It is interesting that the notion of torture and worse happening to adults, including innocent adults and sometimes helpless ones, might be an almost necessary component of some of what we regularly discuss here, but the notion of the same things happening to kids can turn people right around.
Actually, a number of horror-fiction magazineas have declined to accept fiction involving the terrorizing of children, given how much of that sort of thing was offered in the wake of V. C. Andrews and Mary Higgins Clark's novels and less savory materials, particularly in the 1980s. I believe some book publishers, while they had horror lines (Leisure being one of the few with a sustained program these days) also refused that kind of manuscript. So, not so much for a horror list, either.
Though, sadly, too obviously a topic for a true-crime list, given that I'm listening to an account of Pitcairn Island case on the NPR program FRESH AIR as I type.
Though another relevant suspense story that comes to mind is Ray Bradbury's "The October Game."
Todd Mason
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