“What was the worst thing you’ve ever done?
I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me… the most dreadful thing…”

These are the first couple of lines in this book. Awesome right? Don’t you want to find out what that dreadful thing is? I sure did!

At first, when I started reading this book, which begins with a prologue, quite a long prologue I might add. I was like, what the hell man. What does he think he’s doing?

My introduction to Peter Straub was via Stephen King, that is to say, I read The Talisman and the sequel to it Black House, written by both men. Well after that I kept reading Peter Straub books. I do love a good ghost story, after all.

Ghost Story is a tale of supernatural revenge. It takes place in the small town of Milburn, New York, where we meet The Chowder Society, consisting of four aging men, they tell each other ghost stories.

“He went over,” he said, sullen again. “Do you mean he died?” Fenny nodded, and his mouth dropped open, and again I saw those terrible rotting teeth.
“But he comes back?” He nodded again. “And you see him?”
“He sees us,” Fenny said, very firmly.” He looks and looks. He wants to touch.” “To touch?” “Like before.”

Find out more about the Chowder Society, and see why on the one year anniversary of their best friends death, evil has entered their domain and will not stop until they have all joined their friend.

We always believe that whatever sins we’ve committed in the past, won’t follow us into the future. Well, that is not always the case, as the Chowder Society will find out.

In this story past and present is beautifully written, and you see how the sins of men can create incomprehensible evil, that comes back to haunt them.

The evil we meet here is everywhere, and no one in this town is safe. The town is experiencing one of the worse snow storms in recent memory. I can’t imagine evil stalking me in a frigid snow-storm, of course, I don’t particularly enjoy winter, so that could be part of, hey am just saying.

I wouldn’t want to go out in that weather confronting evil, bitch would have to come back in the summer.

This book can be a bit slow at times, well sorry, but that’s how a good ghost story progresses. Besides, the protagonists of this story are all elderly. They tell each other stories, and that takes time. There are some terrifying and spine-chilling encounters that will make you want to read it to the end.

So join The Chowder Society: John Jaffrey, Lewis Benedict, Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne; if you dare. They are not your usual action-heroes’, but they will take on an evil that has transcend time, and whose evil knows no bounds.

This book was adapted into a film starring Fred Astaire, released in December 1981.