I absolutely love this series. I will say this book wasn't as awesome as this first but overall it was a great read. Scott Lynch is a master of descriptive writing, I always feel like I'm walking through the streets with Locke and Jean. I can't wait to read the next one. ( )

It is never a good thing when a Ouija board is used for just wanting to find out things so it is even worse when it is used to hunt for something. Which is what happens in this book. Some college friends get together over at one of their professor's house and end up playing with a Ouija board. They ask the board the normal questions, but then things take a twisting turn as the board tells them that there is "treasure" to be found and they are going to have to travel to the mountains to find it.

They steal the board and off they go on a camping trip to find their "treasure". What happens next is the most twisted edge of your seat thriller that you can find in a Laymon book. Of course, you have the normal stuff that you will find in a Laymon book too with sex, gore, more sex, and more gore.

This is a very tension gripping tale of college kids trying to have some fun and they end up with something beyond their wildest nightmares. The book takes off from the first chapter and spirals through a terror ride to the end of the book. Four stars on this twisted tale!
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Good story but with some nice twists to the tale. I know I shouldnt be expecting happy endings in any of Laymon's novels but this one came pretty close. The ending wasn't too blunt either and ending with a nice twist. A great and looking forward to reading one of his other books. ( )

A run-of-the-mill horror tale about a group of college students convinced by an entity named Butler to search for "loot" in the mountains. The group sets out on the quest for fortune despite ominous warnings from their English professor. Needless to say, the journey does not quite go as expected.

Laymon is pretty hit or miss for me and this one is definitely a miss. The horror aspects, though disturbing, are quite minimal as most of the story focuses on one of the very virginal male characters constantly trying to get a peek of coed skin. Pages upon pages are dedicated to these sexual fantasies that add very and I mean very little to the plot. Laymon also touched on one of my author pet peeves: overusing a word so bad that I notice it! I noticed it so much in fact, that I nearly started a "jar of redundant language" that I could drop a quarter in every time this word came up. I would probably be a lot closer to retirement had I acted on this. The word: "rump". Not even a good word. A solid R rated horror novelist could have done much better. I cannot anti-recommend this book enough. ( )

As the rating suggests, this was just left of okay. Big points to Laymon for readability: none of Bulwer-Lytton dreck too often associated with the horror/suspense genre. But the real horror here is the padding--oh God, the padding! We truly don't need to follow the twists and turns of thought in the mind of each late teen as they decide whether to hike the trail or swim across the lake. If I ever pick up another Laymon, I'll be prepared to whittle novels to the size of novellas (at most) via skimming.

What mainly kept me plowing through this one was the effective central mystery and a few of the minor sources of intrigue scattered throughout. There is a real unpredictability about whether and why a ghost would lead a group of college kids to a treasure in the wilderness. Who's the ghost? Why does it seem to have a thing for having the young women take off their blouses? And what is its relationship to the OTHER ghosts previously contacted using the same Ouija board?

Another source of enjoyment for me Laymon's playfully perverted sensibility, as the book is peppered with numerous cringe-inducing but entertaining sexual scenarios. These have the can't-bear-not-to-look quality of car wrecks, and in this proclivity Laymon reminded me (favorably) of Jim Thompson. But Laymon lacks (or at least fails to display) the gritty insight into true human motive of the latter master. The demands of gotcha plotting overshadow the interest of putting true human motives on display, and so the novel ultimately adds up to little more than spinner rack fluff. ( )