Michael Aronovitz

Serial killer Michael Leonard Robinson murdered thirteen college coeds in early 2018, impaling them on flagpoles and leaving them on highway construction jobsites for the purpose of "haunting the dawn rush hour." Police called him "The Scarecrow Killer," until he revealed in an otherwise cryptic note left for police on March 13th, 2018, that he thought of his "dolls" more as "sculptures." It was believed that The Sculptor killer perished in a massive explosion at the Mount Airy Forge in North Philadelphia at the stroke of midnight, July 18th, 2018. Authorities recovered a foot in a rubber slush boot and one arm in the blast area. They could not find the rest of the body. Last night, widower Professor Brad Winslow read a disturbing paper turned in by one of his students who had so far attended the Zoom class with the camera off. Most of the "paper" was smut, yet it did not have a college freshman's feel to it. There was a cruel joy here, as if the author was a damaged yet seasoned adult expecting the reader to find the dark writing poetic. Then, was the conclusion paragraph: Professor Winslow, I have been watching your darling daughters: Sage, the artsy tenth grader, Jody the eighth-grade tomboy, and Esther the spoiled seven-year-old, bless her heart. Here is the deal. Go to the police and I will skin the girls to the bone one square inch at a time with an X-Acto blade and a pair of splinter forceps tweezers. It will be live-streamed. You will be duct-taped to a chair with your head in a vice and your eyelids sewn open. Or . . . The Winslow Sisters will be my pawns, while you, Professor, will be my Treasure Hunter, Snake Catcher, Lord of the Worms. My new accomplice. -Michael Aronovitz writes the Bio/Reviews and Press releases for the rock and heavy metal labelEclipse Records. He is a college professor of English and lives in Wynnewood, Pennsylvaniawith his wife Kim.

"The Sculptor is one of the most grimly terrifying serial killers in recent literature."--Horror scholar and editor ST Joshi At age seven, Michael Leonard Robinson commits his first murder, turning tragedy into an aesthetic. By the time he turns eighteen, he has become an expert with computers, gaming systems, and the art of video imaging. And now in his forties, fully realized, he has long erased his digital footprint. He is thirty years ahead of our most advanced scientists, military ops tacticians, and elite information tech specialists. He is a master of disguise. He can invent projected realities. Of course, Michael Leonard Robinson could work his dark vision on a global scale, yet he doesn't need "the world" for a fetishistic thrill, just a police captain, his receptionist, a detective, a rookie junior officer, his sister and mother, and a lot of dark theater. Robinson appears to these characters in disguise, film clips, and flashes as he torments them. Their multiple viewpoints are puzzle pieces. When they fuse to finish the puzzle, the final sculpture becomes clear.

This new book from critically acclaimed genre author Michael Aronovitz collects some of his greatest stories that celebrate the beauty of the darkness in the world. In the section titled GIRLS, you'll learn "How Bria Died," and will also meet "The Sculptor" in the story that inspired Aronovitz's full-length serial killer novel of the same name. In the section featuring PSYCHOS, you'll feel the chill of the Anti-Christ in "Quest for Sadness," and fall prey to the most frightening circus creature on the face of the earth in "The Exterminator." In TOOLS & TECH, you'll find out the dark secret of "The Tool Shed," and will also experience the full-length ghost-novella, "Toll Booth." And finally, in MARTYRS & SACRIFICIAL LAMBS you'll experience hell on earth in "The Echo," and unwittingly release the darkest force of the forest in "The Falcon." With Dancing with Tombstones, the author of Alice Walks and The Sculptor deliciously thrusts us down the twisted avenues deep inside the haunt of our most secret repressions.