FBI agents Dana Scully and "Spooky" Fox Mulder of The X-Files are back in these two novelizations of screenplays from the television series. In case you have spent the last few years incommunicado, collecting obscure flora in the rainforests of Brazil, The X-Files is a dark-horse success story. X-Files are FBI cases relegated to the basement of the Bureau headquarters because of their embarrassingly paranormal natures: alien abductions, shape-shifters, witchcraft in small towns, etc. Scully, the empiricist, and Mulder, the believer, are investigative partners. The show is clever and creepy and atmospheric, and the two agents are likeable and compelling. In Shapes, Mulder and Scully travel to Montana to uncover the truth about the strange death of a young Trego Indian man, shot on the property of a local rancher. Shaken, the rancher swears he had been firing at some kind of a beast. Mulder discovers footprints changing from man to animal, and notices that the deceased has long, yellow fangs. When the rancher, too, is killed, and his son attacked, there are few suspects. Conversation with the sheriff leads Mulder to suspect a manitou, an evil spirit who takes over its victims' bodies. With this information, Mulder realizes that Scully is in great danger, and rushes to reach her. In Squeeze, Scully is approached by an old classmate to assist on what is apparently a routine serial killer case-three murders that took place in rooms locked from the inside. In each case, the victims' livers were removed. Scully and Mulder soon discover that this is no standard case, especially when they find a ten-inch long fingerprint, and a pattern of deaths leading back to before 1903. The suspect, Eugene Tooms, must be stopped before he completes this new cycle of murders and goes into hibernation. With these two short novels, Steiber has remained faithful to the integrity of the television episodes. She maintains the tongue-in-cheek banter yet respect between Scully and Mulder, and effectively builds suspense up to the exciting denouements. The writing is straightforward and tersely descriptive. While these novelizations lack the nuances of the television show, Steiber's effort to preserve the atmosphere of The X-Files is largely successful. Give these to Goosebumps graduates and other fans of the supernatural. They are also an excellent choice for high interest, low-ability readers. These are short, quick, exciting reads with a dose more intelligence than your average paranormal story. Based on the teleplay written by Glen Morgan and James Wong VOYA Codes: 3Q 4P M J (Readable without serious defects, Broad general YA appeal, Middle School-defined as grades 6 to 8 and Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9).