I’ve given up on ever finding out what the hell this book was, but I’ve seen other people here get an answer with much less, so what the hey–it’s worth a shot.
The book I’m looking for is, for lack of a better word, an urban/modern fantasy. I got it from my high school library, which means it could not have been published later than early 2001. I’m pretty sure I read it before senior year, too (and it was a paperback), which means it was probably first published some time in the mid to late '90s.
The basic plot is that a man goes back to visit… the town where he grew up, or the town his family was originally from, or the town where his grandfather lived. Something like that. The town turns out to be full of supernatural entities. Bad shit goes down, and they have to fend off an attack by… something or somebody.
One character is an animated scarecrow (Jack Straw) who’s very deadly. There are elves, who have kobolds etc. working for them… The kobolds could distort their bodies, I think, e.g., stretch their limbs and the like. I think there was some sort of (gladitorial?) event hosted by the elves, which was opened by drinking the blood of a captive elf who was being punished for some long-forgotten discretion.
During the attack, the town sherriff gives in to despair and commits suicide by plunging his eye down on one of those spike message holder dealies.
One of the characters was an older man… I don’t remember what was special about him. But he had a big revolver, with the explanation that if you ran out of ammo, at least you could hit somebody with it.
The big reveal at the end is that the guy’s grandfather was the incarnation of… time, I think. The title may have involved the word “Time” somewhere, too. I think the cover may have had an hourglass.
Any clues?
