Creepers David Morrell Hodder Headline £18.99 hbk Sept. 2005 Ali Karim

This tremendous novel is one that will have you riveted to your chair because its story bonds to the reader like a steel weld, and has characters [‘The Ceepers’] put into such an extraordinary situation, one that perhaps none of them will survive – which all makes for a tense and runaway-train of a thriller. The plot is what Hollywood would call ‘high concept’, the theme being ‘Urban Infiltration’ – the exploration of abandoned buildings, sites, underground railway tunnels and the like by young explorers, who via the damp floor of the internet organise covert missions that take them back to the past. The moral of Creepers is that the past is not always full of sepia-tinged nostalgia. Evil often lives on.

Led by a Professor down on his luck; Conklin assembles a team to explore the site of a derelict hotel - ‘The Paragon’ in Asbury Park, New Jersey before the demolition team erase its existence from the world. Joining him is reporter, Frank Balenger, as well as Vinnie, Cora and Rick [The three urban infilltrators].

The infiltration team soon realise that everything is not what it seems, and that some of them are not who they appeared to be. The tunnels, and doorways in the ancient hotel, hold secrets, and the evil may well be cloaking the darkness and is no longer dormant. The team soon discover that the hotel has a dark history, for gangsters used it for their deeds, while murders occurred, gold was hidden within the walls, and the stench of evil still coats the rooms. Beyond those walls, someone watched the death and despair that only a hotel can capture and trap. The man who built The Paragon Hotel, was Morgan Carlisle, an eccentric industrialist, a man of peculiar tastes, and one with a disease that made him a prisoner of his own mind and body.

The story is propelled by tense, sweaty dialogue and considering Morrell’s award winning career that traverses thrillers, espionage, and horror – It makes this book very unsettling as you just do not know what the hell is happening, and as no one is who they seem, there are a few real shocks along the way. Violent, scary and unsettling – it really lives up to its title. Not for claustrophobics or readers frightened of the dark – this one is a major book for 2005 – miss it at your peril – .