The first title of "The Saga Of Darren Shan" (author and the "ordinary schoolboy" main character), this novel has some grand horrors, most spectacularly in the Circus itself, and it includes vampires and a deadly and huge spider crawling over people -- sometimes with fatal results. The book is dressed to thrill and the simple rate of horrifying scenes will fascinate and terrify many readers. This is comic book stuff, strong on horrors and appearance, but the writing is shallow and thin.