Customer Reviews

Chasing the Dead: A Novel

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4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
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In Chasing the Dead we are teased with an intro that gives us a glimpse of the past the dwells inside the now grown up Sue Young and Phillip Chamberlin...a past that's coming back to do a lot more than haunt them. Sue Young (34) is a single mother and estranged for more than a year from her husband (a childhood friend)...she's getting on with her life as best as she can since her husband abandoned her, having hired a nanny and taken over the business. We find her on a typical day (which also happens to be winter solstice) headed home to meet with the nanny and see her young daughter after a long day at work. What she gets is not what she expected.

Upon returning home, she receives a phone call from a man claiming to have kidnapped the nanny and her daughter and informing her that she'll do what he wants, understand what she must in the next 12 hours or he'll slit her dauther's throat. What ensues is an enthralling, grisly, and uber creepy road trip that will keep you turning pages until well into the night...and when it's all over, you'll need to sleep with the lights on! I loved Schreiber's use of a "local legend" as the basis for an entire series of murders and as the reason for her unusual and maddening road trip tonight. I recommend this Chasing the dead; it's a fast paced, horrific thrill ride!

Joe Schreiber's debut novel is a page-turning, ridiculously entertaining, gory thrill-ride that I could not put down. It's just too bad that the novel is only 196 pages long, because I could have kept going for hundreds more. I started the book at 10 this morning, and I had finished by 6 this evening. While the book might lack depth in some areas, it more than makes up for that by the original storyline and surprising twists and turns. I haven't been immersed in a mystery put forth in a book in quite a while.

I won't even summarize the plot, because to try to explaing what goes on throughout the pages would only serve to spoil a great book for future readers. All you need to know is that Sue Young's daughter, Veda, is kidnapped within the first 20 pages of the book, and from there it is all downhill (in a good way). Chasing the Dead takes place over the course of one night as Sue's journey to save her daughter gets crazier and crazier until you just want to read ahead to find out what the heck is going on.

While some people are saying this book is a great homage, and love it for that, I love it for its originality and ability to combine about 3 to 4 different genres of thriller into 196 pages. If Joe Schreiber can keep pumping out books like this, then I think that the horror novel community will have a new author to look forward to for a long time to come.

So, I just read this book without getting up out of my chair once. I was drawn immediately into the suspenseful scenario ... and then I gurgled aloud and twitched at the sordid imagery ... and followed (against my will) along Sue Young's journey, chewing off my cuticles, until the very last page. I anticipate more gnashing and thrashing in my bed tonight! This book is not only a thriller. The thoughtful and precise language - and the structure of the book as a whole - make it a book I'll remember. I just hope I can forget it once the lights go out tonight.

This is a short book, only 196 pages but jam packed with action and energy. The premise of the story is slow to materialize. All we know in the beginning is that a kidnapping has taken place and a desperate mother is trying to rescue her infant daughter from a mysterious voice on the cell-phone.

We also know is that something terrible happened a long time ago, and now is coming back to threaten the mother and her child. The voice is threatening, chilling and very vivid in what he will do if she does not comply with his instructions.

Once we get to the heart of the story, and begin to realize the implications of the cross state journey, its time for our resourceful mother to start thinking of a way to defeat this monster. But how does one defeat the undead?

No police, no FBI, no one to really help her, she has to figure out the problem on her own and solve it.

This is a fairly predictable storyline and one that has been repeated before. Good vs. evil, love conquering hate, all the clichés are here.

The fact that it is a quick read is good. You want to get to the end to see if your suspicions are correct, and move on to a deeper novel. This one is ok for a quiet evening at home, but have something in reserve to get you through a weekend.

I've read an advance copy and I can tell you that Chasing the Dead is a deliciously creepy page turner that you will be too scared to stop reading. The advance reviews are excellent with many reviewers comparing Schreiber favorably to Mr. Horrorpants himself Stephen King. This is not hyperbole. Schreiber is a sickly inventive author, at once darkly observant and casually hilarious, making this tight, excellent debut a must read. You can't miss with Chasing the Dead especially since Halloween is just around the corner and there's nothing kids love more in their trick or treat bags than a terrifying novel.

CHASING THE DEAD is a sleek bullet of a suspense/horror novel. I know that both of those genres exist independently of each other, but sometimes have elements of the other within them, but this book is first one, then the other in a blend like I haven't seen before.

I picked the book up because the cover caught my eye. I couldn't help wondering who was driving that car at night down such a desolate road with the forest all around. From the provocative title, I knew whoever it was couldn't be out day-tripping - primarily because it's night. I was also attracted by the brevity of the book. At 250 pages with a generous font instead of tiny type, I knew I could probably get through it in an hour or two. So I added it to the stack I was getting.

At home, still curious, I opened the cover and intended to read a chapter or so just to get the feel of it. I do that a lot and let my subconscious choose the order of the books I read when I don't have a definite plan.

However, I had definite plans. I've got an immense TBR pile. But I read the prologue and remained curious. After all, a prologue doesn't necessarily tell you how a book is going to read.

On the first page of Chapter 1, I met Susan Young, newly divorced and still not sure why, who's about to close a major real estate deal, and is just trying to get home to her young daughter through the late-evening traffic. Within six pages, she arrives home and finds her daughter and the nanny aren't home.

Then she gets the phone call.

The voice of a man she doesn't know informs her that she has a beautiful daughter, then proceeds to describe her. I was hooked. As a parent, having my child in the hands of a madman would be terrifying.

By the end of the next two chapters, just ten short pages away and I'm suddenly 15% of the way through the novel, Susan is forced to obey the machinations of the evil man who holds the life of her child in his hands.

I was totally stuck at this point. For a first-time author, Schreiber really knows how to keep a reader turning pages. I finally gave up and settled back to just follow the book through to the end. I had no choice. I was held completely in thrall.

In just a few more short chapters, Susan is commanded to dig up a grave. By hand. During the confusion, she inadvertently left the shovel she was told she had to bring. By the time she gets back to her SUV, there's another body waiting for her that turns her world upside down again.

Schreiber's story moves relentlessly, till the anticipation becomes an adrenaline-laced blur. The twists and turns come faster and faster, and I can't really remember when the story jumped from suspense to out-and-out Stephen King style horror because the dread inside me continued to come from the same place. The dread grew larger and larger, though, because what Susan faced seemed to grow exponentially as well.

Although CHASING THE DEAD isn't going to change your life or even stay with you long after you finish it, the novel will definitely take you to the darker places of your mind and root around in old fears resurrected from childhood. It's a fun, fast read that will keep you nailed to the pages as you try to stay up with the whipsaw of obstacles Susan faces as she struggles to save her child.

Now I've gotta pick up Schreiber's new book, EAT THE DEAD, that just hit the bookshelves. And when I read it, I'm gonna do it at night just for that extra adrenaline spike. I'll make sure the doors are all locked and the windows are closed first.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who works at a bookstore. I sat down one evening to read it and couldn't put it down. It started out as a story that could happen in any neighborhood and I thought I knew where it was going and then it caught me by surprise. Chapter by chapter it swept me deeper into the scariness of this women's journey and I had to turn each page to answer all my questions. What a great read...Joe Schreiber's descriptions and details make you believe you are in the car with Sue and allows you to step inside the book.

This book was recommended to me by a friend of mine. He told me how great it was so I was going in expecting a great read. I, however, was very disappointed by it.

The story is about a wealthy divorcee one night returning home from work to get a call from a man stating he has kidnapped her child (and the nanny). From this point on our protagonist is then, if she is to see her child again, placed on a wild goose chase back to her childhood hometown (about 60 miles west) on the request of our antagonist. As the story moves along we get a number of frightful, bizarre, and maybe even supernatural events that occur as she drives from the town of her childhood to the seacoast of Cape Anne, Massachusetts. A hidden past and the connection of a serial killer even may be behind all of this.

Though the novel moved very quick, the huge fault of this book was the inability of myself, the reader, to have a suspension of disbelief in how our protagonist acts when confronted with her many set pieces that she encounters. When something that is possibly or even probably supernatural occurs, she acts as if it was normal, where the author even uses our antagonist as exposition in explaining why he chose her. So, yeah, okay, she's able to accept things of the complete bizarre with little problems at all. When our protagonist finds people that are murdered that she knows or cares for, she's almost matter-of-fact about it. When animals that she thought were dead and then suddenly once again are alive, she is not taken aback. When she sees deserted ghost towns in Massachusetts she acts not all too surprised.

There is even flaws in the story where she is told not to speak to the police, or her child will be killed. But when she is arrested at one point, she spills the beans on everything. Then the antagonist goes about as if it was okay. At points the antagonist gives complete exposition of his whole reasoning almost to the point you could see him as a James Bond villian telling his entire plan and our hero escaping to vanquish him. And the town statue of an important person in the town squares of the places she goes seem almost ludicrous since we discover that the honored person was a murdering sociopath. In today's day and age, a statue of one time heroes that actually have done some good are removed never mind someone that is known to be evil.

The ending of the story was so ridiculous and typical of B-movie type novels that the whole ending was projected, including the required police sirens in the distance approaching. The only good part was the last chapter and not because it worked, but more so because it was negative; something needed since the story simply couldn't have a happy ending because what had occurred prior.

Would I recommend this book? To be honest, I cannot say no. It was a quick read. And if you are able to suspend disbelief better than I, you'll like it. The writing is generally good in flow. So it is probably worth a read, just don't get your hopes up as I did prior to reading the first chapter.

CHASING THE DEAD is a pretty decent suspense thriller with supernatural elements. This is a rather short, very fast paced book that takes place over a limited time period. It reminds me quite a bit of novels like VELOCITY by Dean Koontz and CREEPERS by David Morrell. If you like those titles, you may want to give this one a try, it is written in the same spirit.

Although Schreiber is a good literary craftsman, I didn't feel the characters were as well developed as they should have been. The main character breathlessly runs from place to place, but she never really came alive for me as a person. In the end, I didn't really care very much about her, which is problematic for any horror thriller. The genius of writers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz is that they can create very vivid characters without letting up on the suspense. I don't feel that really happened with CHASING THE DEAD, and I never felt emotionally invested in the storyline as a result.

That being said, this novel is decently crafted page-turner, good enough for me to read in one sitting. Still, I hope that Schreiber writes a longer book next time, and invests more effort on developing more interesting characters that I can relate to.

But not great either. Joe Schreiber's "Chasing the Dead" is a solid first novel. Schreiber's strength as a writer is his sense of pacing. He obviously gets an A for Page-Turning 101. Character development seems pretty good - though, for the most part, there's only one character, Susan Young, a mother desperately trying to save her baby daughter from an undead child killer seeking vengeance for something Susan and a friend had done to him years before. The book is meant to be a one night journey into Hell- since that's all the time Susan has, as she travels down a route that is drawn by the killer. But there's a history that goes beyond Susan's encounter with the killer. I thought the whole Isaac Hamilton part of the story to be well-done, and in particular I liked the statues & towns bit, with the last town having that creepy Lovecraftian New England look. Where the novel ultimately failed for me was with the ending. Without hopefully giving too much away, I had real issues regarding the mechanics of the final confrontation, with the burning rum, car rolling, bad things moving like they were stuck in peanut butter, the "Poe" thing in the box, etc., It all seemed hard to envision and rushed in a very PG-13 horror movie-like way. (And the phone ringing!?! C'mon Joe!) Overall, I would of liked to have seen the emphasis on pace give way more to the development of dread. Schreiber does have some good descriptive moments, but he rarely uses them to establish dread. (Note to Joe: The young Susan and Phillip in the park, "Babes," and the DJ and the night callers - good stuff.)

Still, with all that in mind, I would definitely read more from Schreiber. My problems with this novel are all easily correctable, and after checking the author's website, there's no question that this guy is committed to being a good writer.