Apartment 16
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Some doors are better left closed ... In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it has been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever.
A young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She's been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian who died in strange circumstances. Rumours claim Lillian was mad. But her diary suggests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades ago.
Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming, evil force still inhabits the building. And the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying ...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inheriting a relative's posh London apartment subjects a na ve 28-year-old American to supernatural peril in this formulaic horror novel. Stephen, head porter of Barrington House, tells Apryl Beckford that her great-aunt Lillian's mental health had been declining for years. Apryl decides to stay for a while to investigate Lillian's background and that of Felix Hessen, an artist who died mysteriously at Barrington House. Scruffy porter Seth, plagued by increasingly insistent demands from a mysterious hooded boy, is ever more attracted to the apartment and its strange noises. As Seth's domination by the hooded boy becomes more macabre, Apryl's request that he help solve the mystery about Hessen provides a welcome dimension of ambiguity that leaves his commitment in question until his final decision. A sudden revelation by Stephen provides a dramatic character reversal that partially justifies the predictable resolution. Nevill (The Ritual) does little to develop Apryl's lackluster character; somewhat more engrossing are the nightmarish scenes of everyday London.
