A Stir of Echoes (Paperback)

That night while unable to sleep, Tom begins hearing voices of people he knows and impressions in his dead culminated with a ghost in his living room. Suddenly, Tom's middle class American dream lifestyle seems meaningless as the hypnosis has aroused psychic abilities that he never knew he had. He hears the intimate most confidential thoughts of those around him and learns secrets that shake his existence, but worse is the visits from the murder victim demanding he help her find her killer.

This is a reprint of a 1950s thriller (and a one degree Bacon movie) that combines an amateur sleuth subplot within a fast-paced paranormal story line containing a ghostly element and psychic abilities. Tom is a terrific protagonist as readers observe the contrast between his lifestyle and his new ESP abilities. The support cast adds depth to Tom's travails as he tries to solve a homicide and regain his former existence without "hearing" the thoughts of others. Richard Matheson shows why he is one of the masters of the thriller genre as this "historical" piece ages nicely.

Harriet Klausner

When Tom Wallace is hypnotized at a party by his brother-in-law, he turns out to be a surprisingly good subject. Afterwards, he is told how malleable he was, and a good laugh is had at his expense when he unwittingly performs a post-hypnotic suggestion. But afterwards things aren't the same for Tom: he begins having dreams that a woman in black is in his house, and then realizes that he is able to read people's minds. This comes in handy on more than one occasion, but generally appears to be a nuisance, especially to Tom's wife, Anne, who wants him to see a doctor.

Given what I have read of Matheson, I wasn't surprised by the level of quality presented in the story. What did surprise me, however, was that A Stir of Echoes, although first published in 1958, is not at all dated; it could have just as easily been written today, Matheson's story and characters are so "modern" and timeless. This is particularly true given the modern atmosphere of being more accepting to the idea of spirits "crossing over" from another plane.

As the story progresses, the tension ratchets higher and higher. Matheson hardly lets up, steadily adding more complications to the plot until the surprise revelation. This is one of the reasons that I like Matheson's work so much: the knowledge that I am always in for a ride.

(Fans of the movie please note: the plot of A Stir of Echoes differs from the film in many details. The base story is, of course, the same, but the identities of the participants -- the alleged ghost, the alleged killer -- are different, which allows for a novel experience in reading a book you think you're already familiar with.)