Chain Letter

Chain Letter is a horror novel by the American writer Christopher Pike, published by Avon Books in 1986.

Seven friends share a secret about a night in the desert when they committed a crime they have never discussed since. Alison opens a chain letter signed by somebody using the name Your Caretaker and takes it for a sick joke until she realises that whoever sent it knows exactly what the group did. The letter goes to each of the seven in turn, asking for things that are dangerous and close to impossible and threatening violence when they are refused. None of them wants to believe that any of it is really happening to them, and then the accidents start.

The novel is one of the young adult horror stories of the period. The seven are picked off one at a time, and the demands turn into deaths, which leaves the group working out which of their own number is behind the letters.