In general, serious book reviews should remove the First Person "I" and assume a pseudo-academic tone. Occasionally, however, it's tempting to approach a book on a more personal level—after all, reviews are personal opinions, no matter how factual they may sound. The same book will hit ten different readers differently and each opinion might be valid (one or two might be plain wrong, but that's a different essay). In any case, let me break that unofficial rule for Creepers.

I have always been drawn to novels that are limited in scope. That is, they're compressed in time or setting, they employ few characters, they are more "internal." For me, fewer characters means richer characters (granted, it doesn't always work). Shorter time frame means heightened suspense. Confined setting equals claustrophobia ("home becomes catacomb," apologies to Poe).

Creepers hits me right out of the gate precisely because it's not peopled by dozens of characters in various locations involved in numerous subplots. It's an airless, dark coffin kind of novel—it can actually affect your breathing if you read for long stretches, as you find you may not be getting enough oxygen. It's claustrophobic, agoraphobic, and a little like a live burial. That's effective! Readers who don't respond this way may simply be already dead. All right, not dead, but perhaps too attached to larger casts, multiple settings and POVs, and way more subplots. In Creepers, the subplots are few and well-disguised.

Frank Balenger, a reporter with secrets, joins Professor Conklin and three students Vinnie, Rick, and Rick's beautiful wife, Cora, just before they are to "infiltrate" the Mayan pyramid-shaped Paragon Hotel in rundown Asbury Park, New Jersey. Urban explorers dubbed "creepers," the professor and his friends are among the many obsessed with the past who want to take an up-close and personal look inside the old hotel before it is torn down—"take only photographs and leave only footprints" is their Sierra Club motto. But, oh there are secrets. Built by an ultra-eccentric millionaire at the turn of the century, the Paragon is like a huge time capsule and the creepers want to look (but not touch) before it's too late. After many years of lying dormant, the Paragon has secrets of its own it is about to unleash on the hardy explorers.

Secrets. Secret motives . . . what the five encounter inside the Paragon can't be revealed here, but suffice to say that they are not alone, and the past and the present will come crashing together in an intensely violent climax that's literally impossible to stop reading. Like his prior creation, Rambo, Morrell's new anti-hero Balenger is a loner with deep psychology and layers of motivations—but everyone else is, too. Almost taking a page from the Laymon school of white-knuckle suspense, unleashing surprise after biting surprise, Morrell tightens the tension until you can almost feel the screws dig into your brain. Though occasionally just a tad too device-driven, Creepers delivers as a thriller in a way that too few manage.

If the first half is claustrophobic, the second is a frenzy of paranoid revelations peeled away like onion skin and every bit as pungent. The Paragon itself becomes a character in a sort of supernatural resurrection that will remind you of various classic gothic tales. Ignore some stilted dialogue here and there, and just hang on for the ride. The result of blending tight plotting, secrets kept from readers, and a tight third-person POV (Balenger) is page-turning suspense by one of the undisputed masters. And I can say that, because it affected me in just that way. It's a perfectly constructed and structured thriller and would make an equally effective movie, if not tampered with by studio execs bent on increasing body counts. If you haven't already made David Morrell's acquaintance—and First Blood, Testament, and The Totem should be required reading for all thriller fans—then this is the perfect time.