Product Description

The world's leading physicist attempts to use the science of string theory to bring his daughter back from the dead. Government agents and a bestselling author race to find out if he was succesful. A novel by award winning Maine journalist Mark LaFlamme.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #528925 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 276 pages

From the Author
The Pink Room is a place where lost loves come home. And you can't send them back.

From the Inside Flap
There. From a distance. Soft and faint like rain on the roof, a melody floated down from above. Notes that jabbed the air like probing fingers. A sound like fairies dancing in an acid dream.

Fur Elise.

For Cain, it was like stumbling into some terrible scene he might have written himself. His entire body went cold. He felt a pounding in his temples as the adrenaline of fright fueled his pulse. He was aware of a full bladder and had to concentrate to contain it.

He fumbled with the sleeping bag zipper and squirmed out of it as though it were full of spiders. He knelt on the hard floor and strained to listen. Still the music played, the quick melody losing energy but still recognizable. Fur Elise from the snow globe, floating down from the very top of the turret. Beautiful, terrible music from the pink room.

It wound down. I heard it wind down. There was not a single note left in those springs and cogs.

He stood and pulled on a pair of jeans. He reached for the flashlight and switched it on. He aimed it at the staircase, terrified at what he might see there. But again, there were no leering faces or crouching ghouls. Only the darkness of the second floor. And above that, the turret from which the haunting melody continued to play.

I can’t go up there. I think I’m physically incapable of climbing those stairs.

From the Back Cover
Angel Currie’s bedroom is filled with little girl things. There are fuzzy pink toys on a soft, pink bed. There’s a pink beanbag on the floor beneath hanging pink curtains. There’s a dollhouse in the center of the room and a pink snow globe that plays Fur Elise. It is a place that any little girl would love. Even a dead little girl like Angel Currie.

The Pink Room is a place where science meets terror.

Theodore Currie is the world’s top physicist. He is widely regarded as the man who might formulate the long-sought Theory of Everything. Only Currie has gone insane with grief. He has left laboratories and government grants behind him to conduct his greatest experiment of all. With soft, pink enticements, the science of string theory and the power of the cosmos, Currie intends to bring his beloved daughter back from a place eternally unreachable.

The Pink Room is a place where genius meets insanity.

Jonathan Cain is a writer with a story to tell and a dead wife to grieve. He has moved into the abandoned Currie house in the northern Maine woods. Nobody knows what happened to the delirious scientist in the final days of his experiment here. Cain aims to find out.

While government agents lurk like scavengers, Cain is finding answers to the world’s most profound secrets. Above all, he finds them in the Pink Room. There, surrounded by a little girl’s cherished possessions, Cain has come to believe in science and magic. He has come to believe as he mourn his wife with the kind of fervor that can drive a sane man mad.

The Pink Room is a place where lost loves come home. And you can’t send them back.

An absolutely chilling tale. Your fascination with the science will be rivaled only by fright. And few things are more frightful than terrors draped in pink.

Customer Reviews

The Pink Room
What would you do if there were a way to bring back a loved one you had lost? A child? A beloved spouse? What lengths would you be willing to go to in order to hold them again; to kiss them again; to bring them back into your life? These are the questions the main characters in Mark LaFlamme's The Pink Room, must grapple with.

Theodore Currie was widely acknowledged as a modern-day Einstein whose life's work was unraveling the mysteries of the physical universe. The day he lost his beloved daughter, Angel, in a horrible house fire, was the day his universe fell apart. A grief-stricken father, he decided to put his theories to work to concoct a miracle - the resurrection of Angel. On a hill-top in rural Maine, where forces both natural and supernatural combine with astonishing power, Currie built a house. In that house he created an exact replica of the pretty, pink room his daughter lived and died in - the very room he hoped to bring her back to. However, Currie himself died a freakish death in the Maine woods shortly after the room was completed.

One year later Jonathan Cain, a successful horror writer, makes arrangements to spend the summer in the abandoned Currie house with the purpose of finding out the truth about the events that transpired before Theodore Currie's death. He has told his agent that he is researching and writing a new novel. But his real reasons for being in the Currie house are much darker. Cain has experienced the loss of a loved one too. He recently lost his young wife, Kimberly, to the rapid progression of an in-operable brain tumor. Cain has come to the Currie house with the hope of finding out if the house can actually work the magic that Currie was sure it could.

However, Cain is not the only one interested in the Currie house. The U.S. government is also very interested in getting their hands on Currie's papers and formulas. There are soldiers and a government scientist stationed in the Maine woods in order to keep an eye on Cain and the Currie house. Right now Olivia Currie, Theodore's mom and current owner of the Currie house, is keeping the government goons at bay, and off the Currie land. All that could change when Olivia Currie unexpectedly dies.

Following that setup, the story becomes a virtual thrill ride starting right from the first page of The Pink Room which doesn't let up until the book is finished and closed. LaFlamme writes a well-paced, descriptive, riveting narrative you will not want to put down. He has done a masterful job of combining actual scientific theory, spine-tingling chills, nail-biting suspense, realistic characters, a dash of wry humor, and even a slight nod to that other well-known Maine author. The Pink Room is going right onto my list of horror favorites and I will be eagerly looking forward to reading more from this author.

His Words are Like Music....
I was browsing Booklocker's website one day when I happened upon a guy named Mark LaFlamme whose insomnia compelled him to write books. It was something about his writing style that drew me. In addition to that, it was something about his insomnia that gave me this visual of a man sitting up at the creepiest hours of night typing away as his lack of sleep fed his muse, so I had to read his book. What impressed me the most about LaFlamme was his words. They flowed so easily that they reminded me of music. His words illustrated meaning without being overly descriptive. Yet just when you think that this book is only going to lead you on with its well-expressed descriptions of scary noises and creepy dark rooms, this dead girl shows up and scares the mess out of you! What I appreciated most about this child was that she wasn't your typical zombie who mindlessly stumbled around as if her only purpose among the living was to just look scary. LaFlamme gets original and creative by making her unpredictable and threatening, which makes you wonder what she's going to do next. And if that doesn't keep you riveted, consider the constant state of bewilderment you'll be in as you wonder how the plot with his dead wife will unravel. Will he bring her back to life? Can he? And if he does, will she come back as the loving wife he remembered her as, or has death turned her into an unbelievable horror that cannot be undone?
I'm not a horror book reader, because when I think of horror, I think of disturbing. I don't like to be left with troubling thoughts, yet this book left me more fascinated than anything. You know that a writer is talented when he can attract readers outside of his targeted audience. LaFlamme had me analyzing death on another level. He had me dwelling on the power of physics and his novel gave me a tingle at the possibility of man tapping into other realms. There was one part in his book that reads, "No soul would rest with the avaricious hand of man in control of powers he had long thought beyond his grip." Now that was powerful. And speaking of powerful, the ending was mind boggling! After reading this novel, I couldn't help but wonder why I haven't heard of this book before. Have I been living under a rock since it's been on the market? I mean, this guy is good. So at the risk of sounding impatient, I have to say that Mark LaFlamme would be doing the world a disservice if he doesn't come out with another novel soon!

Reviewed by Tom Beauchamp
"The Pink Room is a place where lost loves come home. And you can't send them back."

The Pink Room presents a strange mix of suspense, horror, and science both real and fictional. The story is a bit slow, but builds to multiple climaxes through out the storyline, filling the reader in a little more as the overall plot progresses. Some of the minor storylines may seem insignificant at first, but LaFamme does a great job of bringing all of the little pieces together by the end of the book, drawing a scarily complete picture of what could happen when science and religion collide.

The world's top physicist dies after conducting strange experiments at an isolated country house. A lonely writer, morning his wife and looking for a story, gets permission to stay in the house and try to learn its secrets. At the same time, the U.S. government has agents in the area, watching the writer, and with an unknown agenda.

Quantum physics forms the base of the story. But don't worry, what little science is discussed is easily absorbed by a layman. The book starts off with an event almost a century in the past, and instantly catches the attention of the reader with the strange tale. This historical reference lends credence to other events through out the book and will definitely stand out in the mind of the reader.

Mark LaFamme has done an excellent job of taking cutting edge science and molding it into a believable as well as enjoyable tale. With a well crafted plot and characters that will remind the reader of people they know, memories of "The Pink Room" will linger with the reader long after the last page is finish. I highly recommend this book for anyone that enjoys a bit of science mixed with their suspense or for someone looking for a title a bit off the beaten path.