77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz
There is a new thing in horror and it’s an oldie but goodie. Haunted houses are back – big time. They have been showing up in horror movies for about a year now and the novelists are catching up. Dean Koontz, who I’ve think was lacking with his horror for a while now, is back in form and delivering the chills. He’s drawing upon the supernatural, the natural and the engineered to bring this chiller of a novel.
The Pendelton is a Gilded Age palace in some large city somewhere in the middle of the country. Once an opulent single family home it was converted into luxury apartments in 1973. Some things didn’t change with the renovation. Every thirty-eight years something strange happens and the inhabitants of the Pendelton disappear, or go mad, or change somehow. It’s 2011 and the last disturbance at the Pendelton was during the renovation. You do the math.
Was it scary? I have no problem reading serial killer thrillers, zombie horror, or anything just plain gross. I do get a little…concerned…when the book is spooky. Things seen out of the corner of your eye, unexplained voices, irrational happenings, now that’s when I get a little unnerved. Did I stay awake for a bit looking at the shadows in my room before falling asleep while reading this novel? Yes. I most certainly did. And it was worth it.
