For some reason, summer always puts me in the mood for spooky stories. The last one I really enjoyed was a computer game, actually, called Dark Fall, although stories by Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard's weirder things are enjoyable as well as long as they don't get into "racial purity" stuff (which just makes the author seem creepy, rather than the story). The key is that it has to be mysterious and spooky, without being nasty. Strange noises from the basement? Good. Eviscerations? Not so much. Ghosts a big plus, brimstone-type demons or satanic references a big minus.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency sorta falls into this category, although it's a little more comedy than I have in mind. Barbara Michaels books and Lillian Stewart Carl's Ashes to Ashes are also good choices -- except that after two or three Barbara Michaels books, you start to feel like you've read them all. I'd try Stephen King, except that I can't take his seamy prose style for very long without wanting to read some Wodehouse just to wash my brain out.
