Haunted House

Too many characters, but good book.

This wasn't really my cup of tea. The genre isn't “haunted house” so much as “torture porn” - so if you delight in spooky more than bloody, I don't recommend this.

I also feel like it was pretty amateurish in its style - very much airport-shop level writing. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, if you're in the mood. Hell, I have a couple of favorite Dean Koontz novels. But in this case the silliness became distracting for me.

I think the height of absurdity came when (spoilers follow): during the climactic battle, there's a pivotal fight between super-intelligent battle monkeys. Yes, really. And it's not approached tongue-in-cheek at all. Dead serious super-intelligent battle monkey fight. The other thing that leaped out at me was that one character's traumatic backstory involved her being stranded on an island with a bunch of cannibals AND a serial killer. I don't know - maybe this IS all meant satirically after all? But still, the bad guys are ciphers or downright absurd (so boring), and all the good guys survive and pretty much live happily ever after (also boring).

It had a few scary or funny moments, and if you want something lightweight and dig violent horror, you might want to check it out. Just not a great read for me.

This was a fast paced, tense and surprisingly fun read. It is pointed out at the beginning of the book that the main characters have featured in previous books by Kilborn/Konrath, but “Haunted House” can be read as a stand alone and serves as a good introduction to the author.