After you read my Query letter, let me know if you would be interested in reading the first 20 pages. I've had a many look over some of what I have and they've thought it was really good.

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Professor Jonathon Hicks has a divine power and will stop at nothing to drive ten students psychologically insane through deadly, tormenting mind games. He’s a prototyped experiment created by Dr. William Creed—Creed tried perfecting the human race, but failed—and now he realizes that he had accidentally unleashed a daunting supernatural entity.

1)using the name Christoper Lee (I assume you know of him via his vampire-roles and LOTR trilogy, etc) hit me like a sledgehammer - I mean my eyes went straight to it. And I'm not even a horror fan. It's about as subtle as having a Prof named Stephen King if you ask me, lol, but that's JMHO.

2)Calling Harvard the greatest anything is bound to PO an editor somewhere - and odds are the majority of horror/suspense editor probably ain't from harvard - and they probably think their own alma mater is the greatest. (Not to mention some readers might role their eyes at the arrogance...)

Other than that your query sounds awesome - though I'm a newbie to all this so it dont count for much.

My thoughts on the letter:

-Too many names.
I got lost and had to go back and read who was who.

-There are a few "tantalizing descriptors" in there. See if you can let the text tantalize. "or whoever he is" "evidently" "No one but Matt knows for sure" "Hopefully isn't too late"

-most inevitable death. Two things I didn't like about this was 1. the word most doesn't seem to work before inevitable, and 2. telling us they are all going to die. Unless it's like Final Destination of course.

I always imagine the deep voice movie guy when writing a query. Put that guy's voice in your head and consider how short what he has to say really is.

"With the mysterious death of their former calculus professor, three Kingsbridge students..."
Then tell us about the non human replacement who comes from nowhere.
Lastly the withheld information.

If I'm an agent going over your query, I'm going to stop dead when I see 215,000 words. You are about 115,000 words too many. If I'm reading this as an agent, this is where I stop reading and print out the form rejection. Unfortunately this is going to be a hard book to sell at that size, no matter how good it is. You're not writing high fantasy (which is still hard to sell at those sizes when you are unpublished) you're writing horror.

Oh, and "Suspense/Horror" isn't an official catagory. The best way to narrow down which catagory you fit into is to go to the book store. Which shelf would your book sit on? Would it be next to Stephen King? Or would it fit better next to John Grisham? (Suspense is usually grouped with mystery, by the way.) You have to know how to market your work before you can ask an agent to market it.

Here's a web site that I like for queries: www.queryshark.blogspot.com You can go over other people's attempts at a query, see the feedback Janet Reid--who has been an agent for umpteen years--gives to each query, and even submit your own query to the shark. I wish you luck with this. For whatever reason, even great writers get hung up on queries.

I'll start from the start. Although, where you begin may not have been the best choice. If any of the students (or all of them) is/are the protagonist(s) then you might consider starting there. That said...

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Professor Jonathon Hicks has a divine power and will stop at nothing to drive ten students psychologically insane through deadly, tormenting mind games.

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1) Too much information clouding up the hook. Professor Jonathan Hicks can probably be Professor Hicks and work just as well. I don't see a power to drive people mad as divine -- profane, maybe -- but not divine.

2) Speaking of mad, you can shorten the hook and open up room for more information in your query by substituting "psychologically insane through deadly, tormenting mind games" with "mad".

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He’s a prototyped experiment created by Dr. William Creed—Creed tried perfecting the human race, but failed—and now he realizes that he had accidentally unleashed a daunting supernatural entity.

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1) Prototyped? Is this a typo? Do you actually mean "a prototype of an experiment" or "a prototype created by Dr. William Creed?" Anyway, too many "he's" and I don't think they refer to the same "he". Okay, I get it, Hicks is the prototype, but after that initial "he" is "he realizes" a reference to Creed or Hicks? Is "he had accidentally"? Remember these "he's" I cite are all in one sentence.

2) "daunting supernatural entity"? How about just "supernatural". One thing I've learned about my queries is that they need to sound less like the novel and more like I'm just trying to tell a stranger what my book is about. Which, to me, means that my thoughts have to be collected and succinct.

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EYE OF A SHADOW is a 215,000

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1) This may not be important, but if this were my query I would say "my 215,000" as opposed to "a 215,000". To me "my" says I wrote this. It's mine and I want to share it with you. It is good though that you waited until this point in the query to introduce the book. By getting the reader past the hook, and if it indeed does "hook" them, they probably will overlook the word count. Though I understand the point TrishaH24 made, I believe agents and editors know that first timers often overdo their word counts, and if the story is good enough for them to want to publish they'll help the author scale it down. It's their job. Nonetheless, always get someone to reread an entire work you're proud of before you send it out, they may find the redundancies and overages you missed, which could help you scale your own work down before you query it.

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But then, after Christopher Lee—Former Calculus Professor—is brutally murdered, Professor Jonathon Hicks becomes their new and improved permanent substitute teacher...

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1) I actually missed the Christopher Lee part. Went right past it, go figure. My problem isn't with the name, though I do agree with axeminister, there are too many to keep up with. I am concerned with your choice of "Former Calculus Professor". Obviously, the capitalized "former" is a typo, but that's not my problem either. My concern is that he is only former because he was murdered, thus the word isn't needed at all. Just say he was murdered and replaced with Hicks. I don't even think you need to quantify with "new and improved permanent substitute teacher..."

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Evidently, Matthew Gibson was hiding important, life-saving, information for a long time.

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1) I wouldn't give a prospective agent or editor a mystery. You're going to have to tell them what this important, life-saving information he's hiding is. And if it's important to the plot you're going to have to reveal it here, in the query.

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Hopefully, it isn’t too late.

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1) I think agents/editors get enough of this in queries that it turns them off. I don't think I would include this statement at all. Your query ends fine without it.

A query, as I see it, is a synopsis of a synopsis, and you only have one page to do it in. Also, be careful, make certain you write the query completely within one tense, and I believe that should be the present tense. Congrats on completing your novel and good luck.