Creepers

The Paragon Hotel, built in the heyday of Asbury Park, NJ, is now rundown and abandoned, like much of the city itself. But it's no ordinary relic-the hotel's former owner was a rich eccentric, making it an ideal location for urban explorers (""creepers"") to investigate. One group of creepers finds more danger than they bargain for. Morrell's writing is tight and suspenseful as always, and his attempt to tell a secular haunted house story works extraordinarily well. Lawlor narrates with clear, precise diction, and adeptly alters his voice to give life to the different characters, but his tone and style are all wrong for the book. Where the novel is creepy and atmospheric, Lawlor's narration is over-the-top and cartoonish-it's too much Scooby-Doo and not enough The Haunting. The overall production values are very good; the sound effects used during walkie-talkie communication are a nice touch. But this audiobook cannot overcome Lawlor's terrible miscasting, which rendered an otherwise fine horror novel into a campy mess.