cover image Bobby's Watching

Bobby's Watching

Ted Pickford. Starfire, $3.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-553-56089-3

The first installment in a projected YA horror trilogy called Scared to Death reads like a how-to manual for stalkers in training. Its antihero is Bobby Wimmer, a typical angry young loner who is intent on first scaring and then murdering each and every member of the elite group of kids who tormented him six years earlier. Bobby's first victim is the angelic flutist Leigh, now a music student at Madison State. Armed with an array of high-tech electronic devices and, of course, the sheer cunning of a psychopath, Bobby plagues Leigh with a series of grisly pranks, and after murdering her first serious boyfriend, orchestrates a fatal drop down an elevator shaft for the blonde co-ed. Told from several points of view, this story offers readers the dubious thrill of identifying with both the hunter and his prey. If its first installment is any indication, the trilogy will certainly fulfill all the stereotypes associated with the horror genre: bland writing, stock characters and a suitably creepy central concept. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)