New York: Henry Holt, (1992.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Author's highly praised first book, a novel about a man who buys the 'neighborhood spook house, vacant and neglected for almost a year,' since it is all he can afford with room enough for his growing family. When things go awry during renovation, he first battles with his 'paintbrushes and angers as weapons" - and then he buys a gun.. Dustjacket praise from Scott Turow (who called this 'Wonderfully funny, with a vision that alternates between the rueful, the wry, and the bizarre'), Frederick Busch ('Blades joins Thomas Berger and Paul Auster as chroniclers of suburban paranoia..taut, lucid, unnerving.') and others. 239 pp. ISBN: 0-805017895.