Product Description

From multiple New York Times bestselling author David Morell comes a spine tingling tale of action, suspense, and terror.
On a cold October night, five people gather in a run-down motel on the Jersey shore and prepare to break into the Paragon Hotel. The once-magnificent structure is now boarded up and marked for demolition.
They are "creepers": urban explorers with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. Reporter Frank Balenger joins them to profile this highly illegal activity for the New York Times. But he isn’t looking for just another story, and soon after they enter the rat-infested tunnel leading to the hotel, he gets more than he bargained for. Danger, fear, and death await the creepers in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #451548 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781593153571
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Morrell takes a creative kind of breaking-and-entering as the premise for his latest thriller (after Nightscape), a gripping story that demands to be read in a single sitting. Disguising himself as a journalist, Frank Balenger, ex-U.S. Army Ranger and Iraqi war veteran, joins a group of "Creepers," also known as infiltrators, urban explorers or city speleologists—men and women who outfit themselves with caving gear to break into and explore buildings that have long been closed up and abandoned. Though what they're doing is technically illegal, participants pride themselves on never stealing or destroying anything they find at these sites. They take only photographs and aim to leave no footprints. Balenger joins a group of four: the leader, Professor Robert Conklin, high school teacher Vincent Vanelli and graduate students Rick and Cora Magill. This gang infiltrates the Paragon Hotel, an abandoned, seven-story, pyramidal Asbury Park, N.J., structure built in 1901 by eccentric, hemophiliac Morgan Carlisle. Balenger and the professor have a special agenda, but the others are there simply for the thrills. Things quickly begin to unravel in life-threatening ways once the intrepid infiltrators penetrate the building—they aren't the only ones creeping around the spooky hotel. Morrell delivers first-rate, suspenseful storytelling once again.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Frank Balenger is a New York Times reporter doing a Sunday magazine profile on urban explorers, better known as creepers. It's an illegal activity but a very popular one, in which adventure seekers invade crumbling old structures in search of thrills and perhaps a glimpse of the past. Frank joins a team of four as they prepare to enter the long-shuttered and mysterious Paragon Hotel. They surreptitiously enter as darkness envelops the city, planning to emerge before dawn none the worse for wear. At least that's the plan. Initially they encounter the expected assortment of crumbling furniture, magazines, and rats, but soon they realize they are not alone, and their counterparts are not friendly people. It turns out that Frank's group has a hidden agenda involving treasure, and their rivals are after the same loot. Throw in an even more unfriendly kidnapper and his captor, and you have a nightmare in the making. Veteran thriller writer Morrell gleefully and shamelessly cherry picks from several genres (crime, horror, adventure, western) and blends them into a violent, claustrophobic nightmare. There's the survive-the-night-in-a-haunted-house plot starring a Norman Bates villain; there's a Treasure of the Sierra Madre cast that would rather die than give up the loot; and there's a version of the classic western in which the outlaws and the homesteaders join forces to battle the Indians. An unabashedly entertaining thriller that has blockbuster movie written all over it. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Chilling and hypnotically readable!" -- Stephen King

"If you’re reading Morrell, you’re sitting on the edge of your seat." -- Michael Connelly

"It’s been years since I've read a thriller as good as Creepers." -- Douglas Preston, co-author with Lincoln Child of Brimstone and Dance of Death

Customer Reviews

Something's In The Dark!
Frank Balenger claims to be a journalist interested in the urban art of "creepers", people who break-and-enter into old, abandoned buildings to see what they can see. Operating under the same constraints as professional cavers and with much of the same equipment, "creepers" invade an abandoned structure with the intent of taking pictures and leaving only footprints to mark their passage. Only the building Frank and his five new collegues invade is the Paragon Hotel, a luxury experience designed and built by a hemophiliac trapped within his own world that wanted to experience as much of the outside world as he could. Frank's lie about being a journalist is only the first of several that fall apart during the eight hours of hell and horror waiting for the "creepers".

David Morrell is known around the world for creating the character John Rambo. Author of over 30 novels, several of them feature or television movies, Morrell used to be an English professor that turned professional thriller writer. Many claim with his creation of Rambo that he invented the modern male action adventure novel. He writes from experience, from the literary field as well as hands-on training in hostage negotiation, evasive driving, firearms, and combat maneuvers.

The novel is a slam-bang adrenaline rush to the finish line that knocks the reader for a loop every time the plot seems clear. With simple, cutting prose, Morrell introduces readers to the urban art of "creeping", a mysterious millionaire who built a hotel to satisfy his own cravings, and more twists and turns in character relationships than a toboggan ride down an Olympic run. The information comes quickly and sparsely, just sips that go down when needed and never interfere with the ticking clock the author sets up in the first chapter.

Unfortunately, some of the other reviews give too much away. This is simply one of those novels impossible to talk too much about without spoiling so much.

CREEPERS is a white-knuckled adventure of a read. Easily understandable, engrossing, and ennervating, CREEPERS is not written for the reader who simply wants to while away a few minutes there. The plot, the characters, and the breakneck action will nail a reader to a chair until the ride is over and the last surprise is out of the box.

Morrell at the top of his game
As you get older, it's reassuring to note that your favorite writers are maintaining the high standards that attracted you to their work in the first place. Writers who fall into this category, folks like Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake, continue to produce quality work book after book, story after story. Another member of this elite club is David Morrell, who, with the publication of Creepers, shows that he still has what it takes to satisfy even the most demanding thriller reader.

Morrell's latest chronicles eight hours in the lives of five "creepers", urban explorers who break into abandoned or condemned buildings to experience their historical and architectural delights first hand. This particular group, comprised of Professor Robert Conklin, high school teacher Vincent Vanelli, graduate students Rick and Cora Magill, and reporter Frank Balenger, has chosen the Paragon Hotel in Asbury Park as a target, accessing it via a series of underground tunnels. Once inside, the situation deteriorates rapidly as the group discovers the Paragon is not the abandoned building they thought it was. The perils presented by others in the building, and by the decayed hotel itself, place them all in mortal danger. Before the night is through, some inside the Paragon will discover hidden depths of courage and resourcefulness; some will be revealed as liars and imposters; some will die.

Morrell does an excellent job of accounting for almost every second of the eight hours of his story, as, in fact, it will take most readers about that long to read it. The immediacy of the book is one of its greatest strengths--readers quickly start to feel as if they are looking over the shoulders of the team, almost like a sixth member. Besides its immediacy and intimacy, the book is packed with surprising twists and turns, as the group is forced to think on its feet, reacting to the numerous threats they encounter. And it's not only the dilapidated hotel that yields surprises, as several of Morrell's well-drawn cast of characters harbor their own secrets.

It's difficult to pin any particular label on Creepers. At heart a thriller, it also can be categorized as a gothic, horror, or even a time travel novel. It's not cliché to say that Morrell gives readers one hell of a ride, as it's a perfect description of the feeling this book gives you--exciting, captivating and suspenseful, you'll no doubt find yourself thinking Creepers would easily lend itself to a variety of adaptations, whether it be as an action film, a video game, or virtual reality park attraction. Suffice it to say that the man who has alternately been dubbed the "father of all modern action novels" and "the mild mannered professor with the bloody minded visions" has once again proven his considerable mettle, delivering yet another book sure to satisfy loyal fans and win him some new ones as well.

Unmitigated Disaster
I can't understand the five stars for this piece of junk. I love his early work but what can you say about this mess? First of all, it's formulaic, almost on the order of a cheap drive-in film. Creepers (folks who rummage around old building) enter an old hotel a few days before it is to be demolished. It so happens that 2 other parties show up - bad guys and really bad guy. Folks are killed off one by one & the ending is what you expect (hero gets the girl/kills the real bad guy/ponders the vagaries of life from a hospital bed.

Absolutely nothing happens the first half as they attempt to enter the place from a duct pipe. There's lots of pop cult references - Marilyn Monroe, gangsters, MLK, Vietnam, drugs, etc. So many loose ends - they encounter malformed animals (5 legs, 2 tails) but no explanation is ever provided. The break-in team consists of old history prof, 2 students who loved same gal & the gal (married to one of them) and a "reporter". The characters are 2-dimensional (at best), scarcely deserving a place in short term memory. COMPLAINT: The schematics may be clear to the author but it was impossible trying to follow hidden steps, rooms to the right, tunnels, elevators - a mishmash of she went he went they went.

Dumb things continue - hubby is pushed 6 floors to his death by bad guy but recovers to make it to an elevator only to...die in his wife's arms!? Just Absurd. The reporter is actually a mercenary whose wife was captured years before. Naturally, her captor was really bad guy and her body was conveniently found by our hero in this cavernous hotel in the middle of the night (lol). The "real" reason for going: Prof was fired (for his "hobby") and had read about gold coins left by a gangster in 1933. Armed with that evidence they find the coins (gun pointed as they guess the vault combination) and discover the romantic interest, some poor blond who'd been living in and out of the vault for months with really bad guy. The remaining action is chase, hunt, butcher, blow-up, explode blah blah - all the reality of a cartoon. In fact, it reads like a screenplay that some poor hack cobbled into a "novel". It's disjointed, nothing connects and the reader is anxious for the ending to arrive since it is pre-ordained. MY GRADE: F