The Jade Unicorn: 25th Anniversary Edition

Introduction by Jeff Matsukubo
Original cover art by Erik Wilson

The Jade Unicorn celebrates 25 years of underground circulation and acclaim. A horror story that shatters the limitations of the genre, The Jade Unicorn takes the reader on a multi-dimensional cyclone from innocence to evil, and from decadence to enlightenment and self-sacrifice.

This isn’t a book for the squeamish, because the truth about Evil must be told graphically and read without shame. Nor is it a book for genre fans looking for another vampire, ghost, or demon story. The Jade Unicorn will haunt you long after you’ve turned the final page…

"The night sounds of the park all ceased. The strange, terrifying scream rose horrible and naked into the night, a scream that was both an outpouring of unspeakable agony and the ecstasy of illicit lust." From The Jade Unicorn

So begins a most savage and brutal murder -- one of three mysterious homicides that boggle the imaginations of even the most hardened members of the coroner's office and the New York City Police Department. From the very beginning of this spellbinding novel of supernatural terror, the clues defy reason, and the prime murder suspect is a killer that even the cops admit cannot possibly exist.

In The Jade Unicorn, Jay Halpern creates a haunting tale of occult horror that has not been equaled since The Exorcist. A young girl raped and mutilated, a sexton ruthlessly slaughtered, a gay cruiser savagely dismembered in a warehouse near the Morton Street Pier -- a trio of grisly and bizarre murders that are anything but unusual in New York City. Or so the police assume until they begin to put the killings and their peculiar circumstances together.

Intertwined with the murders are the lives of Abe Ender, New York's erudite district attorney; Adrienne, the beautiful, well-kept, but thoroughly ignored wife of a wealthy businessman; and Adrienne's sadistic, Satanist husband Mercadante, whose prized jade unicorn amulet Adrienne steals to bestow upon her footloose young lover, Jade. Jade -- an unlikely hero: amoral drug dealer, gigolo, poet with transcendent psychic powers, and ultimately, the chosen being who stands between the world and its destruction.

Others are drawn inextricably into the web, as the malignant horror continues. A primitive being stalks the city in quest of vengeance and in search of a bride. And the police stalk the city looking for answers.

Noisy, startled, haunted, New York becomes a playground for the surreal, and in a shattering climax to this terrifying tale, an unlikely team of defenders come face-to-face with the world-destroying beast-- and the awesome powers of the jade unicorn.

Limited to 500 copies signed by Jay Halpern