Creepers by David Morrell

"Rich with description and intense with emotion and a sense of place, Morrell has penned a tale that refuses to be put away."

"The past has never been more palpably and frighteningly real."

Frank Balenger has been admitted to a select group of scholars who spend their time exploring urban structures sealed off from the modern world. The group, led by Robert Conklin, an aging tenured professor at a prestigious university, is wary of the newcomer. If caught, they will be fined and jailed for entering the danger zone of sealed subway tunnels, abandoned buildings, and other urban relics the modern world has left for dead. They cannot afford a leak, especially on this night of all nights.

They are going after a mad man’s playground: the Paragon Hotel.

About to be torn down, the Paragon Hotel was a model of magnificence dedicated to the elegance of the Victorian age. Tonight the Paragon Hotel will open its secrets to them and close the door on some of their futures.

There is a mystique about abandoned buildings and subterranean tunnels that David Morrell has captured perfectly in Creepers. The human characters, like the character of the Paragon Hotel, reveal themselves fully and deftly like peeling an onion. Rich with description and intense with emotion and a sense of place, Morrell has penned a tale that refuses to be put away. Creepers uncovers a dark world of intrigue and adventure that makes the reader itch to steal past the boarded exterior of the past and walk its dusty and dank corridors. The past has never been more palpably and frighteningly real.

Reviewer: J. M. Cornwell