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発行者による作品情報
"Masterton turns in another top-notch performance. . . . This is an excellent horror story, with an added dimension, an extra layer of suspense." —Booklist, starred review
Michael Spencer is involved in a car crash that kills his girlfriend. He wakes to find himself in the hospital of a small town in Montana. There he convalesces and gradually becomes acquainted with the local community, most of whom seem to be clever and charming, although some are arrogant and difficult to get on with. In particular he forms a relationship with a smart and pretty local girl. He learns that he has been in a coma for weeks and that his friend's remains have already been sent back to California for cremation. He keeps in touch with his family through emails and phone calls.
As time goes by, however, and he gradually recovers his mobility, he begins to notice odd things about the community. People disappear without explanation and nobody ever mentions them again. Strangers come and go on a regular basis but the local people seem to ignore them. He is about to leave and go back home when his new girlfriend disappears. He stays to investigate. He gradually begins to come to the terrible conclusion that he is actually dead and that everybody in the town knows that he is no more than a ghost. The truth, however, is far more shocking . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marred by clumsy dialogue, implausible characters, and repetitive, morbid sex, Masterton's derivative tale of a snowbound town and its insular inhabitants promises little and delivers less. Horror fans will immediately recognize the ever-cheerful Stepford cutouts and slightly demented children who form the "sleepy" community of Trinity, where Michael Spencer is recuperating from a devastating automobile accident that took his memories and killed his fianc e, Tasha. Released from the hospital, Michael moves in with Isobel Weston, a beautiful widow who provides him with tasty dinners and sexual favors. He is befuddled when he realizes that none of the townspeople leave tracks in the snow, and that the identity given to him by the hospital staff doesn't ring true. As winter and the novel drag laboriously on, Michael continually fails to see what is painfully obvious, requiring a parade of supporting characters to spell it out repeatedly. Masterton (Garden of Evil) has written some unquestionably chilling tales, but here he jettisons plausible suspension of disbelief to stretch an interesting idea into a circuitous novel fatally undermined by the blandness of its cast.
