The Chill: A Novel

I'll tell you right from the start that I couldn't put this one down. I never thought a book about a dam would trap me within its pages, but this one did. Great plot and characterization. Is it a ghost story? Yes, but these ghosts are not phantoms stuck in a loop or haunting a house. Collectively, they are a determined bunch who have a purpose. Please read and enjoy.

Fast paced, creepy, well drawn out characters. Read this one in two days! Like a roller coaster, it hooks you and then takes off. The characters are thoughtful and rich in detail and emotion. You can feel the cold water, hear the rush of the flood and catch your breath trying for air . Set in an upstate New York small town, the book flips back and forth into history with a healthy dose a chills lumped in. An unlikely, unassuming hero emerges at the end without being silly but rather realistic, flaws and all. You'll go through it like the water spilling the dam break in the story!

This book was wonderful; please ignore reviews that say otherwise. Although if you want a 200 page book about a scary lady in the attic, look elsewhere. If you want a beautifully written, meticulously researched story about an entire underground world few of us stop to think about, this is the book for you. I had to stop reading a couple times and take a few deep breaths. That's how good the author is at ratcheting up the tension. I don't usually write reviews but I want as many others to enjoy this book as possible! So just get it. I'm off to hopefully find other novels by Scott Carson.

The blurb from Stephen King, regaling this novel, was enough to make me download the Kindle version. It was apparent early on why King liked the book: The Chill is an homage to the master of horror. Located in the town of Torrance (the same name as that family stuck in the hotel for the winter in The Shining), the interplay between live characters and ghosts is very reminiscent of the interplay between Jack Torrance and Lloyd the bartender. Stephen King's birthday (September 21st) was also mentioned in one scene; another woman was introduced by her first name only: Carrie. The dialog wasn't nearly as good as King's but that's understandable; very few authors can create characters as believable, as lifelike, as King does through use of dialog (both internal and external). The battle between Good and Evil, between townies and tourists, was very evocative of Stephen King stories and I thought of his novel Bag of Bones more than once (which also involved ghosts and a lake). This isn't a book report so I won't rehash the details here, but if you like a ghost story told well, this book is for you.

This was a good read. I like horror books and thought this was going to be scary. It was 0% scary. In that respect I was disappointed. The concept is interesting and I think the author did a good job at execution but there was something missing that I can't put my finger on. The writing was great and I liked the characters but it just lacked a little something. I almost gave it 3 1/2 stars but feel like the authors writing and creativity pushed it to 4. Worth a read.

This was a believable ghost story and I liked that aspect of it very much, even though I am not a big fan of ghost stories. The issues that I had concerned the overly long and detailed engineering descriptions of the dam, and the fact that the book itself was way too long. If it had been tightened up and edited to be about 100 pages shorter, I would have liked it a lot more. I don't understand why this author, real name Michael Koryta, needs a new pen name; I loved his mystery novel How it Happened. And this one was, for the most part, well done, except for extended passages that dragged for me. I would seriously check out anything else done by this author no matter what he calls himself.

I tried to like this book. I really did. I stopped when Carson started referring to the "ghosts" as genuine, additional characters in the book. I don't believe in ghosts, but I think could have handled this weird affectation if Carson had given the reader a tangible reason for the existence of these characters. Really. In fact, Carson only wafted out some quasi-voodoo reference to Iroquois superstition. But he steered clear of any understandable, reasonable explanation. Mores the pity, because a solid grounding such as that would have gone a long way toward giving the novel some of the depth it needed. Also, for goodness sake, do not kill the good-guy sheriff. That particular action was gratuitous. After that, I was expecting the author to kill the family dog. Nuff said.