The Ghost of Graylock: 04/19/17

In The Ghost of Graylock by Dan Poblocki, Neil and Bree Cassidy are sent to live with their aunts while Dad is across the country trying to be an actor and their mother is being treated for depression. They are taken to a remote, small town, made smaller by the closure of a sanitarium specializing in teens. A series of mysterious deaths lead to the place being closed so suddenly that everything is as it's been left.

What do the local kids to introduce the newbies to their town? They take them on a tour of the abandoned hospital while filing their heads with all the horror stories. In particular, there's a story about room thirteen and the ghost of a particularly nasty nurse.

Dan Poblocki specializes in taking a standard set of horror tropes and subverting them. Of course the building is haunted. Of course what happened is horrific. But the local legends don't match up with what the siblings experience. Nor do they match up with what the older adults tell them. Worse yet — something has followed them home!

My favorite kind of horror is one supported by mystery. The Ghost of Graylock is essentially two mysteries: who or what has followed Neil and Bree home? and what happened at the asylum? Both of these are answered with a spine tingling mixture of red herrings and jump scares.

Five stars

Comments (4)