Happy Halloween, everyone! Since it’s the scariest day of the year, we delve into the horror catergory. I could have taken the easy route by covering Stephen King and Clive Barker, but I’m not a fan of either. Dean Koontz does nothing for me, and the less said about Anne Rice, the better. If only I hadn’t already read all of H.P. Lovercraft’s stuff, this column would have been a lot better. So instead, I present three horror books that don’t really live up to the promised horror.

THE LADIES OF HOLDERNESS by Dennis Fowler – In this 1976 novel, a young woman named Carol Long is trying to put a bad relationship behind her. This means taking what little money she has and buying a bus ticket to the furthest place she can go. She ends up in some little town in Upstate New York. Since she has no real skills (she was a French major in college), she finds a housekeeping job in a home full of 13 old ladies.

As life goes on, she gets a sneaking suspicion that the women share a dark secret. Wow, was I shocked — it’s not like the cover gives it away. Sarcasm mode off. Yes, this book is total escapist Gothic horror, but it also telegraphs plot points like Samuel Morse wrote it. Anyone who has read any kind of horror fiction will be able to figure out what’s really going on long before Fowler tells you. He does well in the Gothic genre, not overstepping boundaries and going over the top at the end, which is a problem with this type of book. But he should have had a conversation with his publishers for giving away so much before page one.

THE WHITE SHIP by Ian Cameron — Setting a spooky story on a mass of just snow and ice has only really been done once really well, and that was a film: John Carpenter’s version of THE THING. Because the cover promises a cool wrecked-ship discovery in a similar deserted locale, but it never happens.

The only thing that does happen in this 1975 book is that six researchers go to Candlemass Island, where slowly over time, they die by unfortunate circumstances. I could go on about the plot, but there isn’t one – kind of like some episodes of LOST. Literally, pages go by with them taking their temperature and hashing unimportant scientific info. In a word, boring.

The only “spooky” part is that the lead female character, Susan, is somehow channeling the spirit of a girl from the 1800s whose ship crashed there years ago, causing Susan to have that chick’s flashbacks every once in a while.

Geez, was this book a turd of a read. It goes nowhere, took forever to finish and the resolution is such a bore. Damn you, book cover artists. I thought the ship would be haunted by ghosts or something. Nope, there was more action in the film GERRY.

THE CURSE OF KALISPOINT by Mozelle Richardson – Finishing off our Halloween column, we delve into the word of Southern Gothic novels with this 1971 offering. What starts out really promising finishes very lamely.

Anne Corbett has been hired to turn an old Gothic castle in the South into a museum, per the instructions of a will. But once she arrives, she is meet with some resistance from one of the occupants. Slowly, Anne gets the feeling she is not welcome at all, with someone listening in on her phone calls, then finding secret chambers in her bedroom being used to spy on her.

There are spooky elements in the story: The castle seems haunted and is decorated in honor of some witch cult. It really hits the mark when the cook turns up dead upon the rocky shores, with no explanation. But from there on out, the book gets incredibly confusing and weighted down. Anne stumbles upon a blood sacrifice room with another dead person in it. Then there are the mysterious diaries that she has to keep hidden. Once the resolution comes about, however, you just feel cheated; here’s a book promising a ghost story when, in fact, it was more of a crime story.

Next time, I’ll show you a pretty good poker hand. –Bruce Grossman

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