Black Light [Hardcover]

Patrick Melton (Author), Marcus Dunstan (Author), Stephen Romano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2011

If you have a supernatural problem that won't go away, you need Buck Carlsbad: private eye, exorcist, and last resort.

Buck's got a way with spirits that no one else can match. He was normal, once. Until Something Horrible killed his parents and left him for dead.

Buck has spent years using his gift to trace his family. It's his only hope of finding out what happened to them-and what made him the way he is.

Now the voices say that something big is coming. Buck already knows what it is-a super high-tech bullet train running express across a stretch of unforgiving desert known for the most deadly paranormal events in history. A place where Buck almost died a few years ago, and where he swore he would never return.

But as the train prepares to rumble down the tracks, Buck knows it can only be the inevitable hand of fate pulling him back to the most harrowing unfinished case of his career at four hundred miles per hour.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Visceral and cinematic ... over-the-top fun." (CNN.com )

"Ghostbusters with bloody mayhem on steroids." (Kirkus Reviews )

"Fun and exciting. A definite winner." (Booklist )

"I found myself riveted to the page, and about to go for the ride of my life...The style here is phenomenal, all at once calling upon noir, action, and straight-up, hard-core horror, and throwing it at the reader in a well blended mix...A brilliant play on the whole medium/ghost hunter thing, and a concrete way to make all fans of horror happy in one way or another." (www.DreadulTales.com )

"Black Light is immensely entertaining, fueled by breakneck pacing and an action-packed story...A thrilling reading experience. In the end, Black Light entertained the hell out of me and I sincerely hope Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan & Stephen Romano offer up another serving of Buck Carlsbad in the very near future..." (www.FantasyBookCritic.com )

"Wry, complex and suspenseful, Black Light will keep spines tingling from the first ghoulish encounter to the final exorcism. Readers will have a ghastly good time tagging along on an exorcist's bullet-train journey through the nexus of evil." (Jaclyn Fulwood, Shelf Awareness )

About the Author

Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan have written the screenplays for Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D, and The Collector, which Dunstan also directed. Currently, they are filming The Collection, and wrote Piranha 3DD, which comes out this Thanksgiving from Dimension Films. Stephen Romano is an acclaimed author, screenwriter and illustrator, having written for Showtime's Emmy-winning original series Masters Of Horror.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mulholland Books; 1 edition (October 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316196711
• ISBN-13: 978-0316196710
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,317,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Obviously a screenwriter... November 5, 2011

By PDXTraveler

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved this story at the start, the creation of the main character was smart and unique...I wanted to go with him on this quest. But once the train leaves the station and the fighting starts, it gets repetitive and the author's perspective seems weighted towards creating scenes meant for visual presentation on the screen, not a reader in a literary format.

Melton is a great talent but what works on screen doesn't always translate in a literary piece. There needs to be a bit more subtlety with a reader as opposed to just the maelstrom of senseless violent gore for gore's sake that often gets substituted for "horror" in current cinema.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are the person who protects us from the ghosts, who is taking care of you? October 10, 2011

By Mary J. Gramlich VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Buck Carlsbad has been chasing everything that goes bump in the night for more years than he can count. He has a "gift" which captures the dark forces that cause mayhem and disaster with the power to regurgitate them into safekeeping. He lost his family to the Blacklight that holds secrets and keeps the things that scare you very close and under control.

When Buck is asked to take his particular talent and participate on a trip through the desert on a new high-speed train his first thought was "why me"? But after talking to the creator, it becomes too clear that this train will cross the Blacklight Triangle, which is the area where his parents were killed and where the darkest danger on earth still lurks. This area housed the worst that human kind had created in prison facilities designed to contain their evil, but does that ever work? The body may be gone but Buck knows from firsthand experience that their souls can still roam about causing havoc by utilizing another vessel.

The train is full of the rich, famous, and future presidents soaking up the publicity and preparing for the ride of their life. The group is clueless as to the imminent danger right underneath them because they are as equally possessed by their own demons and distractions. This trip is a puzzle to Buck who is trying to put pieces together so they can finally make sense to him and maybe fill in the holes of why his parents were killed. Distraction is not a possibility for Buck as just the mere second he closes his concentration disaster can occur and he truly has no idea who to trust. Everyone that Buck thought was on his side may not be or maybe they really are he just does not know.

The last stop for this train may be the beginning of a nightmare that cannot be controlled by even someone with Buck's gift.

My reaction upon finishing this book was wow. Not a small, uncomplicated wow but a huge that was awesome WOW. A book that is as fascinating as it is scary is an interesting combination that came across as well as it did due to flawless writing. The chapters flow one into another and every word is critical to the storyline. This book is best read with the lights turned up as high as they can go. Did I say wow?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good reading November 8, 2011

By J.C. Hart

Format:Hardcover

This novel follows Buck, a man who drags the vengeful dead out of the living world and into himself, in order to remove them from the land of the living permanently. His whole focus in life is to answer the question of what happened to his parents - unfortunately for him, the only place he can find those answers is the last place he wants to be.

I really liked the take on the paranormal shown in this novel. It was something new for me - the main character physically taking the spirits into himself before being able to dispose of them - and I liked the dark and gritty setting. Buck is a bit of a tortured soul, getting old before his time, burning years of his life in the pursuit of answers. These questions that haunt him prevent him from living life, to the extent that he might as well be one of the dead already - his way of handling situations doesn't lend itself to reaching old age

There were quite a few secondary characters, some of which I really liked (his sidekicks lend some comic relief to the story and the few women he comes into contact with are all very different). For the most part though, they played their cards very close to the chest and it wasn't until near the end that I felt like I was getting a grip on who was controlling the situation and what the outcome might be. I was genuinely surprised at several points with the twists written in and the ending didn't disappoint.

The writing is highly visual, incredibly detailed at times, and it's here that you can tell this was produced by people who write movies. While sometimes I had to read something over, in order to make sure I had it all straight in my head, I could see how this would translate to film - and it's a movie I would want to see.

If you're the kind of person who likes this level of detail, who likes a dark and gritty tale with a paranormal bent, then you should probably check this out.