Book Review — The Haunted

 

Title:  The Haunted
Author:  Bentley Little
Genre:  Horror
Pages:  Oversized paperback, 347
ISBN:  978-0=593-19997-8
Opening Lines:  "'We're here again, Dad.'"

Rating

"Julian and Claire Perry and their two children, Megan and James, have made the move to a bigger, nicer home in their city's historic district. But something isn't right

"The neighbors seem reluctant to visit. Claire can't shake the feeling that someone is watching her. Megan receives increasingly menacing and obscene texts. And James is having terrible dreams. No wonder, considering what he's seen in the corner of the basement, staring at hime and shuffling ever so slowly.

"Pity no on warned them about the house. Now it's too late. Because the darkness at the bottom of the stairs is rising . . ."

~ Jacket copy

Most smaller towns in the United States have that one neighborhood with that one house.  You know the one.  All of the children are afraid to go near it during Halloween, and most times teenagers will dare each other to enter just to demonstrate some machismo.   Unfortunately, the Perry's new home is that house.  And they're about to find out what the truly entails for the inhabitants.  

After dealing with increasing neighborhood problems, asshole children, and the regular riffraff, Julian and Claire decide to use their built-up equity to buy a bigger, nicer home in a better neighborhood.  Not only will the move cut out all the shitty neighbors but it will allows James to move back to his old school and his friends.  Despite seeing some truly nice houses, the home on Rainey Street kept calling to them.  It was larger than their current home; had a spacious, mature backyard; and would allow their growing family the space they needed.  And it was decently priced in a historic neighborhood.  Of course they could not pass up the change!

And then things started happening.  Their neighbors refused to answer their door.  The basement door would mysteriously open on its own.  Laundry baskets would find themselves left in the middle of the kitchen.  The children started to be reluctant to stay at the house.  And, finally, at the house warming party, they were confronted by a malicious spirit running down the hall at guests.  

The entire premise of this book has the makings of a truly awesome supernatural, haunted house story.  However, it drastically fell short of expectations.  The author suffers from too much fluff and an inability to follow through.  Once the book finally caught some traction (in the middle parts), it was deeply disturbing and left me feeling a bit unsettled.  And the historical accounts were amazing!  They left me wanting more.  Unfortunately, it was anti-climactic and fizzled out at the end.  

The build-up for a malevolent, old spirit was prime!  Yet, the audience is never fully told whether the entity in the house is an amalgamation of the pasted wrongs or something evil which already lived on the land.  We know the land was considered bad by Native Americans, but we are never told why.  We can infer it feasts on the deaths around it.  We know that all the evil in the neighborhood come solely from that house; however, we do not understand how/why it is able to trap the other houses.  And, if it can reach across the town, why does it simply stay in that house?  Further, if the entity is ancient, how is it defeated?

While there were excellent elements, this book was a bust for me and left me feeling unfulfilled.  Maybe his other novels are better, but I am a bit hesitant to try them.