Book Review: Ghost Walk by Brian Keene
Review by Jude Felton
Being the clueless monkey that I can sometimes be I had no idea that Ghost Walk was a follow-up to Keene’s previous novel Dark Hollow. However, according to the authors comments at the beginning of Ghost Walk, it is not essential to have read that book previous to this one. This is just as well as I was looking forward to Ghost Walk a hell of a lot. I will however definitely be picking up a copy of Dark Hollow, as after reading this I am eager to find out more about Lehorn’s Hollow, which is the root of all the dastardly shenanigans in Ghost Walk.
This book is centered around the opening of a Halloween ghost walk in the woods surrounding Lehorn’s Hollow; a legendary place where over the years many bad things have happened, not to mention the fact that they are said to be haunted. The owner of the walk is Ken Ripple, and he is opening the walk to raise money for charity in honor of his deceased wife. Of course, he is hoping that he, along with his staff, can just scare the bejeezus out of the paying customers. He doesn’t want to scare them to death though, and that may well just happen.
Assigned to cover the story of the opening of the walk is Maria Nasr, a freelance reporter who is struggling to breakthrough into serious journalism. However, after doing her research on Lehorn’s Hollow, and its infamous history, she finds herself drawn to the subject and feels that there may in fact be a book in the making about it. She interviews Ken for her story, but also tries to track down one of the areas infamous characters, Adam Senft, who murdered his wife after seeing things at the Hollow. She isn’t allowed access though, and it is whilst sitting in her car following her rejection that she meets Levi Stolzfus, a strange man who is convinced that something bad is going to happen. He needs Maria’s help, along with Adam’s, to try and stop an unbelievable evil from entering our world.
First off, let me just say that Ghost Walk was a cracking good read. Keene slowly sucks you into the story, and before you know it you’ve flown through the whole damned thing. The story itself was a blast, there is a perfect sense of impending dread throughout which keeps you turning the pages. But it is the little details in the novel that made it work for me; references to beings from his earlier novels, such as Ob and Leviathan, all help tie things together in Keene’s world of horror. You could say that all his novels work in universes parallel to each other, and they way they play out in his books none of them are ones you would want to live in.
Also, the attention to detail and care for his characterizations is nigh-on flawless. Main characters aside, it is the folk that only appear for a few pages that work so well. In a short amount of time you will build up a bond with these characters, only to have them snatched away from you. They may be fodder for whatever lurks in the woods, but you will care for them in that short amount of time.
My only slight problem was in the ending, which seemed to happen a little too quickly for me. It was building up nicely, and then in a short amount of time the end was upon me and then over. Now granted, this may just have been because I was enjoying the book so much, but it did seem just a little too easy come the end. That all being said, Ghost Walk is a tremendous read, and needs to be read. When Keene is in his zone, as he appears to be a permanent resident these days, not many genre authors can touch him. He makes it look so damned easy, and for that he must be applauded.
On a final note, at the end of Ghost Walk there is a preview of his next novel Castaways. I held off reading it purely because i knew I would get sucked in and want to read the rest of it!
Ghost Walk is certainly a journey into horror that you need to take.
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