The Chosen Child (edition 2002)

A string of grisly murders lead the Warsaw police and an American business woman to the Warsaw sewers in search of the killer. Local legends point to the story of "The Tunnel Angel", a killer with the face of a child, the supposed result of Nazi genetic experimentation. The Chosen Child is a terrifying book that only the very bravest should attempt to read. With its bloody descriptions of murder and the shadowy figures of murdered children and blood-thirsty monsters skulking through its pages, The Chosen Child will have you sleeping with the lights on for weeks. ( )

From Publishers Weekly
Masterton (Prey; The Manitou) serves up a lethal combination of skillfully written detective story and intense horror, as the citizens of contemporary Warsaw begin finding headless bodies all over town. Is the perpetrator a deranged serial killer or a legendary monster living in the city's sewers? Komisarz Stefan Rej is stumped. When the seventh victim, a radio reporter critical of the Senate Hotels chain, is found in the sewer under the construction site of the chain's newest project, Rej thinks he finally has a motive for the gory events. He meets his testy match in a vice-president of the Senate chain, Sarah Leonard, an American of Polish descent who has a rapport with the Polish workers. They say that the reporter was killed by a demon that lives in the sewersAa Warsaw legend since the 17th centuryAand they refuse to work until it is eradicated. Frantic when German replacement workers are butchered, Sarah asks her Chicago cop dad for help. He sends retired police inspector Clayton Marsh, who proposes a s?ance with a Warsaw medium and hears frightening revelations. Sarah's life is further complicated by an apparent connection between her boss (and ex-lover) and the Polish mafia. Using flashbacks, Masterton weaves the horrors of Nazi occupation (real-life SS General Erich von Bach Zelewski has a surprising role) and use of the sewers by the Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising into a highly atmospheric tale. Fans of horror, mystery buffs and aficionados of WWII stories will all enjoy this dandy thriller, whose clever protagonists find enlightenment and a little romance through their pursuit of the monster. ( )