Copies of Christopher Pike novels were prime bargaining material at my school. I can clearly remember sitting in a maths lesson, reading whichever one I was most recently obsessed with under the desk, trying desperately to finish it before the end of the class because I'd promised I'd give it back to its owner (who hadn't read it and who was waiting crossly at the desk behind me).

I was reminded of my fixation by the comments on my Sweet Valley High piece last week: yes, lots of you were fans of the Wakefield twins too, but Point Horror and Pike were brought up again and again by readers. I did read Point Horror – The Lifeguard, The Baby Sitter, basically the RL Stine ones – but it was Pike who I loved. And I am racing back down memory lane at the thought of him.

I started out with Chain Letter, one of his earliest and surely the inspiration for all those dire I Know What You Did Last Summer films. It's about a group of friends who receive the same letter, signed "Your Caretaker", asking them to do something dreadful … all because of their nefarious deed one night in the California desert. "It was a peculiar letter, taller than it was long, with no return address. Alison wondered if it was a love letter. Whatever it was, whoever had sent it had lousy taste in colour. The off-purple envelope reminded her of spoiled meat." God, the adumbration! And the main character was called Alison! I was hooked.

Then there was Slumber Party – this cover is, seriously, amazingly evil – which involved a group of friends (these friends are always American high schoolers) who go away on a weekend skiing trip, only for people to start to go missing and for vengeance to be wreaked.

Looking at Pike's bibliography, I've read most of the early ones, right up until Monster (when I would have been 13, and must have progressed in my reading choices). They are all something of a mishmash in my mind now: there was usually a terrible act from the past which had to be accounted for, I think. And there would always be some horribly gruesome descriptions, a bit of teen romance – and usually someone who was meant to be dead that turned out to be alive.

Except in Remember Me, when she was actually dead. Check out this blog, which lays out Pike's various reusable plot devices: arson! Group secret! Unexpectedly related! I do remember really loving Gimme A Kiss, to do with a secret diary, revenge, and diving – read this fantastic review if you want to get to the bottom of a seriously screwed up storyline. Mr/Ms Like Pike blog also writes up my three absolute favourite Pikes: the Final Friends trilogy, The Party, The Dance and The Graduation. "Alice 'killed' 'herself', but Michael thinks someone else was behind it … Poor little Hispanic Maria falls to her paralysis …" etc. I was going to say that the slow-growing romance between Michael and Jessica in this trilogy really touched me, but I've just read through the summing-up of the storyline and it is utterly bonkers. If you can make head or tail of it, then I salute you.

I still want to reread it, though. Pike must have heralded the early rumblings of my love for horror. That continues today, and encompasses both the ridiculous (Shaun Hutson) and the sublime (Shirley Jackson). I think I'm going to track down some of his 80s paperbacks which I so loved back in the day, and which I always had to snaffle from friends or borrow from the library rather than own. I may also embark on a mission to find and interview the reclusive Mr Pike, aka Kevin Christopher McFadden, himself: what do you think? Would anyone be interested in reading it, if I can find him?