David L. Golemon

Very disappointed that this series just isn't that good. The first book, "Event," started off very slowly but really picked up near the end. "Legend," however, was just a slog throughout. I think these books in the hands of someone like Crichton, Matthew Reilly, or Preston/Child, could be quite good. But Golemon has so many ill-defined characters and pretty useless sub-plots, that it all just becomes a mess.

This book is about El Dorado. But there's more than gold in the Amazon jungle and show more several people are after it. I just found the book way too long, too convoluted, and too boring. show less

I read the first book in the series...[The Supernaturals]...and found it to be one of the best haunted house stories that I had ever read. The way the book ended though I wasn't sure that it was meant to be a series so when [Supernaturals II: In the Still of the Night] came out I was overjoyed to say the least. All the team with all their "ghost hunting talents" were back together...but they didn't have quiet the same pizzazz that the first book had. This one is sometimes a little hard to show more follow but the story in itself in intriguing. Anyone that craves haunted house and ghost stories as I do will be thrilled with this offering. I do sincerely hope there will be a third one. show less

The Supernaturals is apparently meant to be the first in a series. That doesn't mean that we get to feel relaxed about who is going to live. There's plenty of suspense to be had, especially since the prologue leaves us in no doubt that Summer Place is dangerously haunted. Summer Place is rumored to have been the inspiration for Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Fellow fans of the 1963 film adaptation, 'The Haunting', will recognize some elements of that classic. (I don't show more recommend watching the 1999 remake with the same title. If Mystery Science Theater 3000, or MST3K, had not been cancelled in 1996, the remake would have been a perfect subject to be mocked by that show.)

I would not be surprised if Mr. Golemon was also influenced by Richard Matheson's Hell House, or at least the 1973 film version, 'The Legend of Hell House'. That film only hints at the horrors happening in the original. Even today a truly faithful film would require an X-rating. (If you have read the book, relax. NOTHING in The Supernaturals approaches the worst scene in Hell House.) Summer Place resembles Hill House and Hell House by being a mansion in an isolated setting. It differs from them in being gorgeous. According to the author's entertaining note, the house is based upon a real one he visited.

There may be just a hint of another good ghost story: Barbara Michaels' Ammie, Come Home. This is not to slight Mr. Goleman's writing. I don't mind an author being influenced by good books. Each of those three classics has an investigating team consisting of two men and two women (although Ms. Jackson had two more join in). Mr. Golemon has more than twice that many. Besides, he does something none of those three did: he's having the present-day investigation televised.

Yes, Kelly Delaphoy wants to do a Halloween special on Summer Place for her highly-rated TV show, 'Hunters of the Paranormal'. She really wants to get Professor Gabriel Kennedy, head of the disastrous investigation seven years ago, to be part of her special. He's not interested. We know from the prologue that Kennedy is not a murderer, but State Police Detective Damian Jackson and TV reporter Julie Reilly treated him as if he were. The case is still open, of course. Jackson's career was hurt by that failure. Reilly's career was made. She's now on the 'Nightly News', on the same network as Delaphoy's show.

Not all of the characters who work in television are unsympathetic, but the main ones: Kelly Delaphoy, her boss Lionel Peterson, and their boss, Abraham 'Abe' Feuerstein, certainly are human sharks. So is Reilly. All but one of them will be present during the special. Will any of those survive? You may find yourself rooting for a 'No!' answer.

In fact, getting the special approved and ready takes up the first four of the book's five parts (not counting the prologue and epilogue). This doesn't mean that we have to wait until the broadcast starts in chapter 18 for anything supernatural to happen. Summer Place doesn't want the special to take place and is not at all shy about making its displeasure known, especially in the test broadcast (which goes about as well as Kennedy's investigation). Too bad for Summer Place that the UBC Network CEO sees the attempted warning as proof of potential ratings gold.

Prof. Kennedy is eventually brought on board (as if we readers would doubt he would be). He puts together a team of friends and grateful former patients with special talents. The book gives us a chance to get to know their backstories before the big broadcast.

NOTES: Non-spoiler clues for readers who want to find a section again and real life persons, places, or things mentioned:

Prologue:

a. We get some of the history of Summer Place and its known victims.

b. The names of the six students Professor Kennedy brought to Summer Place in 2003 are Warren Atkinson (see ch. 20 for his last name), Francis Dial, Pete Halliburton, Jessica, John Kowalski, and Sarah Newman.
Mentions: Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House.

Chapter 1:

a. Wallace Lindemann is stated to be the great-grandnephew of Summer Place builder F. E. [Frederic Ernst] Lindemann.

b. Did the gossip columnist's horse really unearth the bones of a long-dead woman in 1928?

Chapter 2:

a. The 2003 investigation disaster cost Kennedy his job at the USC psychology department to teaching for the behavioral psychology department at Lamar University at Beaumont, Texas.

b. The book pleases me by correctly using 'blond,' the masculine noun, as the adjective to describe a blonde.

c. We learn about Walter Lindemann's current finances.

d. The housekeeper Delaphoy expects Mrs. Johansson to resemble is Hill House's Mrs. Dudley, but older.

e. Abe Feuerstein is stated to be the chairman of the board. Garth Timberline is stated to be the CEO [Chief Executive Officer].

f. We learn the causes of death for F. E. and Elena Lindemann's eight children. They all died before they were 22. (None of them appear to have had children of their own.)

g. A discovery is made in the bedroom of the long-vanished opera star.

h. There's something creepy about the wallpaper in the third-floor hallway. (The wallpaper has yellow roses -- is the color a nod to the unsettling 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? After all, that story was first published in 1892, the year Summer Place was built. If so, nice!)
Mentions: Hungry Man frozen dinners, Marie Callender frozen dinners, 'Jeopardy!', 'Wife Swap', 'American Idol', and Orono, Maine;

Chapter 3:

a. This is where Feuerstein, who was the chairman of the board in chapter two is called the CEO, as he will continue to be called in the book What happened to CEO Garth Timberline? Were they the CEOs for two different, but related, corporations?

b. This is Jimmy Johansson's biggest scene.

c. Kyle Pritchard finds something unexpected as he tries to set a speaker.
Mentions: NASA and the old Indian [Native American] head test pattern.

Chapter 4:

a. Harris Dalton's assistant is named Nancy Teague.

b. We learn what Lieutenant Damian Jackson did to Julie Reilly during the grand jury hearing about Warren Atkinson's disappearance and possible murder.

c. We learn what a forward-looking infrared camera (FLIR) caught during the test broadcast.
Mentions: Philadelphia and CNN.

Chapter 5:

a. Jackson mentions something about Kyle Pritchard's past. (Chino, California, will come up again the sequel, In the Still of the Night.

b. Abe Feuerstein is Chairman of the Board of General Television and Electronics. I still want to know what happened to CEO Timberline, unless he's the GTE CEO and chapter 2 left that unclear..
Mentions: Smokey Bear hat (That was 'Smokey the Bear' when I was growing up. As I later learned, 'the' came from a 1952 song. Here my family and I thought that remember how shocked my family and I were by the sheer ignorance of proper American English displayed by the person in the radio PSA [public service announcement] who insisted on dropping 'the' from the bear's name.) and Chino (California Institute for Men).

Chapter 6:

a. Lionel Peterson learns what his role will be for the Halloween special.

b. We get some background for Julie Reilly.
Mentions: the 'Houston Chronicle' and the 'Good Morning America' TV show, 'War of the Worlds' (the radio broadcast), Iraq, Somalia, Altoona, 'Colombo', and 'Superfly'.

Chapter 7: We learn what Kennedy had in mind when he and his students investigated Summer Place in 2003.
Mentions: Mickey [Mouse] and Judas.

Chapter 8:

a. UBC stands for United Broadcasting Corporation.

b. We are introduced to the members of Kennedy's team: George Henry Cordero, Leonard Sickles, Police Chief John Lonetree, Professor Jennifer 'Jenny' Tilden, and Bobby Lee McKinnon.
Mentions: Ogunquit, Maine; Grizzly Adams, Loveland, Colorado; Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Browning, Montana; Harvard, Seattle, Washington; University of Oklahoma, 'Angel Baby' by Rosie and the Originals, and SeaTac.

Chapter 9: Prof. Kennedy says a few helpful words in German.

Chapter 10:

a. Leonard Sickles wants the others to call him 'Too Smart'. We learn what the Infra-Spectroscope he designed is.

b. Bobby Lee learns that the USA has changed since 1959.
Mentions: Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood; Seventh Street, New York City; Phil Spector, the Teddy Bears, the 'Billboard' Top 100, 'To Know Him is to Love Him', and Arizona.

Chapter 11:

a. Jason Sanborn goes over the plans for Summer Place.

b. John and Jenny converse alone.

c. Delaphoy meets a maintenance man.
Mention: Janis Joplin

Chapter 12:

a. There's a disturbance in the Astor Lounge at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

b. Bobby Lee has good reason to remember November 21, 1963, the day before President Kennedy was assassinated.
Mentions: the Waldorf-Astoria, the Vulcan mind meld ['Star Trek'], Sonny Bono, Jack Nietzsche (sic) [Bernard Alfred 'Jack' Nitzsche -- probably a spell check 'correction'], and 'Needles and Pins' [the song, not the nursery rhyme].

Chapter 13:

a. Lt. Jackson has an unexpected encounter on the streets of Bright Waters.

b. Cordero talks about when he was Kennedy's patient.

c. John is dreamwalking.
Mention: '60 Minutes'

Chapter 14

a. Kennedy's warning about having a closed mind and Summer Place reminds me of Dr. Parkway's more elegantly-put warning to Luke Sanderson in the 1963 'The Haunting' film.

b. The 'n' word is used about Lt. Jackson.

c. Something is wrong with Feuerstein's limousine.

d. Sanborn and Kennedy's team are not having a good time.

e. Reilly and Kennedy hear a Biblical quotation. There's also a line that's similar to a Hill House line.

f. George Cordero talks about his childhood and tells Jenny about one of his visions.
Mentions: 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' by AC/DC, Wild Turkey, Art Linkletter, Mike Douglas, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Super Bowl.

Chapter 15:

a. In chapter 14, the Bright Waters constable station is described as having one cell. Here it's stated to be a double cell. Lt. Jackson is not pleased by the scene in cell number two.

b. Oh, dear, some deer.

c. Gabriel Kennedy was the professor of paranormal studies from the University of Southern California, according to Julie Reilly.

d. locals and 'Hunters of the Paranormal' fans are gathered outside the gates of Summer Place.

e. We meet Father Lynn Dolan. His associates, Kathy Lee Arnold and her assistant from the Pennsylvania Paranormal Research Society, have a cameo.
Mentions: 'The New York Times' and the Indianapolis 500,

Chapter 16:

a. We get a quotation from a poem by Robert W. Service (probably best known for 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew', also known as 'Dangerous Dan McGrew').

b. We hear more about the gossip columnist Henrietta Batiste in 1928. One of the witnesses was Charles Johansson's father, John, then a stable boy.

c. A news reporter, John Stannic of KWBW, sparks something for George Cordero.

d. There's a scene involving three trucks.

e. Harris Dalton, Jason Sanborn, and Prof. Tilden come to decisions.

f. There's another scene not unlike one in the 1963 'The Haunting'.

g. Kennedy thinks about his old theory and what Summer Place did to it as he looks into the pool.

h. Summer Place's ballroom is described.

i. Oh, dear, more deer.
Mentions: John Barrymore, Mary Pickford, Kentucky, the Van Wynn Expressway, JFK International Airport, Washington, D. C., New Jersey, Nathan's, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf War, and Bambi.

Chapter 17:

a. Leonard explains about his air density meter.

b. A lighting technician dubs the group 'the Supernaturals'.

c. We learn about the roving teams for thef.special.

d.. The Lindemann crest is described. Also, we learn more about Elena Lindemann. Her maiden name here is 'Romanov'.

e. Compare F. E. Lindemann's behavior toward the families of his workers killed in a fire in 1889 to that of the owners in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. (A 'shirtwaist' is an old name for a type of blouse.)

e Kennedy remembers all that was found of Warren Atkinson.
Mentions: Salvador Dali, Metropolitan Edison, and Vietnam.

Chapter 18:

a. Reilly goes off script and makes a mistake, although she isn't called on it. She also uses the name a lighting technician gave Kennedy's team in chapter 17, without giving credit.

b. Elena Lindemann's maiden name is said to be 'Deleninov'.

c. The GEICO gecko is mentioned indirectly as a lizard in a commercial.

d. Mentions: NBC, Fox, Alka-Seltzer, Blue Öyster Cult, 'Don't Fear the Reaper', the Spanish Inquisition, and Boston.

Chapter 19:

a. Kennedy addressed Father Dolan as 'Lynn" in chapter 15. Here he addresses the priest as 'James'.

b. This chapter has a couple of nods to Stephen King's Rose Red. Again, nice.
Mention: Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Chapter 20:

a. The former medical librarian in me wants to shout in frustration at an action taken after someone is suspected to have a broken neck -- stabilize that neck!

b. Back in chapter 18, according to the Lindemann family archives, Elena Lindemann was said to have been Miss Deleninov, the daughter of a 5th cousin of [Tsar/Czar] Nicholas II. That family had only three boys. Now we're being told that we'd been led to believe Elena was a member of the Vilnikov family, third cousins to the Romanov dynasty.

c. Reilly asks the Bright Waters Fire Chief a good question.

d. Enjoy a couple of nods to the 1963 'The Haunting".

e. I haven't seen a commercial with a rabbit rolling toilet paper down a hill, but Quilted Northern toilet paper has used rabbits in a couple of their commercials.

f. Walter Lindemann is probably more than a little drunk here when he says that old man Lindemann was his great-granddaddy. We know from chapter 1 that the sewing machine magnate was Walter's great-granduncle. That makes sense -- F. E. didn't have any grandchildren to produce great-grandchildren.
Mentions: Clark Gable, Jimmy Hoffa, General Motors, Chevrolet Silverado, 'Family Guy', Ellis Island, the 'New York Post', and Beethoven.

Chapter 21:

a. Lonetree goes dreamwalking again.

b. There's another nod to the 1963 'The Haunting'.
Mention: Baltimore

Chapter 22:

a. Lonetree is still dreamwalking.

b. There's another nod to Rose Red.
Mentions: The Wizard of Oz and Gary Cooper.

Epilogue: There's part of a quotation from The Haunting of Hill House.
Mention: Scotland, the House of Lords, and Scotland Yard.

On the whole, this was a good first entry for a series. It's very good for a haunted house story, too, although one cryptic warning was a little too easy to figure out. The author plays fair with his clues -- fair enough that I was able to guess part of the DARK SECRET before it was revealed. Summer Place is dangerous and scary, but in the end, Hill House beats it as handily as it does Hell House, Rose Red, and the Georgetown house in Ammie, Come Home. That doesn't mean we won't get plenty of chills along the way! show less

+In the Still of the Night is the sequel to David Lynn Golemon's acclaimed haunted house novel, The Supernaturals. This time Professor Gabriel Kennedy's team is investigating not a haunted house, but a haunted town, and the despicable President of the United States the town wants back.

In the prologue we learn what President Dean Hadley's scheming wife, Catherine Hadley, finds out about a World War II mission her late father-in-law, Colonel Robert Hadley, was in: 'Operation Necromancer'. It's show more bad enough to fuel all sorts of experienced ghost story readers' suspicions and speculations about what will be going on in the near-ghost town of Moreno, California in the rest of the book. We don't even have to wait for the first chapter for the present-day horrors to start. Most of the famous persons, places and movies etc. listed in the chapter mentions are being used as nicknames or comparisons. The old songs mentioned are usually being played as the characters listen.

NOTES:

Prologue:

a. If you want to read a not-at-all-reverent book about the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), I recommend You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger by Roger Hall.

b. A factory explosion in 1962 doomed Moreno. A female reporter isn't having much luck interviewing Harvey Leach.
Mentions: Mayberry and Don Knotts, Goober ('The Andy Griffith Show'), Haight-Ashbury, the Grateful Dead, Lon Chaney Jr. and the original Wolf Man, 'The Sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne, Vladimir Putin, Assad of Syria, Kim Jong-un of North Korea

PART I:

Chapter 1: The Supernaturals are being sued and most have been hiding. Among other things, we find out what Leonard did with the millions of dollars he took from a law firm's Cayman Islands tax haven. The reason the last three were caught is a head shaker.
Mentions: Sitting Bull, Al Queda, and ISIS.

Chapter 2: More trouble at the Grenada theater and the White House.
Mentions: Tommy James and the Shondells, ZZ Top, and Janis Joplin

Chapter 3:

a. Kelly's 'Hunters of the Paranormal' show is still on the air after what happened in the first book, but it has new hosts and producers.

b. Ontario, California is meant, not the Canadian province.

c. One of Moreno's ghosts puts in an appearance
Mentions: Sherlock Holmes, Tet Offensive in 1968 (Vietnam War), 'California Dreamin' ' by the Mamas and the Papas, California Angels (baseball), and 'Runaround Sue' by Dion DiMucci

Chapter 4:

a. The Supernaturals have a new client.

b. The real name of 'Drunk Monk's Hill' road is given. There's something strange in the old winery, it's not just the battery-powered record player.

c. Supporting character Casper Worthington shows up. Because part of this book is set in California, I can't help but wonder if he was named for the late car dealer whose commercials at one time began with, 'Here's Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!' (Spot was never a dog).
Mention: 'Johnny Angel' by Shelley Fabares

Chapter 5: Not even the supposed safe house in Virginia is safe.
Mentions: 'Teen Angel' by Mark Dinning, 'Rock Around the Clock' by Bill Haley and His Comets (sorry, I don't know the first reference), and "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" by Neil Sedaka.

PART II:

Chapter 6:

a. The Supernaturals are given a ride in a U.H-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Mrs. Hadley makes her money offer for their help.

b. The ghost of Bobby Lee McKinnon is back, if he ever left. 'Bobby Lee and Spotlights are requested to sing 'Beyond the Sea'. This novel credits Bobby Lee as having co-written and scored the song. (The real life composers were Jack Lawrence and Charles Trenet.)
Mentions: 'Everyday' by Buddy Holly, 'Beyond the Sea' by Bobby Darin

Chapter 7:

a. The last of the families leave Moreno. Harvey Leach and Bob and Linda Culbertson are the last inhabitants.

b. This attack in Virginia results in a special death.

c. We get some background information on Dean Hadley's money and his father. Dean was a green beret in the Vietnam War.
Mentions: Dr. Schweizter, Chief Red Cloud, [Joseph] McCarthy, and the Crypt Kicker Five from 'The Monster Mash' by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett

Chapter 8:

a. Leonard has found information about Sacramento Security.

b. There's a nasty scene in the morgue.

c. Bob, Linda, and Harvey chat about the old days in Moreno before Newberry's Department Store gets weird.
Mentions: Some lines from 'The Monster Mash' and one from 'My Boyfriend's Back and You're Gonna be in Trouble' sung by the Angels (1963).

Chapter 9:

a. Hadley is to be transferred to Ringwald Clinic in New Hampshire.

b. Leonard's research has brought up Moreno.
Mentions: the OSS became the CIA

Chapter 10:

a. John Lonetree dreamwalks.

b. We meet Gloria Perry and Jimmy Weller
Mentions: 201 files (military) and Mr. Spock from the original 'Star Trek'

Chapter 11:

a. Moreno was founded on Halloween. Before it was incorporated in 1947, it had been the Alfred Moreno mining concern, named for a Mexican cowboy from the days of the old West.

b. Alfred McDonald, engineer, one of Robert Hadley's OSS team worked in Moreno. Leonard comes across Operation Caged in his searching.
Mentions: Cryin' in the Rain by the Everly Brothers and [Alfred] Hitchcock.

Chapter 12:

a. An unusual dreamwalk takes place.

b. Leonard's grandmother used lavender scent.

c. Gloria Perry sings 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do'.

d. Mrs. Hadley gives the Supernaturals a box.
Mentions: Kansas and Toto, the Ottoman Empire, President Kennedy, Nikita [Khrushchev], Richie Rich, and Howard Hughes.

Chapter 13:

a. Lonetree goes in for yet another dreamwalk.

b. Gloria was probably wearing a poodle skirt. (As for Catholic plaid skirts, my Catholic HS winter uniform skirt was plaid in 1969-1970.)

c. Gloria makes new friends in the winery. She does something Dr. Fromm hasn't been able to do since 1952.

d. Something happens that has Damien take up smoking again.
Mentions: the Super Bowl, the World Series, President Eisenhower, the 1959-1964 'The Twilight Zone' and host Rod Serling, 'Wagon Train,' 'Dragnet', 'Wanted: Dead or Alive', a line or two from the song, 'It's All in the Game,' Bobby Vee, and Roy Orbison

PART III

Chapter 14:

a. There is a momentous mudslide.

b. The Supernaturals and Dean Hadley (not to mention a lot of Secret Service men) are in Moreno.

c. Julie recalls when Damien shot an entire clip at something not human during the Summer Place investigation.

d. Bobby Lee talks about when he knew Freekin' Rowdy Rhoades.

e. We learn a few things about Dean Hadley when he was a 2nd Lt. in Vietnam.
Mentions: President Nixon, 'Sea of Heartbreak' sung by Don Gibson, 'Moody River' sung by Pat Boone, music payola scandal, and Alan Freed.

Chapter 15:

a. Gabriel suspects that Catherine Hadley hates her husband and why Dean makes her mad.

b. Harvey tells them all of the business owners in Moreno served under Robert Hadley during World War II. The Red Goose Shoe Store that was seen a dreamwalk had been owned by Staff Sergeant Jerry Jenks, for example. Harvey tells them how the old vault from the Moreno Savings and Loan was moved to the basement of the Grenada Theater when Robert Hadley's First National Bank of Moreno got a new vault. Leach also tells how Frank Perry died.

c. The stairs at the old Winery have changed, and not for the better.
Mentions: the original 'Psycho' movie with Janet Leigh, King Kong, Injun Joe, and Laurel and Hardy,

Chapter 16:

a. Harvey Leach takes a dreamwalk.

b. The three bullies who were Dean Hadley's pals in 1962 demonstrate what jerks they are.

c. 1962 Dean Hadley thought Dr. Jürgen Fromm looked like Peter Lorre. He finds one of the bad doctor's journals. (Casper's mom was German.)
Mentions: the Zodiac killer, Patsy Cline, Dee Clark, a couple of lines from 'Raindrops,' a song Dee Clark sang, Black Sambo, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'I Can't Stop Loving You' sung by Ray Charles, Peter Lorre,

Chapter 17:

a. Another scary scene, another death.

b. Harvey Leach's mother was German, too.
Mentions: J. Edgar [Hoover], the Vietcong, the Ia Drang Valley, Ritchie Valens, [President Ronald] Regan, and Serpico.

Chapter 18: a. The horrific incident took only three minutes.
b. On p. 264 of the first edition, Haskins tells the Supernaturals that unofficially, they moved Hadley out an hour ago. On p. 265, he says the president has to be moved. Huh?
Mention: 'I Fall to Pieces" sung by Patsy Cline

Chapter 19: -Casper Worthington, whose father was the second shift foreman at the plant above Moreno asks a very good question.
Mentions: McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, and 'Doctor Who'.

Chapter 20: Dean Hadley is on the move and John Lonetree is dreamwalking again.
Mentions: Royal Crown Cola, 'American Idol', a few lines from 'Tears on My Pillow,' sung by Little Anthony and the Imperials.' Donna Reed, and boxer [Rocky] Marciano

Chapter 21:

a. There are children on Moreno's main street this dark and stormy Halloween night -- children Harvey and Casper have seen before, but not remembered until now.

b. Lonetree is having a split dreamwalk. Gloria first visited the vault in 1958, when she was 12.

c. We learn why mercury was used.
Mentions: Quick Draw [McGraw], three Vincent Price horror films: 'The Tingler,' "The House on Haunted Hill,' & 'The House of Wax,' Troy Donahue, Kookie Byrnes, Fabian, Nancy Drew, the Boris Karloff 'Frankenstein' movie, Alley Oop, 'Can't Help Falling in Love' sung by Elvis, Liberty Valance -- probably referring to the film, depending on when in 1962 the song was released - both were titled 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,'

Chapter 22: Damian mentally compares what they're facing now to Summer Place. Summer Place is losing out. Things are ramping up,
Mentions: 'Children of the Corn', the invasion of Saipan, Anthony Perkins, 'Rebel Without a Cause,' 'Forbidden Planet,' 'Puppy Love' sung by Paul Anka, and Frankie [Avalon] & Annette [Funicello] beach movies

Chapter 23: Damian makes a joke(?) about the old 'It was a dark and stormy night' line as he and Gabriel head for the theater.
Mentions: Edgar Allan Poe {in a way that suggests the character believes the lies Griswold told about him in his biography), the Creature From the Black Lagoon, Black Bart,' John Wayne and his film, 'Hatari!', and Connie Francis.

Chapter 24: We find out the truth about what happened to Moreno before.
Mentions: ' 'Come into my parlor,' said the spider to the fly.' 'In the Still of the Night' song, there are a couple of lines from 'Sea Cruise' sung by Frankie Ford, [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis, William Castle theater tricks during showings of his horror movies, including the first two titles the Grenada planned to show, Steve McQueen, 'The Blob' (1958), Huntley and Brinkley (the newscasters), the Cold War, NASA, Wednesday Addams,

Chapter 25: The Niles Compton mentioned by Gabriel Kennedy is a character from Mr. Goleman's Event Group series.
Mention: An old intermission cartoon for movies, which you may see at YouTube if you look under 'Let's All go to the Lobby! Intermission Bumper',

Epilogue: What I hoped would happen to Catherine Hadley didn't happen, but I'll settle for what did. As for the last two pages, I am satisfied.
Mention: 'Heart and Soul' sung by the Cleftones.

When I read The Supernaturals, I thought this was going to be an ongoing series, not a book and its sequel. The ending is left open for a third book should the author ever want to write one, but I think it would be hard for him to top this haunted town story. I want to reread the first book because this seems much worse in terms of the horror. I also have a sneaking suspicion that, given when this book came out and the type of person President Dean Hadley is, there's some wish fulfillment going on. I won't say that if a character appears on the page for the first time, that character will always be dead before the book -- or even just the chapter -- is over, but I wouldn't get attached. I feel a little sorry for some characters who didn't even get a name before their very unpleasant deaths.

I enjoyed the lines from songs of my childhood opening each part of the book. If you enjoy ghost stories with more than a small or modest number of gruesome deaths, this is definitely the book for you. In fact, if you love kaiju (Japanese giant movie monsters such as Godzilla/Gojira) movies where humans, including the military, police, and government agents, are absolutely helpless during the rampaging creature scenes, you'll probably love this book.

DOG LOVERS might well enjoy Casper Worthington's brave little Yorkie, P*ckerwood. show less