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REVIEW

"Haunted house thriller"

In Stillson Beach, Virginia, Justin Van Slyke is on a tour of historical antebellum Custis Manor, a place where black slaves were slaughtered. A vandalism incident enables Justin to wander off on his own. He reaches his destination and dives through a large mirror though his right hand fails to make it through the portal. It is sliced off and left behind.

Josh Custis, whose family owns the mansion, sends word to the other three surviving members of the Underground to meet with him in the Church of the Open Door. Caroline Tabb Connolly accompanied by her spouse and daughter, addict Amy Kaplan, and Seth Bryant who left his pregnant wife at home heed Josh's call. Josh explains that Justin went through the portal bringing home the nightmare of what happened in 1983 when seven suburban teens formed the Underground. One of them Simon Baxter tripping on acid tried to slice another Mia Cheever, but Justin stopped him. Mia fell through a mirror portal while Simon bled to death from cuts caused by chards of broken glass. Justin has forced them to act even while the medical examiner cannot understand how a severed hand can have a pulse.

This haunted house thriller grips the audience from the moment that Justin splits from the tour to enter the mirror and never slows down until the final altercation with the evil on the other side of the portal. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action, and constantly leave readers with goose bumps. Though the magnificent seven are labeled rather than fully developed with a couple of exceptions, ghost story fans will gladly journey through the portal with the UNDERGROUND.

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 2, 2005

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted January 22, 2007

SUMMARY

From the Publisher Once upon a time there were seven good friends. They were the forgotten little brothers and sisters of the Big Chill generation, born in the turbulent year when the flames of Watts lit the City of Angels and napalm kissed the war-torn skies of Vietnam. They called themselves The Underground. For Justin and Mia, Josh and Caroline, Amy, Seth, and Simon, there was nothing but drugs and music, combined with boundless cynicism and a deep yearning for something that really mattered.

As graduation rolled around, they knew they would drift apart. By Labor Day weekend, there was just enough time to throw one last private party. But where? Creepy old Custis Manor was temporarily uninhabited. So they motored out to the moldering southern plantation, ready to party the night away.

They could not have known that on the other side of the mirrors, something watched: a corrupt, voracious force, neither fully living nor truly dead. It was a soulless spirit of evil that had spent more than two hundred years cultivating its terrible powers.

It was the Great Night. And Custis Manor was its domain.

In one terrifying night their lives were forever shattered. One died. One disappeared. The survivors were scarred both inside and out. For twenty years, they couldn't face the truth of what had really happened.

Until now.

One has gone back, and through the mirror. And now the remaining friends are forced to confront the demons of their own pasts and a greater nightmare beyond their comprehension. Together they must face the Great Night, lay waste to its vicious legacy, and free the thousands of souls still trapped there, as the reunited Underground meets theUnderground Railroad of souls.

A truly original metaphysical thriller--gory and intense, satisfying and unique, Underground is a startling vision of the nightmare dimension from one of the true masters of the genre.

 

Underground
by Craig Spector

Tor Books
April 1, 2005
ISBN #0765306603
EAN #9780765306609
256 pages
Hardcover
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