[who did it] Zebra/Pinnacle; July, 1988 (mass-market paperback).

[chance of gettin'] You can find it used if you look hard, or better yet, you can get a signed copy from The Official Edward Lee Bookstore.

[the skinny] The author has been known quite readily to lie, referring to GHOULS as his first novel. It’s Lee’s most mainstream work, and his most successful, selling over 50,000 units. Something is rotten in the state of Maryland. No, not the salad-bar tax. In the otherwise quaint little boondocks burg of Tylersville, something has the audacity to steal roadkill and dig up graves. Lee does a peachy job taking the formula pop-horror model and turning it into something that can be perceived on a larger scale. There’s some gross-out here too (can you say “trans-vaginal evisceration?) so don’t worry about this one’s “mainstream” label. The book has clear problems; too much “tech” and it’s overwritten to the tune of at least 50 pages, but ultimately Lee is happy with it. Redneckism, bent erotica, tech criminalistics worthy of Patricia Cornwell, impeccable police-procedural plotwork: Many elements that Lee has honed to mastery all started here.