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Summary
Summary
'Creepers'. That's what they call themselves. Urban explorers who illegally enter sealed buildings - hotels, offices, department stores - many of which have been abandoned for years. Exploring one is like going into a time capsule. Mystery and danger add to the adrenaline rush, as the building's secrets are unveiled.
One night in New Jersey, a group of creepers enters the Paragon, a hotel designed and built during the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire. The magnificent structure, which foreshadowed the beauties of Art Deco architecture, is now a decrepit, boarded-up edifice marked for demolition.
But the Paragon has a disturbing history, and soon after the group enters it becomes clear that this decaying seven-story building holds more secrets than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares. Danger, terror and death wait for them in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.
Author Notes
David Morrell, an award-winning Canadian writer of horror fiction, was born in 1943 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He was educated at the University of Waterloo and earned his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. Morrell is best known as the creator of John Rambo, the hero of his first novel, First Blood. The novel was adapted for screen and starred Sylvester Stallone. Although Morrell was not happy with the depiction of the Rambo character in the movie, he did write several sequels to First Blood and two further scripts for the sequels to the original movie. He also wrote a number of other books including The Brotherhood of the Rose which became a best seller in 1984.
David Morrell has written one scholarly work, John Barth: An Introduction, published by Pennsylvania State University in 1977 and has taught at the University of Iowa. He now lives in the United States with his wife and daughter (another child, a son, is deceased).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Morrell takes a creative kind of breaking-and-entering as the premise for his latest thriller (after Nightscape), a gripping story that demands to be read in a single sitting. Disguising himself as a journalist, Frank Balenger, ex-U.S. Army Ranger and Iraqi war veteran, joins a group of "Creepers," also known as infiltrators, urban explorers or city speleologists-men and women who outfit themselves with caving gear to break into and explore buildings that have long been closed up and abandoned. Though what they're doing is technically illegal, participants pride themselves on never stealing or destroying anything they find at these sites. They take only photographs and aim to leave no footprints. Balenger joins a group of four: the leader, Professor Robert Conklin, high school teacher Vincent Vanelli and graduate students Rick and Cora Magill. This gang infiltrates the Paragon Hotel, an abandoned, seven-story, pyramidal Asbury Park, N.J., structure built in 1901 by eccentric, hemophiliac Morgan Carlisle. Balenger and the professor have a special agenda, but the others are there simply for the thrills. Things quickly begin to unravel in life-threatening ways once the intrepid infiltrators penetrate the building-they aren't the only ones creeping around the spooky hotel. Morrell delivers first-rate, suspenseful storytelling once again. Agent, Jane Dystel. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Frank Balenger is a New York Times reporter doing a Sunday magazine profile on urban explorers, better known as creepers. It's an illegal activity but a very popular one, in which adventure seekers invade crumbling old structures in search of thrills and perhaps a glimpse of the past. Frank joins a team of four as they prepare to enter the long-shuttered and mysterious Paragon Hotel. They surreptitiously enter as darkness envelops the city, planning to emerge before dawn none the worse for wear. At least that's the plan. Initially they encounter the expected assortment of crumbling furniture, magazines, and rats, but soon they realize they are not alone, and their counterparts are not friendly people. It turns out that Frank's group has a hidden agenda involving treasure, and their rivals are after the same loot. Throw in an even more unfriendly kidnapper and his captor, and you have a nightmare in the making. Veteran thriller writer Morrell gleefully and shamelessly cherry picks from several genres (crime, horror, adventure, western) and blends them into a violent, claustrophobic nightmare. There's the survive-the-night-in-a-haunted-house plot starring a Norman Bates villain; there's a Treasure of the Sierra Madre cast that would rather die than give up the loot; and there's a version of the classic western in which the outlaws and the homesteaders join forces to battle the Indians. An unabashedly entertaining thriller that has blockbuster movie written all over it. --Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A simple overnight exploration of a gutted hotel in Asbury Park, NJ, turns into a deadly visit. Morrell is considered by many to be the predominant thriller writer today. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
