Steel Ghosts [Paperback]

Michael Paine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005

Tom Kruvener has returned to his Pennsylvania home town to revitalize a long-abandoned steel mill--but only the living have abandoned the mill, and Tom is about to unleash the forces that still burn inside.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425200701
• ISBN-13: 978-0425200704
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,171,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary... Yet Highly Thought Provoking, March 16, 2005

By 

John M. Cook (Astoria, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steel Ghosts (Paperback)

It seems the only thing truly alive in the old steel town of Steadbridge, PA are its dead people.

Here, Michael Paine takes the pulp horror fiction genre and ups the ante by giving us believable, three-dimensional characters: Tom, the NYC film executive who ambivalently returns to his hometown to start up an industry in the town's abandoned mill; Ruth, a single mother of a claivoyant son. Whether alive or dead, no one seems capable of leaving Steadbridge; all are rooted in place to fulfill some unfinished imperative.

Paine is obviously a shrewd observer of the human condition. He gives us more than our money's worth by creating not only first rate moments of suspense and terror, but he also supplies a cautionary tale. Namely, the cost of inertia, the price of refusing to change when change is the only option. He also imparts the nagging realization of how this country's wealth was/is built on the backs of those people who do filthy, demeaning, dehumanizing jobs; many of whom frequently lose life and limb in the process. Paine also proves himself quite a humorist when using his characters to comment astutely on everything from the film business to the Catholic church.

As I said earlier, you get more than you bargained for in this book, and all of it worth the time. A minor gem.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review, January 26, 2005

By 

Joseph Bogdanov "Joe B" (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steel Ghosts (Paperback)

I thought this book was terrific - a nice sense of mystery and creeping dread. I could hardly put it down.

The principal characters were well written and refreshingly complex.

Highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Death in a Steel Town, April 17, 2005

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steel Ghosts (Paperback)

The blast furnaces of the No. 5 Steel Mill in Steadbridge, Pennsylvania have been cold for decades when Tom Kruvener returns to his hometown to convert the abandoned mill into a movie studio. Although Tom manages to conquer his own demons by returning to the place he'd sworn never to set foot in again, he finds himself totally unprepared for the ghosts that now inhabit the mill.

STEEL GHOSTS is the story of a man who spent the first eighteen years of his life in a small steel town and lost his father to a gruesome accident in the mill. Over the years, many others died in the mill before they closed the gates, including the husband of his childhood crush, Ruth Fawcett. Tom and Ruth rekindle their romance while the stagnant Steadbridge experiences an influx of prosperity with the arrival of the new studio and the flurry of activity surrounding a B horror movie production.

Michael Paine sets the stage for a horrifying thriller as victim after victim is pursued and, ultimately, consumed by the evil inhabiting the mill. Paine gives the reader an interesting background and storyline, and the action, although predictable, runs true to genre. Although the story lacks the fear factor that would keep this reviewer awake at night, horror buffs will be satisfied and find the events at the mill perfectly ghastly. (RAW Rating: 4.5)

Reviewed by Kim Anderson Ray
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers