Helpful Score: 1
opens with murder and closes with a bang. Great read
Helpful Score: 1
The great house stands alone, deep in the wooded reaches of the Hudson Valley. Outside, all is peace-but inside lies destruction:an almost superhuman violence, mirrored by a series of disappearances and deaths that have haunted the region. Paul Skoglund hasn't seen his eccentric wealthy aunt in years. But her magnificent nineteenth-century hunting lodge has been ravaged, and she refuses to have anyone outside the family take on repairs. Paul senses something amiss, but takes the job anyway. He's in no position to turn down work. Despite his brilliance, Paul hasn't held a steady job for two years, partly because of his Tourette's Syndrome, a strange neurological disorder that compels him to act out in bizarre and explosive ways. His icy ex-wife plans to use his condition to wrest away custody of their troubled young son. And in this otherwise uncertain world, Paul is sure of one thing:Nothing and no one is going to come between himself and Mark. As Paul and his lovely, risk-addicted girlfriend, Lia, delve into the lodge's wreckage, they can't help but wonder what dark passion-and what strength-could cause such chaos. Their search for answers takes them from the most ancient, primal human impulses to the cutting edge of biomedical research, from the science of genetics to Viking legends to forensic pathology-and across the ambiguous borderline between thought and reality. As the quickening events lead him deeper into his family's past, Paul must face the darker aspects of his own nature, and brave the possibility that in saving those he loves, he might well destroy himself.
I found it very difficult to get through this book, but couldn't NOT finish it. It just seemed to take too long to get to the point, but I liked the ending.
I liked this thriller about the "monster" inside and what happens when it's released without control. I liked Paul's interactions with Lia, his son Mark, and his aunt Vivian.
Loved this book...lots of mystery, exploration of the mind's deepest recesses, lots of information about Tourette's and the different ways it manifests in different people. Read this after reading "The Darkest Room" by Johan Theorin and there are some creepy similarities...the landscape, the old abandoned mansion, the ghosts from the past...a very good read!
The lead character has Tourette's Syndrome, which lends an interesting twist to the story. If you like thrillers this one is good. Keep my interest all through the book
Paul Skogland wasn't prepared for the horrifying condition of his aunt's estate.The rambling old house on the Hudson River had been vandalized so savagely,so violently,that it could only be the work of a dangerous unstable mind. Paul himself was no stranger to problems of the mind;a lifelong victim of a severe nervous disorder,he had managed to control hei maental states through medication and self-discipline. But when the damage inflicted upon his aunt's house is linked to the recent disapperarnaces of local teenagers,Paul is forced to question his family's mysterious past-and open his mind to new, and terrifying,possibilities....
