- Hardcover
- Publisher: Cemetery Dance Pubns (October 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1587670364
- ISBN-13: 978-1587670367
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.7 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Matt Harper, a first-time counselor at a boy's summer camp, is witness to casual brutality that leads to murder in this short novel told with almost fable-like simplicity. Certainly the bullying, gluttonous headman Ed Nolan (who "has reduced Camp Pleasant to a microcosm of the Third Reich") is portrayed as a stereotype the reader is not sorry to see killed. All the sympathy is reserved for the possible suspects, from Merv Loomis, the homosexual counselor Nolan humiliates into quitting, to the troubled 10-year-old, Tony Rocca, to Nolan's meek wife, Ellen, and others. The setting and tone have the distinct feel of the early 1950s, but a casual reference to Catherine Deneuve places the action in the mid-60s or later. The minimalist plot would be inadequate in other hands, but Matheson author of Somewhere in Time and Hell House, as well as classic Twilight Zone teleplays has such command of his craft that this book is a pure pleasure. The simple style recalls Hemingway, with such lines as "It was a Wednesday night and there were movies down in the lodge so I sent my boys there and stayed in the cabin, packing my trunk." Occasionally Matheson waxes poetic: "I lay there staring at the wall, feeling my heart thud slowly in my chest like the fist of a dying man on the wall of his prison." This limited edition is sure to satisfy the veteran author's many fans and collectors. (June)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Bonnie Winter,
By
This review is from: Bonnie Winter (Hardcover)
The editorial review above is for "Camp Pleasant" not "Bonnie Winter". Camp Pleasant by the way is a good read
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bonnie Winter,
By
This review is from: Bonnie Winter (Hardcover)
Buyer beware. Bonnie Winter and Trauma is the same story
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bonnie Winter,
By Henry Kaminski - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bonnie Winter (Hardcover)
Buyer beware. Bonnie Winter and Trauma is the same story
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bonnie Winter / Trauma,
By Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bonnie Winter (Hardcover)
Bonnie Winter is having some personal problems. Ever since her husband Duke's job was taken away by a Mexican, he has been bitter (and won't eat Mexican food) and she has been precariously holding down two jobs: one for Glamorex cosmetics as a representative, the other for her own crime-scene (or trauma-scene) cleanup company, Bonnie's Trauma Scene Clean.
Things take a strange turn when Bonnie finds an odd-looking caterpillar at three of her crime scenes. With some research, she discovers that the caterpillar is connected to an ancient Aztec legend about a demon (Itzpapalotl) who inspires people to kill "the ones they love the most." Coincidentally, all of the victims at these houses were loved ones of the murderers, including one doting father who killed his three children. Originally published under the title Bonnie Winter as the tenth entry in the Cemetery Dance novella series, Trauma is 200 pages of relatively large print -- which makes me wonder if Signet couldn't have lowered the price a bit -- but in the end, it's worth the extra dollar or two: a tight little package of suspense that fires on all cylinders and doesn't waste a word. I had never read a book by Graham Masterton before, but this one will not be my last. It has everything I look for in a novel, and more. Plus, its surface similarities to my current favorite guilty pleasure all but guaranteed that I would love it. (Murder mystery aspects combine with gruesome details and entomology to make Trauma, in some ways, resemble an insect-heavy episode of CSI, but with a tone of terror as opposed to puzzle solution.) Masterton's skill at description is what truly carries the day, however. The crime scenes are lovingly described while not verging into exploitation. Also, the author evokes the day-to-day aspects of Bonnie's professions (and the relationships that come with them), grounding this novella in reality so well that, when the story takes a shocking turn near the end, we are all the more willing to follow right along, even when it veers occasionally into the surreal. Masterton takes a banal narrative and a seemingly-minor plot point and delivers a surprise that is wild yet completely organic to the story. Trauma is a quick read, but Bonnie Winter is not a character that you will soon forget. 0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Bonnie Winter,
By Kenneth Epstein "huntercat" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bonnie Winter (Hardcover)
The editorial review above is for "Camp Pleasant" not "Bonnie Winter". Camp Pleasant by the way is a good read
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