What is going on in the Superstition Mountains? What's behind the disappearance of Ahab Blayne? And the possible reappearance of the Lost Dutchman's Mine? And what does the SDICC have to do with all that? Bats, weird fog and a "pumpkinheaded kid"--all are part of the trappings for Adam Niswander's Cthulhu Mythos novel The Sand Dwellers which was premiered at the World Horror Convention here in Phoenix. Writing in crisp, short chapters, Adam lays out the tale of private investigator Aiden Mardian and Dr. Iris Carrolton, who come out to Arizona from the East Coast to unravel, initially, the disappearance of noted professor Ahab Blayne, which hurls them both into the mysterious goings-on in the Superstition Mountains. And, of course, what would a Cthulhu Mythos novel be without its yucky dwellers in the deep, who, along with the really nasty Overmind, are bent on destroying all mankind? They start their march towards world domination with several grisly murders and rather effectively out-spooking the military, especially one Col. Al Porter. I liked this one a lot more than Adam's previous works, as it has a more concise structure and a smaller group of characters to keep track of. Leave the lights on when you read this one.

     First of all, I have a confession to make: I'm not a big H. P. Lovecraft fan. I know it's heresy, but while I can appreciate many of his ideas, Lovecraft's execution -- the purple prose, the absurdly unpronounceable names, the annoying avoidance of descriptions for his all-too-literal monsters -- has always left me cold. All through my teenage years I assumed it was because I was too immature and he was too sophisticated. But as I grew up and grew older, I realized that it had nothing to do with maturity or sophistication, it was merely a fundamental difference in literary sensibilities that kept us from connecting.

     In THE SAND DWELLERS, two East Coast college professors, 68 years apart, disappear in the Superstition Mountains, home of the legendary Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. The first professor ends up dead, his decapitated body found years later. Now, a female university instructor hires a New York detective to accompany her to Arizona and search for the most recently missing professor before he suffers a similar fate. At the same time, a colonel stationed at a secret military installation in the Superstitions has begun having visions of a nuclear war in the Mideast while, one by one, the men under his command are being mysteriously murdered.

     THE SAND DWELLERS is not a perfect novel -- all the characters have an irritating habit of speaking aloud when they're alone, more for the benefit of the reader than for any plausible reason; and the cuts between parallel plotlines occur so quickly and so frequently the each individual story inches forward in almost microscopic increments, particularly at the beginning -- but it's refreshing to see Lovecraftian ideas dressed in such contemporary matter-of-fact prose. The two are a good fit, and Niswander has fashioned a fine addition to the long line of Cthulhu Mythos stories. I've never read anything by this author before, but based on THE SAND DWELLERS, I think it's worth going back to check out the other novels he's written.