The Night Man is a horror story of repressed emotions finding twisted expression, and of the real monsters – the killers that lurk inside us. Nine-year-old Steven is bullied by all around him: the local kids, his wino mother, his teenage sister and her boyfriend, captain of the high school football team whose under-age drinking sessions Steven is forced to attend (in the land of the free, remember, you aren’t allowed to drink until you’re 21).

First appearing in Steven’s imagination, the Night Man is a kind of superhero, cruising the night in a black car. While Steven watches from the back seat, the dark figure takes revenge for him, picking up and effortlessly butchering first the worst team member, the hulking, sadistically homosexual Dennie, and then his sister’s boyfriend.

On the surface the plot is ordinary, but it’s all in the suspense and the stifling small town American atmosphere Jeter creates. He rarely resorts to clinical descriptions of bloody wounds, concentrating instead on the characters and their environment; the brutal violence, sex scenes and locations are well-handled. Despite the detail, it’s tightly-written, too.

The Night Man is a story of America, and an eminently readable, psychological horror novel. Would that other horror writers, Ramsey Campbell for instance, had Jeter’s sense of economy. This is where horror novels ought to start.