The Supernaturals

A book club pick. I normally don’t read horror stories but I try to keep an open mind. It’s a team of paranormal investigators trying to prove that a house is haunted. Along for the ride is a television crew, the owners of the house, and the police. As with any horror / supernatural story, the reader has to accept that the ghost, or entity, has some supernatural abilities. Part of me was able to accept that, but part of me kept asking “How is it that the entity can do A, B, and C, but can’t do X, Y, and Z? These types of questions will not serve the reader well. Just accept it. Focusing on the writing, there were some issues. There is a large cast of characters, and the author would switch between P.O.V’s frequently and show more without notice. I repeatedly had to stop and trace my way back to figure out who was talking or sharing their interior thoughts. This was exacerbated by the fact that many of the scenes involved an ensemble cast of characters. Some of the characters were more well drawn out than others. The more sympathetic characters usually, but not always, had a bit of backstory. The villains tended to be two-dimensional. The referred to characters as “the small woman” or the “large black man” instead of using their name. After the fourth or fifth iteration it became annoying. Some of the prose was baffling. In an action scene where multiple characters are involved in a pile-up the writes “he literally pushed (the other character) off of him.” Why “literally”? is there another way to push someone off of you? How about “desperately?” or some other. In the same scene, he describes someone as “dashing” across the floor on their hands and knees. “Dashing?” how about “crawling” or “scrambling.” Haunted house stories usually have a big reveal tha the end that explains how it came to be haunted. If it’s done well, the author will leave clues along the way. The clues in this story were so scant it would have been impossible to guess why the house was haunted. Maybe if you’re a fan of this genre you can accept the paranormal element and the lack of editing. I had a hard time with it. 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 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 show more 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

Built at the turn of the twentieth century by one of the richest and most powerful men in the world... tucked away in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania...Summer Place, is a retreat for the rich and famous, and seems the very essence of charm and beauty, “a scene borrowed from a wondrous fairytale of gingerbread houses, bright forests, and glowing, sunny meadows.” Behind the yellow and white trimmed exterior lurks an ancient evil, waiting to devour the unwary. The luxurious mansion was built at the turn of the 20th century to serve as a retreat for the rich and famous and is known as "Summer Place". It is also alleged to have inspired Shirley Jackson’s famous horror masterpiece, "The Haunting of Hill House".
While it’s hard to show more imagine such a beautiful place as the inspiration for such evil and terror, the mansion does have a somewhat "checkered" past....to put it mildly. The most recent incident having occurred in 2003, when a team of university students led by behavioral psychologist, Professor Gabriel Kennedy, ventured into "Summer Place" to try and debunk that there was any presence of paranormal activity. The group re-emerged from the visit traumatized, and without one member. To this day, Gabriel Kennedy has never forgiven himself for the loss of one of his students, who disappeared mysteriously without a trace that night, as though swallowed up by the very walls of the house itself.

The house sat untouched, and unvisited, for seven years, then Kelly Delaphoy, a television producer looks at "Summer Place" as being the story to give her, her "big break"... an ambitious undertaking to broadcast a live ghost-hunting event to millions of viewers on Halloween night. To lend legitimacy to the project, she convinces a understandably very reluctant Gabriel Kennedy to serve as a consultant on the show, and he in turn, brings in a few old friends to help, including a Native American "dream-walker"; a young woman who seems to be possessed by the spirit of a 1950s singer; another bad choice... a convict who is also a clairvoyant; and to top off this doubtful crew...a former gang member who is also a computer genius. Along for the ride comes an investigative field reporter who sees the huge opportunity for an expose...oh, and last but not least, a homicide detective who has always suspected that Gabriel was responsible for the disappearance of his student.

There were quite a few characters to keep track of, and I can’t say most of them were very likeable, though I believe this is what the author had intended. Unfortunately, far too many pages and time was devoted to these unlikeable characters, and not enough on the really interesting ones like John Lonetree, George Cordero, Julie, and Lionel...all of them were Gabriel’s really outstanding team of real “Supernaturals”. Each of them had a compelling talent and an interesting backstory. It also probably comes as no surprise that the story became a lot more interesting once Gabriel’s team entered the picture, but that doesn’t occur until well into the book. This also became the story's biggest weakness. It felt like the plot ran all over the place, much like puzzle pieces that almost; but not quite, fit together, and the result was just "ragged" and "uneven"

The final 100 pages was the real "meat" of the story...and what a "meaty" conclusion it was! It was filled with the thrills and chills that we could have had long before, as all the build-ups finally came to a head for Kelly Delaphoy’s live Halloween special. Secrets were revealed and mysteries were unraveled, and if some of the answers ended up being a little too predictable, at least they provided a lot of fun.

If you're a fan of horror, this might be your book, just be sure to go into it with the right expectations. Though it did seem to draw a bit from Shirley Jackson’s "Haunting of Hill House" classic, this one is in no danger of being the next "Hill House". It was, however, a decent bit of light entertainment, and despite some of its weaknesses, I would put it on a list of paranormal activity novels that are well worth the time to look into, especially if you’re a fan of haunted houses and/or reality TV. show less

The beauty of reading horror books is this: even though you’ve probably read this same thing or read the same horror book with similar plots, cookie cutter characters, etc, what really matters at the end of the day is; does it provide you with enough chills and creep factor to get you reading?

Thankfully, this one delivers!

The plot is pretty standard; haunted house that is on the market but nobody buys it. It needs a super cleansing and a group of people are gathered and led by a Professor who’s looking out for redemption. It seems pretty much like a typical horror plot out there but it’s well written and the flow is consistent. That being said, the real action starts about the last third of the book. Think of this book as an show more introduction to a cast of characters, and what their ‘gifts’ are like. Their background stories are provided, and everything leading up to the night at the house is well done. It prepares to reader as to what to look forward to (with some creep factor in between)

So let’s get to the creep factor. It’s definitely there. The descriptions and events happening is enough to give the reader chills and leaves it to their imagination. There’s plenty of loud noise moments, evil laughter, and things going bump in the night to contribute to the enjoyment of reading this book.

The characters could have been better now, perhaps because it’s an introduction to the group but there’s not much substance to them (at least to some) I was a bit disappointed in George and Leonard because they had a lot to contribute but it seemed to have fizzled out when it really counts. For the most part it’s mostly John, Jenny and Gabriel in the spotlight. They’re all pretty much likable and their own storylines are good to read to provide more ‘fleshing out’ of the character.

It’s a solid horror story with a good ending. Of course it looks like there’s a second book coming out and I’m going to go and read it. I enjoyed this one immensely. show less

I really enjoyed this book. Reminded me a little of Rose Red. A very haunted house with a dark dark past has murdered people and made people insane. A researcher takes a team of students in to prove that hauntings are fake and all psychological, and a wall eats one of the students. Years later, a ghost hunter show wants to go in and investigate. Taking the very reluctant professor and his team of "supernaturals" inside the building for the first time in years to film a live Halloween special.

Good haunted house story, although the reason for the haunting was very surprising.