By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Monday print edition (April 1)
For a seemingly demure and grandmotherly-type lady, Janet Brown knows how to scare the crud out of you. Her fourth thriller, Deadly Visits, conjures ghostly visions, creepy critters and elemental disruptions amid a high-tech whodunit.
Brown spent several years in the shivering climes of South Dakota, where the temps make this part of the country laughable. Bundle up and head north, where Emily Dunham, hunkered down in rural Aberdeen, South Dakota, spots a ghost treading down her hallway. It’s a young girl in an old fashioned, long yellow dress, who vanishes as quickly as she’s spotted. Emily’s job-driven husband Alex shrugs the vision off; he’s more interested in dinner.
The call comes at 4 a.m. that night. Emily’s brother Carl relays the bad news: their father is near death. Emily flies south to her childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi, just a hair too late to say goodbye to dad.
After visitation, Emily meets former boyfriend Richard at Old Trace Park. He comforts her and asks that Emily drop by and his tell his wife hello. Emily finds the request strange, especially when she learns the truth about Richard. And his daughter resembles the ghost girl.
Back in South Dakota, Marlis Peterson speaks with the ghost of her childhood friend while waiting in line to pick up her kids from school. Soon more people are seeing dead students walking the halls of the school.
While Emily’s husband Alex argues with fellow worker George Kwivinan, George spots strange lightning closing in on the car they’re travelling in. Yet only George can see it. George also comes across a terrifying mist around his kids’ ankles in the play yard. And what’s with the odd triangles?
If you feel like you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, that’s certainly the vibe Deadly Visits puts forth.
Still in Mississippi, Emily tells a local priest of her odd visions. The priest refers Emily to a local detective who’s dealt with stranger things in his career. M.A. Klugh listens to Emily’s story. He finds it so fascinating, Klugh flies back to South Dakota with his new client.
Emily passes Klugh off as her long lost uncle to her three kids and leery husband. One of Alex’s co-workers has recently died in a plane crash. Or was it murder? Alex is jailed as the most likely suspect while Klugh comes to his defense.
The strangeness continues as Emily and M.A.’s relationship grows. Everything centers around Audio Tech, the mysterious company Alex works for. A nun who speaks to spirits and an aging scientist hold the keys to why the dead have risen. Brown introduces the reader to Augmented Virtual Reality and the very real possibilities it holds.
“A lot of the book is made of short stories,” Brown said. Her late husband told the author she should put them together. The idea came from science fact.“What if you could take your brain and see things that weren’t there, like television.” Or perhaps ghosts.“I like to scare people,” Brown chuckles.
Tune in to the mind-numbing freakiness that arrives with Deadly Visits. Janet Brown’s sci-fi thriller is short and deadly and will definitely keep you up at night.
J.C. Patterson is the author of the Big Easy Dreamin’ series, a collection of New Orleans stories
Janet Brown will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 4, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Deadly Visits.
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