She uses dozens of beasts from the mythological canon and establishes new myths with matter-of-fact ease. (The idea of a Parselmouth a person who can speak to snakes seems ancient and fully formed.) She uses plot devices that could each fuel countless romantic comedies: a truth serum, transfiguration, time travel, invisibility, immortality, alchemy.

NEWYORKER: Mugglemarch

All these plot lines interweave and tauten right up to the unbearable romantic tension of the climax.

NEWYORKER: The English Patient

What is more exclusive to "The Following" is the plot device involving Edgar Allan Poe, whose works and romantic view of death are depicted as a religion for the psychotic misfits who flock to do the serial killer's bidding.

WSJ: The Following on Fox; Paul Williams Still Alive on Showtime: TV Reviews by Nancy deWolf Smith