Floating Dragon

British Fantasy Society: Best Novel winner (1984).

"Floating Dragon racks you with suspense Straub is a master at having whole communities rocked by the forces of wickedness." – Observer

The terrors afflicting the sleepy town of Hampstead, Connecticut, were beyond imagination. Sparrows dropping dead from the trees like rotten fruit, disfiguring diseases spreading like wildfire, inexplicable murders and child drownings shattering the lives of the citizens – never can such a list of horrors have afflicted one town. But the evil madness had a long history. A catastrophe had struck Hampstead every thirty years since its foundation 300 years before – yet only Graham Williams, a writer and descendant of one of the original founders, had looked into the "black summers" and their mysterious origins. When he discovers that descendants of the three other original settlers are back living in the town, he knows it will be the blackest summer yet.