Book #26: The Asylum

The Asylum by John Harwood

I read John Harwood's first book, The Ghost Writer, a few years ago, and I loved it. I mean, I loved it. I forced my mom to read it just so she could also share my obsession and also so we could discuss the maddeningly ambiguous and spooky ending. "What do you think that meant?!" I asked her. I talked about it to anyone who would listen. The book was full of everything I loved - maybe-ghosts, stories-within-stories, unsettling landscapes. I still think it's a fantastic book.

His second book, The Seance, wasn't as good. But it wasn't terrible. I was slightly disappointed, but more than ready to give his third offering, The Asylum, a try.

And oh, dear. This one...so many issues.

The plot is intriguing enough: a woman wakes up in a mental institution with no idea of how she arrived there, and is horrified to find that all of the staff of the hospital think she is a completely different woman.

So far, so good.

But then it just gets, for want of a better word, stupid. The dialogue gets muddy. The characters make obviously dumb (with glaringly deliberate foreshadowing-y flair) decisions. There are forced and uncomfortable lesbian double entendres. 

And the ending.

I have rarely read such a hurried and "oh, well - yeah, my deadline's coming up, so I'd better wrap up this story really quickly and who cares if nothing is really explained and oh yeah, I'll just suddenly kill off main characters because I don't know what to do with them now" conclusion of a story. I actually found myself double checking to see if the book was missing pages. 

So bad. I hope this doesn't mean that John Harwood is an only-one-good-book-in-him author, but I'm beginning to worry this is the case.

But if you're looking for a really great Gothic ghost story, I'd still recommend The Ghost Writer. And if you read that one, let's talk about it, because I'm still wondering about what actually happened at the end.

Book #25: Mycroft Holmes

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

I love Sherlock Holmes. I love the original stories, the old movies, the new movies with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, and the new BBC Benedict Cumberbatch series, so it's no surprise that a book about Sherlock Holmes's brother, Mycroft, intrigued me.

But what really interested me was that this book was written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Yep. That Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It turns out the guy is a man of diverse talents and interests, and has been a big Arthur Conan Doyle fan for years. 

Unfortunately, I think the only reason this book is gaining any traction is due to its authorship. 

It's not bad. It's just not great.

I appreciate the effort, but I found my mind wandering throughout the entire book -- the plot just wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention. Everything came across to me as severely edited, probably due to the co-authorship, and at times it felt like there were actually two disjointed writing styles colliding and falling apart. 

I'll stick to the OG Holmes, thanks very much.

Book #24: Harvest Home

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

I'm about 100% sure I saw the TV movie version of this book when I was around 7 or 8 (I'm sure my parents didn't know about it), and it spooked the junk out of me. I have vague flashback memories of Bette Davis in some sort of frilly bonnet and of a small boy in a sailor suit on a tricycle and some little girl screaming, and when I started to read this book, I realized that those memories were from this story.

Tryon does a really great job of amping up the dread factor without making the reader frustrated by the slow pace of the story. In fact, I actually found myself enjoying the drawn-out plot and didn't want to race through to the end, which is rare for me.

The story follows a young(ish) family of three who moves to a small New England town from New York City to give their marriage a second chance. They're initially charmed by the quaintness of the homes and residents, but it isn't long before the husband begins to notice that things are beginning to get undeniably weird. Of course, he's the only one who seems to care.

I don't know what it was about the 70s, but they always seemed to nail the whole creepy genre. Maybe they were all just horrified by their clothing and hairstyles and it seeped into their writing.

Book #23: The Night Strangers

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Oh, this book. I had such high hopes, but for the love. It was just bad.

The book begins as pilot Chip Linton crashes his jet into Lake Champlain, trying desperately to make a water landing as successfully as Sully Sullenberger, but failing. While he survives, 39 of the passengers don't, and he is racked with guilt. He decides to move with his wife and two twin daughters to a small New England town to start over, and that's where the trouble begins.

Chip quickly begins hearing voices and seeing various victims from the crash in his basement. They all seem to hover around a mysterious door bolted with - wait for it - 39 locks. 

Oh, yeah. And there's also a weird herb-worshiping cult of old people who want to drink the blood of their children. So there's that.

I had a few problems with this book. One, Chip and his wife, Emily, are ridiculously stupid and are quite possibly the worst parents in recent literary history. I had a hard time feeling any sympathy for them. Two, the villainous cult members are all so obviously evil that it's almost humorous. It's like sending Gargamel into a Smurf's home wearing a ball cap and assuming no one will notice it's him. And three, the ending. It's just so, so bad and cliche and everything that's wrong with a badly plotted ghost story.

I say skip it, and read a Shirley Jackson novel instead. That woman knew how to do scary right.

Book #22: The Silent Girls

The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad

I have a hard time with protagonists I just don't like. I know a lot of people can get past that when they're reading a book by realizing that a lot of people just genuinely aren't likable, but I just can't shake the annoyed feeling. I did not like the main character of this book, and it really tainted the whole story for me.

Set in New England, the story centers around Frank Rath, a retired police detective-turned-private eye, who is sucked into the investigation of a serial killer who targets unwed, expectant mothers. I did appreciate the setting of the book - Rickstad describes the bleak, slushy winter well, and the darkness matches the tone of the book. Unfortunately, it doesn't make up for Frank Rath.

Rath is just prickly and childish for the entirety of the book. He makes stupid mistakes because he loses his temper about eight zillion times, and you can see the consequences coming from miles away. By the time I reached the end, I didn't even care that the plot wasn't at all resolved. I was just glad it was over.

Book #21: Bad Seeds: Evil Progeny

Bad Seeds: Evil Progeny edited by Steve Berman

I love scary stories. My mom told me she was watching "'Salem's Lot" on tv when she was pregnant with me and my grandmother walked into the room and told her she was going to "mark me with movies like that." I guess she did, but I don't mind. I'm not entirely sure what it is about spooky books that I enjoy, but I think it's knowing that while I'm a little nervous and scared, I'm also secure in the knowledge that I'm actually very safe in my own home. It's a passive-aggressive thrill. 

And honestly, the scariest thing of all is evil children -- 'Salem's Lot, The Omen, Pet Sematary, the dead little girls in The Shining -- they all give me the severe heebie jeebies. Children are supposed to be sweet. Children are supposed to be innocent. They're not supposed to loom over your bed at night with the butcher knife from your kitchen raised over their heads, accompanied by slightly off-key Latin chants.

This book is a collection of short stories about those not-quite-right children who stare at you with unblinking eyes and make you uneasy when you pass them in the grocery store. The most famous offering here is probably Stephen King's "Children of the Corn," but I really enjoyed the stories by authors I'd never heard of. "If Damon Comes" by Charles L. Grant and "My Name is Leejun" by John Schoffstall are particularly good. 

I heard the "Sesame Street" theme song yesterday, and it sounded vaguely creepy to me. I blame this book.

Book #20: Broken Harbor

Broken Harbor by Tana French

My friend Jessica has been after me to read Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books for a few years, and I don't know why I waited so long. 

The coolest thing about this series is that each novel focuses on a minor character from the last novel, so you begin to feel like you're really getting the full spectrum of plot development, and each book works as a stand-alone installment.

This book focuses on police detective Mick Kennedy, who is called to the failed suburban dream home community of Broken Harbor to investigate the horrific murder of a father and two children. Only the mother was left alive, and it quickly becomes clear that someone had been watching the family closely prior to the homicide. Kennedy also has a troubled past concerning Broken Harbor, and he begins to feel old ghosts pressing in on all sides as he tries to solve the case.

This was so good that I'm going back to read all the rest of the books in the series. New author obsession: check.