Whether it is the resuscitated corpse that visits a hotel gust in The House of the Dead or the maleficent returning warlock cocooning a tomb robber in Mad Allen, or the taking shape of a vague apprehension in A School Story, or a human sacrifice in Blood of the Lamb, Bell knows that what we fear most is the sensation of being afraid and that it is the reader’s imagination which conjures up the true phantoms of terror.