The Horror At Red Hook

The Horror At Red Hook
by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Horror at Red Hook" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft. Written on August 1–2, 1925.

The story begins with Detective Malone describing an on-duty incident at Red Hook, Brooklyn, that gave him a phobia of large buildings. Back-tracking to where it all began, Red Hook is described in detail, with its gangs and crime, and suggesting at an occult underbelly.

The "case of Robert Suydam" is then told to be the driving force behind Malone's federally ordered involvement at Red Hook. Suydam's demeanor changes suddenly. Known as a shabby recluse, he is seen around town looking younger and more radiant. News arrives of his engagement to a well-to-do woman, while at the same time, there is an increase in local kidnappings. A police raid, involving Malone, uncovers nothing useful from Suydam's Red Hook flat save a few strange inscriptions.

About The Author :-

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror, the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the inverse is fundamentally alien.

Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, but his reputation since then has grown in leaps, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century.

HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft died in March 1937, at the height of his career. Though only forty-six years of age, he had built up an international reputation by the artistry and impeccable literary craftsmanship of his weird tales; and he was regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as probably the greatest contemporary master of weird fiction.