The Gordon Place by Isaac Thorne

I received  a free copy of the audiobook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve read a few of the author’s short stories in my time, and found them to be entertaining and creative, but I haven’t read one of his full-length novels yet. Until now. I gotta say, I liked it. The Gordon Place is about a haunted house, and the ghost is about as nasty as they come. He was the former town sheriff, who “disappeared” years ago. His son, the new sheriff, owns the Gordon Place, and falls foul of the ghost when he visits his old home Also drawn to the place is a reporter and her cameraman, and the town administrator. What they find is something they didn’t imagine when they got out of bed that morning. Here’s my thoughts on the book:

• The characters are an interesting bunch. Lee, the ghost, is simply awful. A racist, a child beater and a bully, using his power as a white cop in a predominantly white town to get away with all manner of stuff. His son is the opposite, a product of abuse who hasn’t really found his way in life, and was voted into the sheriff’s office merely because no one else wanted it. Patsy the administrator still has dreams of her small town appearing on the national ghost hunting circuit, and the arrival of some news people puts her into overdrive. Afia, the reporter, is a former town resident who left after her father was murdered in a hate crime, while gay cameraman Staff has his own concerns with small town life
• At the start of the book, the author writes a proactive apology for his character of Lee. who as I said earlier, is awful. His constant racism, his brutality to his son and others, will likely make some people put the book down. However, as Thorne finishes his apology for putting this creature in the book, he says “such people do exist in the world.” Which is true. But Lee is an interesting character, and he earns a lot of page time as he tries to figure out why he is a ghost in the first place.
• Afia is also one of the better characters, as her return to the town of Lost Hollow sparks a lot of memories that she had kept hidden. As she investigates the haunted house, and the mysterious black dog that pops up around the place, she discovers more about her past than she really wants, Graham too is heading too far down memory lane than he would like, and they find that their respective histories are intertwined more than they may have liked, or remembered
• The narrator does a fine job with each of the characters, particularly the nasty Lee, giving him the personality and drawl we’d probably apply if we were reading. The other characters are solid, and the voices of the women are pretty good, compared to other narrators who are less capable. He also helps drive the story forward at a solid clip, matching the text, I would imagine 
• If there was one letdown for me, it was the climax, which veered into silliness at times with the dog and the ghostly realm. That being said, I did like the knock knock jokes. I’ve read/listened to a lot of horror lately, and this has been the best so far.

Verdict:

A decent modern haunted house yarn.