One of the finest and bestselling horror novels of the 1970’s, Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is a chilling masterpiece of terror. In an isolated New Hampshire farming community where little has changed over the past several decades, John Moore and his wife Mim do their best to maintain the family farm and live a modest, hardworking life. But from the moment the charismatic Perly Dinsmore arrives in town, soliciting donations for his auctions, the community of Harlowe slowly and insidiously starts to change.

As the auctioneer carries out his terrible, inscrutable plan, the Moores and their neighbors will find themselves gradually but inexorably stripped of their freedom, their possessions, and perhaps even their lives.

With echoes of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Stephen King’s Needful Things, Samson’s slow burn of understated violence builds to a climactic fever pitch with an ending that makes for one of the most unforgettable horror novels of all time.