolescent sex and uninspired cruelties. The keystone of the plot ranks among the most overdone cliches in horror fiction today: a victim of mindless brutality conjures up a supernatural revenge out of the dark recesses of his own psyche. Jeter hazards a mild variation on this predictable story line by introducing a ponderously foreshadowed twist in the final pages. But that soupcon of originality is not enough to salvage this derivative tome. (Jan.)