David Morrell, Creepers

Creepers

David Morrell

CDS Books, 2005, $7.99

ISBN: 1593153570

Former Army Ranger Frank Balenger pretends to be a reporter as he joins the "Creepers," a group of urban explorers who enter abandoned edifices as if they are newly discovered caves. Though breaking and entering even forsaken property is against the law, the participants go out of their way to avoid any damage and to especially not steal anything. All they take are pictures.

Balenger joins a quartet, Professor Robert Conklin, high school teacher Vincent Vanelli and graduate students Rick and Cora Magill. The five members enter the forsaken creepy Paragon Hotel in Asbury Park, New Jersey. They anticipated plenty of decay, as the turn of the century structure has not been maintained in years, but did not expect to run into dangerous avarice looters and someone even more deadly.

CREEPERS is a fascinating urban thriller that readers will enjoy searching along side the explorers inside this abandoned "tomb"; something that many New York City teens have done over the years, for instance with abandoned subway stations. The storyline is action-packed and a bit over the top, with some of the incidents caused by the nasties looting the Paragon Hotel. Balenger is a terrific lead character, and it is easy to distinguish him teammates personalities as their trek inside the paragon Hotel turns dangerous.