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Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Inside a Haunted Mind
Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Inside a Haunted Mind
Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Inside a Haunted Mind
| John Manhold's Award Winning Books | ||||||||
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| Inside a Haunted Mind |
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| Written by John Manhold | |
| Monday, 08 March 2010 | |
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Inside a Haunted Mind ISBN9780978898502, A Better Be Write Publisher, LLC Paperback, 386 pages, $22.95 is a multiple award winning novel by K. Patrick Malone
A few months ago I reviewed Mr. Malone’s The Diggers Rest and discovered a strange, but well written and interesting tale of the occult. Inside a Haunted Mind again is of the occult and surpasses the preceding volume in dealing with the subject both in length of description and depth of subject.
The story is of the recounting of an usual manuscript discovered by a New Jersey accountant. The discovered manuscript was written by Terry Chagford, a former Olympic bronze medal-winning athlete who was devastated and is haunted by the death of his father, a state police officer while Terry is young. Later, a young child he heroically tries to save from a burning church is lost before his very eyes. The injuries he receives in the rescue attempt are severe, leading him to overuse of pills and alcohol. He broods upon the child’s death, increasing the mental anguish already present from the father’s death. His resultant depression produces an overriding belief in a deficit in his make-up. Even his bronze medals become significant features (Bronze instead of Gold) in his belief that he never was good enough. After release from the hospital and still hooked on drugs and alcohol, he wanders throughout Europe and finally is brought home from a clinic in Spain by his loving mother to live in their small town. He gets a job in the town’s police force and, being a good and well-liked member of the community, is elevated to Chief shortly thereafter when the position opens.
One cold winter evening he sees a car leave the bridge and plunge into the water. He pulls the man out of the rushing stream and from there does all within his power to save the man believing that, by doing so, his long standing and almost unbearable guilt from not being able to save the child, will be lessened. The need to save Martin causes unending physical, and more importantly mental, suffering that at times becomes unendurable because he must deal with a demonic character that is attempting to destroy Martin. The creature is a resident of a home Martin purchased upon recovering sufficiently from his injuries. The story progresses through numerous sessions with the demonic character ever increasing in strength and the reasons for the creature’s existence gradually being revealed. Numerous other interesting characters also appear and take their proper place in the evolving plot.
The author’s approach to telling the tale is a most interesting one, as is his use of the less usual first person. It also demonstrates the author’s quite interesting ability to conjure up endless description of the workings of a disturbed mind as well as unbelievable scenes of unearthly occurrences in a manner acceptable even to the person who only occasionally is a reader of the genre. Malone also has again exhibited the ability to provide some moving descriptions and to deliver a conclusion that is acceptable on both the normal and abnormal levels.
My only criticism of the book again, is that his ancillary personnel have let him down with a number of missing, misplaced, or duplicate words. For a person who enjoys a story of this nature, these oversights present merely a slight hiccup, however.
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