Jonathan Maberry is a series of supernatural thriller novels by Jonathan Maberry, multiple ‘‘Bram Stoker Award-winning author. The trilogy is set in the fictional rural Pennsylvania town of Pine Deep, which has the reputation of being the Most Haunted Town in America. Pine Deep’s entire tourism industry is built around a celebration of hauntings and Halloween. Unfortunately the town is lot more haunted than they think, which turns out to be a very bad thing for everyone living there.
The first book in the series is GHOST ROAD BLUES, winner of the 2006 ‘‘Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. The book was also nominated for Novel of the Year but was edged out by ‘‘Stephen King. Publishers Weekly called the book “horror on a grand scale…reminiscent of Stephen King’s heftier works.” Ghost Road Blues focuses on the manhunt for vicious serial killer Karl Ruger who has been drawn to Pine Deep by an ancient evil.
The series continued with DEAD MAN’S SONG in 2007; and concluded with BAD MOON RISING (2008).
Thirty years before the events of the Trilogy a savage killer named Ubel Griswold killed dozens in the town. His reign of terror was stopped by Oren Morse, an itinerant field worker and sometimes blues player nicknamed ‘The Bone Man’ by local kids. The Bone Man fought and killed Griswold; but a group of local racist vigilantes blames the Bone Man for the killings and murders him. Fifteen years later Griswold’s spirit awakens and, with the help of his human servant Vic Wingate, begins to lay plans for his rebirth.
At the beginning of Ghost Road Blues the Bone Man’s ghost rises from the grave to face Griswold once more, but while Griswold understands his own supernatural nature and abilities, the Bone Man does not. His attempts to help the people of Pine Deep often go awry.
The heroes of the Trilogy are Malcolm Crow –owner of a local Halloween-themed craft store and a survivor of the original massacre. As a boy of nine Crow was saved by the Bone Man who prevented Griswold from killing him. His fiancé, Val Guthrie, is also a survivor, though it was her family that suffered at Griswold’s hands. Their friend and the mayor of Pine Deep, Terry Wolfe, has been suffering a terrible psychological breakdown that has roots in a moment of childhood trauma where his sister was murdered by Griswold and he was nearly killed.
In Ghost Road Blues, Ruger attackers her and her family again. Local newsboy, Mike Sweeney, who is the adopted son of Vic Wingate, has been having heroic dreams in which he confronts various kinds of evil, and in the waking world he becomes the target of Tow-Truck Eddie, an insane wrecker driver who believes the voice in his head is God telling him that Mike is the antichrist. Unfortunately the voice Eddie is hearing is that of Ubel Griswold.
In Dead Man’s Song, Crow and local newsman Willard Fowler Newton, begin tracking the backstory of the events of thirty years ago, while at the same time Vic Wingate and Karl Ruger quietly begin building an army of the undead to prepare for Griswold’s return. They intend to launch the Red Wave, a massive attack scheduled for Halloween Night. While Crow and Newton are down in Dark Hollow, a remote spot where Griswold both lived and died, one of Ruger’s companions, Boyd, has become a strange kind of mindless vampire. While Griswold’s ghost sets a trap for Crow, Wingate sends Boyd after Val Guthrie.
In the final book of the trilogy, Bad Moon Rising, Crow and his friends discover the nature of what they are fighting, the clock ticks down to the launch of the Red Wave and an attack of the undead and the living dead on the people of Pine Deep.
Author Jonathan Maberry includes a number of real world elements in his novels, and this is most apparent in the final book of the trilogy, Bad Moon Rising. Pine Deep’s Halloween Festival is the centerpiece of the story and several actual celebrities from the horror industry appear as ‘guest stars’ including Ken Foree (star of the original Dawn of the Dead]]), makeup effects wizard Tom Savini, scream queens Brinke Stevens and Debbie Rochon, screenwriter Stephen Susco (The Grudge and Grude 2), writer-director James Gunn (remake of Dawn of the Dead and Slither), drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, and actor, stuntman and haunted attraction consultant Jim O’Rear.
Bibliography
- “Ghost Road Blues” (Pinnacle Books, June 2006; ISBN 0-7860-1815-1)
- “Dead Man’s Song” (Pinnacle Books, July 2007; 078601816X)
- "Bad Moon Rising" (Pinnacle Books, May 8 2008, ISBN-10: 0786018178)
- “Patient Zero” (St Martins Press, March 2009)