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Summary
Summary
If you have a supernatural problem that won't go away, you need Buck Carlsbad: private eye, exorcist, and last resort.
Buck's got a way with spirits that no one else can match. He was normal, once. Until Something Horrible killed his parents and left him for dead.
Buck has spent years using his gift to trace his family. It's his only hope of finding out what happened to them-and what made him the way he is.
Now the voices say that something big is coming. Buck already knows what it is-a super high-tech bullet train running express across a stretch of unforgiving desert known for the most deadly paranormal events in history. A place where Buck almost died a few years ago, and where he swore he would never return.
But as the train prepares to rumble down the tracks, Buck knows it can only be the inevitable hand of fate pulling him back to the most harrowing unfinished case of his career at four hundred miles per hour.
Author Notes
Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan have written the screenplays for Saw IV , Saw V , Saw VI , Saw 3D , and The Collector , which Dunstan also directed. They have filmed The Collection and wrote Dimension Films' Piranha 3DD .
Stephen Romano is an acclaimed author, screenwriter and illustrator, having written for Showtime's Emmy-winning original series Masters Of Horror .
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 2012, this uneven first novel from screenwriters Melton and Dunstan (the Saw movies), in collaboration with Romano (Safe in the Woods), stars ghost hunter Buck Carlsbad, who can ingest evil spirits (resorting to castor oil to expel them). Buck is more than a little concerned when he learns that plans for a new high-speed passenger train will take it straight through an area of California that he considers a bad place, connected as it is with the death or disappearance of his parents. Carlsbad ends up on the maiden voyage of the Jaeger Laser between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, hired to handle any supernatural bugs that may interfere with the megaevent. The A guest-list of his travel companions includes a charismatic presidential candidate considered a lock for the White House. Of course, things don't go smoothly. Fans of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, who likewise battles occult forces, will find Buck lacks the strong personality that distinguishes Harry. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Romano joins Melton and Dunstan, creators of theSawfilm franchise, to pen a fantasy crime, or crime as fantasy, novel.The book opens with Buck exorcising the ghost of a child murderer haunting the New Orleans residence of his widow. The authors offer bits of Buck's back story as he cruises home to Texas. As a child, Buck was abandoned in Carlsbad, N.M., and sent to an orphanage. As a teen, his gift becomes evident when he sees a ghost plaguing an attendant. The Pull draws that evil woman into Buck, and he experiences the Black Light"the vision of the dead"before ridding himself of the tortured soul by vomiting her evil plasma onto her gravesite. Home from his New Orleans Pull,Buck is enlisted by industrialist Sidney Jaeger. The billionaire has built a high-speed bullet train to run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It will travel at 400-mph-plus across the California desert through an area triangulated by former sites of three maximum-security prisons, grounds where uncounted evil ghosts lurk. Carrying a crowd of celebrities and one very important politician, the super train breaks records rocketing from L.A. to Vegas while Buck rides along battling rogue government agents, backstabbing friends and the evil shades of "Blackjack Nine," whose leader killed Buck's parents. The authors are fond of overwrought descriptive language"bringing the spirit in with a gutterspewing thunder that feels like a toilet flush tremor bolting to the core of the Earth"random clichs and capital-letter bold statements as they unpack the action and dish out eye-gouging marital-arts battles, dislocated pinkies, shootouts and gut-retching exorcisms. Buck on the screen will require major CGI skills. Not forPotterorTwilightfans. It'sGhostbusterswith bloody mayhem on steroids, few laughs and a dash of Bruce Lee theatrics.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The writing team behind the final four Saw movies joins forces with horror writer and screenwriter Romano for this clever supernatural thriller. Buck Carlsbad is a sort of freelance ghostbuster and exorcist, a guy with the unique ability to capture malevolent spirits (and, when the job is done, he has to, um, vomit up the remains of the spirit). Hired to find out whether the ghosts of several dead murderers could jeopardize the launch of a superfast new bullet train between L.A. and Vegas whose route takes it straight through what Buck calls the Black Light Triangle, a Bermuda Triangle of supernatural nastiness Buck discovers that defeating the ultimate evil can take more out of a guy than you might think. Told in a light, breezy style (but with plenty of dark imagery), the novel might not be as gruesome or convoluted as readers might expect from the writers of the Saw movies, but it sure is fun and exciting. A definite winner and judging by the conclusion perhaps the first of many Buck Carlsbad adventures.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Coauthored by the screenwriters of the last four films of the wildly successful Saw franchise, Melton and Marcus Dunstan, along with horror author/screenwriter/illustrator Stephen Romano, this debut supernatural thriller follows Buck Carlsbad, a psychic, private investigator, and ghost hunter who doesn't remember his childhood before the age of seven. Intuitively, Buck knows that something horrific happened to him and his parents. Haunted by his ominous past and driven by his ability to communicate with the supernatural, Buck embarks on a journey to discover the truth and avenge his family's demise. More fantastic than realistic, this book is best described as modern horror noir (Sin City meets Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas), set in a world that is just slightly askew from the one we know today. The authors' experience in the movie industry is apparent in the concise prose, rapid-fire dialog, and fast pace, and the book could easily be adapted for the screen. VERDICT While not for every fiction reader, fans of the horror/thriller and dark fantasy genre will enjoy this debut novel, which is reminiscent of the works of F. Paul Wilson ("Repairman Jack" series) and Tom Piccirilli. [See Prepub Alert, 4/25/11.]-Carolann Curry, Mercer Univ. Lib., Macon, GA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
