Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 43

She should have the theme from iZombie as her ringtone.

85. The Christopher Killer – Alane Ferguson

The Christopher Killer is the first in a series of four forensic mysteries, an unexpected choice of topic for young adult, as in there’s dead bodies and they do what they actually do – they don’t talk to young Cameryn, shes doesn’t see their ghosts, and she’s not the latest in a long line of someones tasked with helping the dead. Her dad’s the coroner and she wants to go into forensics. She becomes his assistant through massive wheedling and demonstrates one of the reasons I can never go into forensics myself (strong smells trigger my asthma quickest) when she sees her first body and throws up (she manages to get outside first, points) because of the very overpowering smell and where she encounters maggots. She studied, but it’s never quite like the books. Nothing ever is.

Anyway, her dad doesn’t like the new young deputy and he is a bit forward with Cameryn, considering she’s 17 and he’s 21 and a fricking officer of the law… But, then her co-server at the old hotel in town, Rachel, is found murdered, and during the autopsy – before she gets kicked out – Cameryn finds the evidence that indicates she’s been murdered by a serial killer who puts St. Christopher medals on his victims. Weirdly, a television psychic has predicted the finding of Rachel and is now coming to their little town to talk to Rachel’s ghost. It’s a battle of what’s more reasonable to use to find a killer – forensic science or Dr. Jewel, TV psychic. Turns out it’s both.

Twiglet is my mascot pig for library research, but the dead are their own squishy kind of library in forensics.

“Hey, wait a minute, it’s dark out there.”

78. The Box in the Woods – Maureen Johnson

A perfect little confection after the Truly Devious series. A very intelligent friend of mine who also writes books recommended the Truly Devious series to me because she said Stevie reminded her of me – and she could not have been more correct, although I am currently much older than Stevie (a Doomwitch, according to Chuck Wendig’s list I adore) and am fine with not being a young person, her spirit is very similar to mine. I am not surprised that librarians like Stevie at all, for instance. And I burst out laughing while reading The Box in the Woods because of this similarity when Carson, who owns the camp that is close to the location of the box in the woods murders, says, “We call them Think Jams,” and I looked away from the book in disgust and shuddered, and came back to the line: “She resisted the impulse to open the car door and jump.” So if phrasing like “Think Jams,” makes you want to flee, this book is for you.

And there’s not just Stevie, there’s also Nate, the dark sarcastic loner who is scared by “child fingers” (me too, Nate) and who does not want to finish his next book, but also does. Nate is a good example of how writers can be.

Really, the draw of this series is the characters and how fun they are to read when your main ones are great grounding influences. Mr. Think Jams and the townspeople and the short chapters that go back to 1978 are all quickly well drawn and I also, like Nate, like camp-based slasher movies (and I’ve been working on a book one for what feels like 200 years, but isn’t, I have a super perfect cover idea) so the murder investigation itself was fun. And with such good characters it’s not hard to shrug about the ending seeming a smidge abrupt, I would have liked to have a little more space for Stevie to sort things out and show her work more.

Also, as a ridiculously specific side note, I expected Nicole, the most rigid of camp directors, to turn out to be the terrifying camper Bridget from 1978’s camp season, using her middle name as a first name. Because a camper who is terrifyingly everywhere and in all the business would definitely have turned into the camp director later on. It’s like her turf.

Danger Crumples and Horace don’t want anything to do with being camp counselors or “think jams” (Ew), but they will solve mysteries.

Only a creature of otherworldly terror would leave candy bar wrappers in the sink.

26. The Return – Rachel Harrison

Elise, Elise, Elise…being the one in your friend group who has it the least together is not a fatal flaw that means you have to give in to the monsters. It just doesn’t. Be they metaphorical or literal, you don’t have to give in to the monsters to be a good friend or to be a good person. Plus it seems like your other two friends do not have a specific place for you, like you have to be the fuck up in the friend group. You could be whoever and still be friends with them. And why, yes, I do know the main character can’t hear me, but, there are a lot of friend groups where women think they have to be “the [insert thing] one” and stay in that role – see Baroness Von Sketch Show. That’s just not true and while Elise is definitely in a rut she put herself in, she doesn’t have to surrender to anything.

The great thing about The Return is that it has an actually good friend dynamic, including the toxic one that no one is admitting is toxic because she disappeared for two years. She came back, but she did disappear and came back way more of an actual toxic friend on a group reunion trip where everyone has to freak out about her new changes to each other and not ask about them, whether or not they like the hotel, whether or not they are having fun, and all the other terrible parts of group trips like worrying constantly out about whether or not you’re living up to your friends’ expectations/how much things cost at boutique hotels.

At first I was worried this wasn’t a horror novel, it seemed too familiar and just like a thriller where the secret would be that Elise actually slept with Julie’s husband and oh the horror of the banal emotional betrayal that is terrifying in real life, but more ho-hum on the page in a domestic sort of thriller. That is not how it turned out. Thankfully.

In their bonded pair, Merricat was the sassy one and Peregrine was the opinionated one.

“You know I love it when the Hello Kitty cheeseboards go on sale.”

9. Blood Red Roses – Sarah Armstrong

The purchasing of a haunted item has always been something I’m concerned about. New mirrors only, please, I’d rather be haunted by someone who hasn’t had too much time to learn how to haunt people. Kate does not have my taste in mirrors. She’s outfitting her new bedroom and she finds a very interesting mirror – but the local rich girl/total bi-atch wants that exact mirror too and when Kate goes back in to finish her lay-away purchase, said rich bi-atch is trying to buy it out from under Kate. Doesn’t happen. It’s not Kate’s fault she’s chosen the most desirable antique owned by a madwoman, well, teen girl, but madteen just doesn’t sound as aspirational, but Kate is now in trouble and so is Tory, the madteen. And even though Tory is super mean to Kate and breaks into her house and steals the exact mirror (but leaves a shoddily painted one in its place – no one would notice) so she can have the nightmares and she can hear that weird song and she can murder her whole family just like the original owner – Kate still tries to help her, via library research in another town like a clearly super cool teen who takes the bus in between towns to do research when there’s a snowstorm coming.

Danger Crumples demonstrates how he treats the antique pillows. He treats them to nibbles. He has no sense of time.

 

Danger Crumples as Danger Drew, parodying an antique series and representing guinea pig mystery solvers everywhere.

The cat was just trying to paint and get a divorce. Geez.

12. Haunted – Judith St. George

There is a palpable feeling of summer in this story of housesitting, animal reactions to the supernatural, genealogy, painting, and super judgy marriage choices. Also, the traditional 80s teenager party where the nerdy one does not want to mock the ghosts because he’s aware something very bad will probably happen. I mean, especially when one of the ghosts is a Nazi. Some people’s divorce proceedings still go on, posthumously, so that’s something to look forward to.

Anyway, the sensory information in Haunted was what stuck with me, there was a lot of creepiness and still air and the terrifying for the allergic (me) scent of freshly mowed grass, the humidity – what really gets you is always the humidity. Or maybe the dog being commanded to severely mean behavior by a Nazi ghost.

Mortemer knows mocking ghosts just won’t do.

 

Horace and Morty know that if you throw an 80s pool party on a haunted property, you are asking for trouble forever and ever.

Don’t even think about touching the Christmas tree candle.

39. Witch’s Fire – Beverly Butler

Instead of Cenobites, this Kirsty must deal with a witch that has puppets. Puppets are just as scary as Cenobites, and this Kirsty has a younger sister and the grieving process to deal with as she lost her biological sister and mother in an accident that also put her in a wheelchair. But, not unlike Hellraiser Kirsty, this Kirsty does not have her mother to turn to, she has an enemy that is beyond this realm, her dad is pretty checked out of what’s going on with her, she is extremely resourceful with a somewhat unwilling accomplice (just without the pins in the head), and she has a creepy uncle Frank who pops through the floor without any skin. Okay, not the last one, that would have been extremely surprising, but there are puppets as previously mentioned. Also, a lot of tension around educational practices…and fire. The title is not a cunning attempt to trick anyone.

Salem is not allowed to have puppets or Lemarchand’s box, but I did let him play with a match in one painting.

 

 

Salem’s ready to fight witch’s fire with a smaller amount of fire.

 

The Turn of The Others

16. All on a Winter’s Day – Lisa Taylor

Winter isn’t just about being stuck in a house. It’s about being stuck in a haunted house with a mean ghost and some creepy child ghosts next to a lake. It’s also about how you deal with your down time, whether you’re waiting to move on to the next part of the afterlife or not. Will you try to “save” the children from their vindictive stepmother? Will you even leave your bedroom, the only modern part of the house you can’t seem to really get too far out of? Will you plot the murder of some scared children’s mean stepmother? Will you just torture your brother forever through small annoyances because there’s no one to tell you not to? So many questions, so little clear delineation of when anything is happening.

Peregrine says time is a flat circle.

 

Peregrine knows whether you’re hunting ghosts or the Thing, you need proper winter wear.

Jilly missed the winter carnival.

51. Jilly’s Ghost – Diane Curtis Regan

A large portion of Jilly’s thoughts revolve around not being as pretty or as good at befriending boys as her best friend Amanda. That kind of sucks. She’s got a ghost and an invasively weird new neighbor who sees the ghost and Amanda is encouraging Jilly as the journalist that she is to investigate and write about the ghost, so, it’s nice when she does change her focus a little bit to the plot. Although, that’s partly because her invasively weird new neighbor’s friend, who is also a journalist now wanting to write about the ghost, is cute and has freckles. Teens.

I will give much kudos, once again, for correct research processes. Granted, this was published in 1990, so microfilm was better known as what it is and not as frequently mixed up with what fiche is – and, my favorite, looking up the owners of the house at the hall of records and not just expecting the house to randomly show up in the newspaper without finding anything to look up besides the address! There are ways to find things that make sense and can be represented. I also really liked it when there was basically an ambush interview about the ghost and the lady reporter kept calling Jilly “Julie” and got vehemently corrected. Details matter if you want to film at someone’s house.

However, if there is going to be a seance in a ghost story, it should not be off-page! Knocking the main character unconscious and having the ghost save her off-page makes sense, but, then having her friend and new boyfriend tell her about the seance? Not as fun.

As slightly seen here, Twiglet was born with one foot in a position that made her the only choice for my microfilm mascot. It is sometimes in the wrist. Also, she would have had her seance on page and not without the main character.

 

That’s right, she’s researching stuff.

 

This time, the book gets the rare seal of approval. Good job, book.

From Burke and Hare to…this.

4. Hit and Run – R.L. Stine

Corpse handling has really taken a dive, it seems. I am, of course, only speaking of the disreputable kind- like in that disturbing lab in Phoenix that truly ruined the dignity of scientific body donation and like frolicked in the ruining. Another disreputable kind, that was funny in Weekend at Bernie’s if you know nothing about death and the body, takes place in Hit and Run, which is also a spoiler. But, really, with the abundance of stories where some teens hit someone with the car and are then tormented by it individually and collectively, wouldn’t you rather know these dumb teens didn’t kill anyone when they hit someone with their car this time? In a way, this makes the corpse mishandling worse because it was planned and repetitive and just to creep out some teens and how did the mishandled deceased not decompose too much to be helpful in such an environment of endless shenanigans? Damnit, Jerry, you should not be working at the morgue (understatement). You should be working at a wax museum…I just fixed the plot hole.

Salem is not currently dead, thankfully, so, he can be seen here looking into a future where his corpse will not be mishandled. He shall not know the Weekend at Bernie’s lifestyle of corporate corpse manipulation.

 

Ozma of the Living Dead knows how to handle herself and the living.

Felony-level crystals

22. The Passion – L.J. Smith

And now Kait will meet the evil psychic team, Black Lightning of the very very non-superhero variety, and commit a felony trying to prove she’s on their side, but obviously, she’s undercover. But still committing a felony! Then, just like a reverse-Dark Crystal, breaking Mr. Zetes’ crystal makes everybody less felonious and not evil anymore. And through all this strife and psychic battling, Gabriel learns he could be nicer and start a relationship with Kait, and she’ll leave Rob the decent dude behind for someone else to date, and everyone is happy then. Everyone.

Even Finny.

 

The Findigo can also be happy with this kind of series resolution.