This week I’m reading Where the Dead Walk, by John Bowen, in which the crew of one of those ubiquitous paranormal investigation shows unexpectedly runs up against the real thing. Hilarity does not ensue.
This book is billed as a supernatural thriller but (so far) it’s really more of a mystery with supernatural overtones, a la my well-loved Merrily Watkins series, although the supernatural here is a rather more overt, which somehow makes it seem less threatening. However, it does have a nicely slimy, overconfident villain, whose hopefully-inevitable comeuppance I am greatly looking forward to seeing.
“Apparently the couple who owned the place liked to muck around with Ouija boards and that kind of stuff, but it always seemed to be going further. Sarah hadn’t been too bothered at first, but then they started fooling around with experimental rituals. It was all very New Agey, ‘tapping into the universe’s multitude of energies’, that sort of nonsense, but Sarah wasn’t so sure.”
Yeah, you need to be careful with those Ouija boards. Just ask the characters in the scene I just finished editing (for the umpteenth time) in Father’s Books:
Sandy frowned. “I thought we said no alcohol.”
“This is for after.” Pete put the beer in a refrigerator Pedro hadn’t noticed, because it was disguised as more paneling, and left the snacks on the counter next to it, then went to the game table and sat down opposite Glenn.
“After what?” Pedro said.
“This.” Sandy pulled a box out of her shopping bag and put it on the table. The glowing bulbs reflected a halo off the plastic shrink-wrap.
Pedro looked at it for a second, then looked at Sandy. “A Ouija board?”
She gave a little shrug. “I saw a movie once where they used one of these.”
“So did I,” Pedro said. “Somebody got possessed and killed a bunch of people.”
“That was a different movie,” Sandy said.
“Maybe, but the people didn’t know which one they were in until it was too late.”
That’s a good point, there, Pedro. Too bad you don’t have a copy of the script so you can read ahead.
Viscosity 