Ghost Music

February 1, 2009
A composer's liaison with a neighbor leads him on a journey filled with gruesome sights he alone can see.

He may not be Mozart, but Gideon Lake's movie themes and advertising jingles bring him a level of comfort the Austrian composer never enjoyed. He can even afford an apartment near St. Luke's Place in Greenwich Village. The best feature of his new digs is his hot downstairs neighbor Kate Solway, who comes to the door in search of her cat Malkin but swiftly lands in Gideon's bed. The sex is so incredible that Gideon agrees to meet Kate at the Stockholm apartment of her friends Axel and Tilda Westerlund. Their children, Elsa and Felicia, are a little strange, appearing and vanishing repeatedly, and there are ear-piercing screams that no one but Gideon seems to hear. Still, Kate persuades Gideon to follow her to London, where David and Helena Philips's flat is as filled with apparitions as the Westerlunds', including the sound of their son Giles' tortured pleas and the sight of Helena in the garden consumed by flames. A further jaunt to the Cesarettis' palazzo in Venice provokes similar visions, culminating in Gideon's discovery of his hosts Enrico and Salvina hanging from the chandelier—and their disappearance minutes later. Kate maintains that the meaning of these marvels will become clear in due time, but that Gideon, with the sensitivity born of his music, must discover it for himself.

Masterton (House of Bones, 2008, etc.) provides scant clues to help Gideon make his discovery—only relentless repetition of the same shocking scenario.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2009
Masterton is a horror veteran with the ability to make his readers feel seriously creeped out. But this novel is distressingly bland. Gideon Lake, a film composer, begins an affair with a married woman, Kate. She invites him on a trip to Sweden, where Gideon encounters a lot of weird stuff, including an eerie pair of young girls. Turns out he has an unusual sensitivity to ghosts, and soon he has to balance his love for Kate with his trepidations about who she really is. In some ways the book feels like a hurried rewrite of Douglas Kennedys The Woman in the Fifth (2007). There are also some uncharacteristic moments of sloppiness, as when Gideon says his nickname is Lalo, after Lalo Schifrin, composer of the theme music for Jaws. But John Williams composed the Jaws music, and Schifrin reworked Williams theme on a later album. Still, even with all its flaws, the novel moves at a good pace, and Gideon is a likable narrator whose personality and general air of spooked-out confusion propel us through the story. Mastertons fans may give this one a thumbs-up, but its not his best work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)