BLACK OAK: HUNTING GROUND
and
BLACK OAK: WHEN THE COLD WIND BLOWS

By Charles Grant
ROC $5.99
 

Along with F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack novels, Charles Grant's Black Oak series causes a peculiar response: I drop however many other novels I may be reading to jump into the latest adventure featuring characters I like facing evil wrongdoers and monsters. Whatever that may say about me, allow me to use it to praise the authors involved (see my F. Paul Wilson reviews as well). I have been a Charles Grant fan for many years, drawn to his work not by its grotesque gore and outrageous violence, but in fact because of the lack of those elements. Grant at his best manages to evoke the best ghost story writers of the past merely by manipulating atmosphere and descriptive passages, with his deceptively simple sentences and short, poetic paragraphs. 

In the Black Oak novels, the enigmatic Ethan Proctor runs an unconventional investigative agency out of his house. Their main case load involves uncovering scams and debunking faked supernatural occurrences, but a strange pattern has begun to color their every move - since Proctor's mother went into a catatonic state seven years before, awakening only to utter the phrase "tiger's eye," and since the firm was hired longterm to locate eccentric millionaire Taylor Blaine's missing and presumed dead daughter. Convinced she's alive because she has been photographed more recently, Blaine helps fund Proctor's group against the wishes of his other two grown children. But something - or an organization of sorts -- seems to want Proctor kept away from investigating various bizarre occurrences and, eventually wants him killed. These two novels up the ante as Proctor finally begins to see the pattern which has been kept from him up to now.

In HUNTING GROUND, Proctor and his young operative Taz, and the straight-laced Doc Falcon are sent off to Atlantic City by the rest of their staff for a weekend of gambling, to help an exhausted and preoccupied Proctor to relax. Unfortunately, Atlantic City is in the grips of a two-pronged attack - from an impending March storm of unusual proportions (such as that which battered the coast only weeks ago), and from the Ripper, the newest serial killer who takes eyeballs as souvenirs. Suddenly trapped in a storm-bound hotel (a scenario Grant has used successfully before in various novels such as RAVEN), the trio slowly realize that the Ripper is among them, taking victims brazenly and with little hope of capture, hunting his own game preserve. Only with the help of the mysterious and beautiful Petra Haslic does Proctor stand a chance against his taunting enemy. You can almost smell that lightning electricity in the air, and you'll never again see a power outage as harmless. 

In WHEN THE COLD WIND BLOWS, the survivors of HUNTING GROUND regroup and are soon winging off to the swamplands of Georgia, where a town is paralyzed by fear of a rampaging werewolf. And where a girl who disappeared with Blaine's daughter may have been spotted. While skeptical of the murderer's real nature, Proctor and Taz (joined by Vivian, Blaine's bodyguard) keep an open mind and meet some antagonistic locals including a cop, a crazy old man, and a witch with a message for Proctor - someone she doesn't even know. Again facing weird happenings and even weirder people, Proctor and his group take a frightening journey into the swamps, eventually setting a trap for their likely suspect, and springing it in a hastily evacuated airport terminal. But this time a member of the team will have his future tainted by what happens in the airport, and the next Black Oak novel promises to bring the forces of evil and Proctor's group face to face.

Charles Grant's Black Oak series uses the best qualities of The Blair Witch Project - and the Hitchcock approach - forcing the reader's imagination to provide the most horrific parts while concentrating on a gradual set-up and several false climaxes. You really can't go wrong with any Grant project, but Black Oak has become an intriguing and eerie stop on any travelogue of current horror.