Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay

Hello everyone.

Hubby is on vacation this week. We were going to head to New England but with leaves being at peak color we feared most hotels were booked. We thought about doing something else seasonal and perhaps go ghost watching in Gettysburg. The battlefield park is open well after dark. Let's face it, this is an excuse to go somewhere, sit in the car with the camera at the ready, drinking coffee. I suppose I could do that in the driveway but the neighbors would think I'm even more nuts than they already do. At least in Gettysburg, nobody knows me. Before you say if we went to Gettysburg we should be learning about the history, you should know I've already been. In fact, my dad was a huge history buff, specifically the civil war. He was fascinated that people from the same country would fight each other, literally brother against brother. When we were kids and were going on vacation, we had to stop at every historic sight and read every historic marker along the way. When I was in the sixth grade we went to Disney World. My dad wanted us to tour Gettysburg first. I remember all the headstones and my parents being very moved. Then my dad had us stand in a specific place asking if we were amazed that we were standing right where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. At that age, unless Lincoln had been sporting Mickey ears, I wasn't interested. Now, I love history.

In past posts I've mentioned going to New York City on vacations, when I was little. I still remember being amazed by the tall buildings, trying not to look up all the time. Funny that I don't remember my dad making a big deal out of the history there. Of course, NYC is loaded with early American history, like most of the East Coast.  My parents suffered from Broadway-show-itis and Mamma Leone's fever. (Mamma Leone's was a famous restaurant they loved.)

I recently read Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay. This story takes place in NYC, emphasizing that the city is made up of so many skyscrapers. This thriller features several simultaneous story lines that of course support each other and merge at the end. New York is under attack and the Mayor's office and police are desperate to discover what is going on and who is responsible. A elevator repair man has been murdered, left unidentifiable. A bomb has been left in a car. Then an elevator plummets from a high floor to the lobby. The elevator issue seems to be an accident, until it happens again and again. Now residents of this vertical city are unable to use elevators as the Mayor demands they all be shut down while being inspected for tampering. Getting food and medical assistance becomes an issue on higher floors. People can't leave apartments knowing they cannot climb dozens and dozens of floors to return. They city is at a standstill.

This book is intense, a true thriller. As the authorities rush to figure out who is terrorizing their city, the reader flips pages faster. The novel is well written, and parts that may seem slower, than things in a free fall, are absolutely necessary in building and supporting the plot. There is no unnecessary rambling. Some very enjoyable and white knuckled reading here!

I was so freaked out about elevators by the end, I actually started learning which kind used a piston and which used cables. You can bet your Aunt Fanny that the next time I'm in NYC I'll request the hotel assigns us a low floor.  Oh, and I am never, ever, watching the movie Speed again.

Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

Hello everyone.

I hope you are having a good week. During the last blog post I took a trip down memory lane, a little blast to the past, and talked about reading the novel Hell House and watching the movie The Legend of Hell House. Another movie we used to watch was Burnt Offerings. Have you ever seen it? The movie has some pretty notable people in it: Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart and Bette Davis. This time of year, you might be able to catch it on Turner Classic Movies or with a subscription service. Upon checking, guess what I found. Yep, it had been a book first. You know curiosity got the better of me.

I recently read Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco. The author only wrote one other book, Parlor Games.  He also wrote the long running broadway show, Child's Play. Robert Marasco was even nominated for a Tony award. Burnt Offerings, published in 1973, is a great and unusual haunted house book. Kind of. The house isn't haunted, there are no ghosts at all. If you want something paranormal including the spirit world, this book won't do it for you. In this story, the house is alive. The Rolfe family, living in a small Brooklyn apartment, want to escape the hot city for the summer and rent an enormous home in the country. The house is stunning but run down. The family gets a super low price on rent if they will take care of the owner's mother who lives on the top floor. She never comes out and requires no care other than meals to be brought to her room, left outside the door. Seems easy enough and completely anonymous. The other thing is to spruce up the house as they want, restore the old pool, polish knicknacks, trim trees...general house puttering. As the story progresses the reader finds that the house and the Rolfes are very much connected, with the house almost feeding off the family as it begins to return to its original splendor.

This book is well written, with building (note pun) suspense, and a quick satisfying read. Disturbing in the best way, this won't have you checking under your bed, but it will make you think twice about your next rental! Enjoyable from beginning to end, this book is a statement to a great plot and writing featuring a true horror story without gore, vampires or zombies. A scantily clad girl, in high heels for no reason, running away from obvious safety can only be featured so many times before it gets old. You will find solid, plot driven, story telling at it's best here. Some things never get old.

If I read many more of these retro books, I'll have to don a bouffant hair-do, get a coffee percolator, and ditch my laptop in favor of an IBM Selectric typewriter. Nah, I suck with white out.

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Hello everyone.

Growing up in New York makes me appreciate fall, not that we are having autumn like weather in coastal North Carolina, it was 95 today. In upstate NY though, fall is in full swing. That means three things; high school football rivalries, beautiful leaves, and apple everything. Each fall, one Saturday morning, my dad would return home with buckets and buckets full of apples he had just picked. These were not any run of the mill apples either, they were Macintosh. Now if you've only had a "mac" from the grocery store, I am so sorry, you are missing out. Real "macs" are small, fairly firm, quite tart, and taste very apple-y. They were my dad's favorite so naturally they are my favorite too. Not only great for eating but perfect for baking. Cool weather was a signal that a visit to the cider mill was in order, cider, donuts, and candy apples of every variety were soon to follow. Just for the record, despite what my sisters say, blue candy apples are the best.

Another signal of fall was the start of fires in the large stone fireplace in our basement. We spent hours down there on cloudy afternoons watching movies. One that we loved, even though it really scared us, was The Legend of Hell House (the original version). Not only was the story creepy but it had an odd soundtrack that I can still hear. I was surprised last month to find out that, like many other movies, it had been a book first. I had to get my hands on it and read it immediately.

Hell House was written by Richard Matheson, published in 1971. The author also wrote the movie. Both stories center on a very haunted old mansion. Years ago a group of people went to the house to investigate; all were killed or driven mad except one person. Now, the house is about to be examined again, this time by a small cast of characters. Lionel Barrett and his wife, Edith, are attending the gathering. Lionel has developed a machine he believes can clear all the spirits from the house, making it usable once more. He is going to test his miracle machine during this visit. Joining the couple are just two other people. Florence Tanner, a medium, and Fischer, another medium and the only person to survive the last visit to Hell House. The story moves quickly and is filled with atmosphere. If you've seen the movie, don't hesitate to read the book. While you'll certainly recognize the story line, there are some notable differences, like a lake close to the house, where people tend to drown. In addition, the novel is much more sexual than the movie, not in a vulgar or overdone way. While I doubt this book would give you nightmares, it is still a spooky but fun read.

You know how books will sometimes advertise other titles by the same author in the back of the book? Well, Hell House has that page and I was shocked. Probably the most shocked I was throughout the whole experience! Talk about being a versatile writer, Richard Matheson also wrote the stories and screenplays for.... Duel (one of hubby's favorites)...I am Legend, he also wrote...wait for it....nah I can't tell you. Okay I will, the author of Hell House, the iconic haunted house movie (and book) wrote the novel and movie Somewhere In Time. You know the time travel, love story with Christopher Reeve. Now that is someone who can write anything!

One by One by D.W. Gillespie

Hello everyone.

I've mentioned our old houses in the past. We currently are working on an American Four Square that is over one hundred years old. We have restored a 1907 Victorian that had been divided into apartments, we returned it to single family. One of the things we did during the Victorian renovation, which took almost ten years in total, was to remove the walls on the third floor. We put heating and air conditioning ducts behind knee walls and installed insulation. While removing the walls, we found so many things; photos, paintings, corset, letters, button-up shoes and more. One thing we found was the corner of an envelope with a company as a return address. We also found writing on the low roofing boards that held the metal roof. There were spots where children had written their names in colorful chalk. We were able to track down the family that had lived there right after the house was built through the company name on that envelope scrap. It was amazing to learn that the 70+ year old man we were talking to was only seven years old when he lived in our house and those names in chalk were his sisters. We were able to talk to them too. It was so fun and made the hard work worth it and the house feel so much more personal.

I recently read One by One written by D.W. Gillespie. This is the story of the Easton family of four, mom, dad, older boy, and a young girl. Most of the story is told from the young girl, Alice Easton's, prospective. This family finds a great old house that needs lots of work. Not only is there a rambling, creepy old house but a large lot complete with dark woods featuring an old locked shed. In addition, next to the house is a pool that is only half filled with sewage like, black, putrid water. My nightmare come true!  As the family moves in and starts to work on their new home, the dad becomes rage filled. Immediately my mind went to The Amityville Horror, and I prepared myself for a B movie-ish retelling. Boy was I wrong. Little Alice tears off a piece of wall paper and behind it finds a drawing of a family that looks remarkably like the Eastons. While the kids are blamed for the artwork, Alice knows the truth, it was underneath the wall paper that had been hung years ago.  Things start to spiral out of control when family members go missing, as an X appears over the representation of them in the drawing.

This story is spooky, hitting many of the horror story highs including that smelly dark pool, the locked shed, odd woods, huge house, angry adults, a possibly evil diary, and a snow storm that isolates this family from the outside world including help from the police. The story moves quickly, leading the reader from the innocent beginning to terrifying end. A very fun read, perfect for this time of year.

Back to some housewife stuff, we finally have someone hired to fix the damage from hurricane Dorian. I sincerely hope he doesn't find anything drawn under the siding.

The Whisper Man by Alex North

Hello everyone.

I hope you are having a great day. I started a new book today, that is always enjoyable. On the housewife side of life, our new dishwasher is finally installed. It took an Act of Congress but it is done. Of course, all the dishes are already clean so the plumber ran a quick rinse cycle to check his connections (yes, we had to hire a plumber.....see me shaking my head in disgust). We have yet to dirty enough dishes to actually run an entire wash cycle. I really hope it works and actually cleans, I would hate to start over. I can live without fancy vacations, gems, baubles and a mega yacht but I need a great working dishwasher, air conditioning and a dvr with plenty of space. Don't give me that look, you're reading this on a computer or fancy phone. We all have a skewed vision of "need" these days (but just for the record mine are real needs).

With my love of books, I'm obviously an avid book buyer. Sometimes, advanced copies show up at my door. They make it feel like Christmas morning and I am always very grateful. One day I opened a package from Celadon Books. I jumped a foot. As I was removing the contents it started singing. I am not joking, it literally started singing this creepy song that is impossible to get out of your head. I even did my tried and true method for ridding myself of a song, humming the theme from Gilligan's Island. Good old Gilligan and the Skipper too, usually work for me, but not this time. In the book Celadon sent, there is a children's song that warns of the villain in this thriller and that is the song emanating from the package. Of course, it was like one of those cards where you can record your own greeting for your grandma but let me assure you there was nothing grandmotherly about this song!

Now you want to know what the book was, huh? Well the wild, spooky PR came with The Whisper Man by Alex North. This thriller is the story of a father, Tom, and his son, Jake, who are trying to heal after the death of Tom's wife/Jake's mother. Jake has pulled away from his dad, becoming somewhat remote, often quietly drawing by himself instead of socializing or leaning on his dad for support. Tom decides they need to move out of the house where his wife died. Jake is all for it and finds a house he likes, pushing his dad to buy it, which Tom does. As the story proceeds, we find that the house, like the people in this story, has many secrets.

The Whisper Man, was serial killer of young children. This predator was called The Whisper Man because before being kidnapped then killed, the children heard someone whispering outside their bedroom window. Fortunately this evil man was caught and has been in prison for many years. Concerns mount when a local child goes missing and the police learn that he heard whispering outside his window. Is this the work of a copycat killer?  Now, as Tom tries to reclaim and rebuild his relationship with his beloved son, Jake begins hearing whispers outside his window.

This book is a fast read. It is very easy to get into with well-defined and likable characters. Full of unseen twists and turns this story is hard to put down. Thriller lovers, this is our bread and butter....warming of the roll not necessary. Let me put it this way, I was upstairs reading, toward the end I yelled "Oh my God" so loudly my husband came running up eighteen steps thinking something was wrong. Something was wrong, read this book to find out all about it.

The song:

29 Seconds by T.M. Logan

Hello everyone.

Hope you are all well.  Did you get hit with hurricane Dorian? Did you see the Bahamas? How terrible. I find a category one hurricane terrifying, I cannot imagine what those people went through. Sadly, we did have damage. I know you are aware we have a historic house, but someone slapped aluminum siding on it in the 1970's and we are not taking it off.  First, the siding actually provides warmth which is especially useful in an area where old houses were built with no insulation, and secondly, we'd have to get permission from the historic planning committee to change the outside. We really don't need anymore hoops to jump through. I am already feeling like a cross between a circus pony and the old high-diving horses from Atlantic City (which my parents made me go see when I was really little). During the storm we lost a good hunk of siding, actually the back and side of our house, not the whole thing but the soffit. For those of you that don't speak "house", that is the part way at the tippy top that touches the roof. We have three stories over a high basement so the soffit is more than thirty feet high, we will need a contractor to tack it back up. Naturally they are all swamped. Estimate number one is supposed to arrive this afternoon, hard to really seriously gripe about when so many people have lost their lives. Enough of that, on to something much more pleasant, a new book.

I recently read 29 Seconds by T.M. Logan. If he sounds familiar it is because he wrote the book Lies, a thriller, which I liked very much. 29 Seconds is the story of a woman, Sarah, who has the boss from hell. Sarah is a teacher at the college level, she is trying to get the British version of tenure. Her boss, Alan, denies her repeatedly, making it very clear her career is not advancing and he will ensure it is completely over unless she sleeps with him whenever he desires. Sarah is a married woman with children who finds her boss disgusting. After an unusual situation our heroine teacher meets a man with ties to the Russian underworld. He insists he owes her a favor and wants to provide his specialty...making people disappear. All she has to do is give him a name.

You, obviously, know where this story is headed, the main character is going to wrestle with her morals about the possibility of giving her boss's name to this criminal. She resists even after Alan  gets more offensive with every chapter. Frankly, I would have smacked him across the face long ago and would have given his name to the Russian mobster without reservation, morals smorals  Heck the boss is so bad I probably would have purchased a megaphone to yell his name for the vanishing treatment, not the cheapo old fashioned cones either, the electronic annoyingly loud megaphones. Yes, I know I've just defined myself as a morally bankrupt, not nice, perhaps even murderous person. Read it, see what you'd do.

I am greatly simplifying the story, it is much more interesting that this simple plot and has many twists and turns. It is well written, grabs your attention from the beginning and moves quickly to a satisfying end. Two well paced, interesting thrillers now from this author, I am anxious for his next novel.

Do you think I should mention that whole morally inept, possibly murderous, thriller reader to any contractors coming to fix our house. Wonder if they would work faster or run.

The Passengers by John Marrs

Hello everyone.

Are you a driver or a passenger? Often people have a preference, they would rather drive or not. My husband loves to drive, I hate it.  One of the reasons I don't like driving is that I have a terrible sense of direction. I get so confused what direction is correct, I get turned backwards so easily. I once got lost in our old neighborhood while out walking. WALKING! Seems difficult when the streets were not tricky and laid out on a simple grid, but I did. Hubby jokes that I could head to the grocery store, a mile from our house, and end up two states away. I confess, it is a problem. Another thing I don't like about driving is the possibility of being out of control. Now, I can hear you saying, "But April, you'd have more control if you were driving rather than just riding along." True, but I distract myself with two things, one...scenery, two.... backseat driving.  You are all running to kiss your significant other right now, grateful that they aren't me!

Several years ago, while I was driving home on the interstate during a rainstorm that made me question if the end of the earth had begun, two cars, at different times along my trip, hydroplaned in front of me. They spun around several times, crossing five lanes of traffic, each coming to rest on the guard rail on the opposite side from where they started. By some miracle, all other cars were able to either slow down enough to avoid these out-of-control vehicles or slalom around them. Ever since then, when it rains and hubby is driving, I annoy him with my begging him to slow down. I don't care, he didn't see those cars auditioning for the Ice Capades sans ice.

I just finished reading The Passengers by John Marrs. This story is set in England in the future where they are using driverless cars. Sounds good to me! The passenger is now able to do whatever they want while they ride to their destination; email, watch a movie, read a book (an obvious choice). Several people get into cars one day and the door locks and won't open, their destination is changed to a place several hours away, and a voice comes over their operating system telling them they are going to die. There is no way out of the car, and they have no ability to regain control. In addition, the passengers' complete terror is now being broadcast everywhere, all over the internet, television, etc. These fantastic characters all pull at the reader's heart as they are made to tell their story to the world, who votes on the one person who will be allowed to live. However, the mastermind of this experience knows that they are each flawed with secrets that he is about to make public.

This book takes off from the beginning and flies ...well drives... to the end. The characters are so well developed, especially when you consider that this is a breakneck speed thriller. The plot is unique and thought provoking, the pacing, perfection. This is a classic example of everything a thriller should be, what baby thrillers aspire to when they grow up.  Do not miss it.

If you go buy this book, don't start reading it in one of those coffee shops often in bookstores. Don't start it until you've safely driven home. You'll see why!