Gossamer Hall-Erin Samiloglu

Gossamer Hall
Erin Samiloglu
Medallion, Oct 2007, $7.95
ISBN: 9781932815894

Since he was a young child Juan Fuentes knew he had the special gift of making things out of thin air. This skill horrified his mother who sent her “evil” son away to be raised by a relativee. Juan currently attends Brookhaven College; where his history professor Dr. Hastings knows what the student can do and intends to exploit the teen in order to obtain the cache of gold that mass murderer Mad Maron hid.

Hastings arranges for a séance in his class, but before they can finish, an earthquake strikes. The deformed grotesque bodies of Mad Maron and his partners rise from the ground wanting to kill everyone in the classroom. Since they are already dead, they cannot die, but they can be distracted so that the students can escape. However, the dead men use the secrets of each pupil to induce them to come to them; only the strong willed can resists the lure.

This reads sort of like a slasher movie where many will die by choosing a foolish path. Readers will be hooked by wanting know who survives fighting the call of these two dead killers. There are plenty of action scenes but the gore is limited as the classmates try to outwit the homicidal deadly quartet. Fans get to know some of students as their plight grows nightmarishly worse with little hope to survive the reanimation ordeal.

Harriet Klausner