thehaunting

The Haunting
By Ayn Hunt
Wings ePress, Inc.
Gothic Mystery
176 pages
ISBN: 1-59088-748-4

Ayn Hunt's latest gothic novel puts a whole new twist on how to solve a mystery when two amateur sleuths, Jessica and Emily, come together to find out who killed Jessica's aunt's fiance. It might be a "cold case" but the answer is within reach. All they have to do is search a neglected old mansion, which is structurally unsafe and inhabited by a number of restless spirits. They have to conduct their search immediately because the old Harding Mansion is due to be demolished.

What they have going for them is what Jessica has learned from her last husband who was a homicide detective with the Houston Police Dept. Then there's 84-year-old Emily's keen instinct when it comes to spirits.

If it isn't difficult enough to find clues 50-60 years later, a hurricane is raging through the area and a number of restless souls are causing havoc inside. Joining them is a disturbed killer out to get what he feels is his.

THE HAUNTING has the feel of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. You find yourself creeping in the dark, dusty, damp rooms of a condemned home, which was once known for its eleborate parties. Every effort the women make is sensed by the others in the mansion, possibly not all are dead. Description is a high point of this gothic-like mystery. Hunt intentionally makes you experience her character's pain and their determination to get out of the house alive. I have only one regret, that being no explanation is given to what will happen to the spirits once the mansion is flattened for redevelopment.