Poltergeist (Greywalker, Book 2)

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Harper Blaine was your average small-time PI until she died-for two minutes. Now she's a Greywalker-walking the thin line between the living world and the paranormal realm. And she's discovering that her new abilities are landing her all sorts of "strange" cases.

In the days leading up to Halloween, Harper's been hired by a university research group that is attempting to create an artificial poltergeist. The head researcher suspects someone is faking the phenomena, but Harper's investigation reveals something else entirely-they've succeeded.

And when one of the group's members is killed in a brutal and inexplicable fashion, Harper must determine whether the killer is the ghost itself, or someone all too human.

Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Mind bender of a mixed genre (4.5 stars) August 8, 2007
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

Just two minutes can change your life.

Private investigator, Harper Blaine, was viciously attacked and died for a very short time before the doctors revived her.

Or did they completely? Now, Harper sees dead people--or more specifically denizens of the Grey: ghosts, vampires, and such. She can also move in the Grey, their realm. Her previously mundane practice is now filled with clients seeking solutions to supernatural problems. Harper is doing her best to help despite having to proceed very cautiously while she learns about the Grey.

Near Halloween, Harper's approached by Dr, Gartner Tuckman, an abnormal psychologist from fictionalized Pacific Northwest University (PNU). Tuckman and his cohort are attempting to re-create the "Philip experiment," a 1970's psychokinesis study conducted by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research. In this study, Canadian researchers attempted to get a group of subjects to create a poltergeist based upon a fictional character "Philip". The group was able to produce several psychokinetic effects, including moving a table, etc. The experiment demonstrated that a group of subjects' concentrated attention could create a psychokinetic event. (See links below)

The problem with Tuckman's experiment is that the Celia, the poltergeist his subjects have conjured, has very high PK resonance and he's afraid that one of his assistants is somehow tampering with the setup. Worse, Celia shows signs of being dangerous.

Within hours of Harper's involvement, one of Tuckman's assistants is killed by what could be a psychokinetic force. Harper's in a race to figure out how to use her novice knowledge of the Grey to find the killer and disband the psychokinetic energies before someone else is hurt.

"Poltergeist" is a fascinating fictionalized look into the actual world of the paranormal. The storyline was riveting and well-plotted. Richardson lays out the clues for you in a journalistic fashion, which provides the clues a reader needs to solve the case.

I'm also enjoying how much Harper Blaine and company have developed. Her supporting cast: including techno-wizard, Quentin; vampire, Carlos; and Grey consultants, Ben and Mara Danzinger, are all interesting and well worth seeing them return.

Also, Ms. Richardson has spent a lot of time thinking out her magic system and how Harper's awareness of the Grey will grow with each time she walks within it.

The reason for the .5 star deduction was how slowly the novel started. At one time, I attended a mystery writing workshop conducted by a published author of more than 50 books (at that time). He advised that your protagonist needs to find the body within the first 20 pages, preferably 10, or the reader will get lost. "Poltergeist" really didn't get started for me til page 41. I probably would have inserted death and danger a lot sooner into the book than Ms. Richardson did.

I usually do not comment on others' reviews; however, Don D'Ammassa likens this series to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake. My concern in this matter is that some readers who have stopped reading Ms. Hamilton will be put off by the comparison. The "Greywalker" series has limited erotic content and the violence is kept to a necessary level. I could even recommend these books to a literate and intelligent young adult reader without fear of parental wrath.

I believe Harper Blaine is much closer to Tanya Huff's Victory Nelson of the "Blood Books," which actually were the first female supernatural detective novels to my knowledge.

[...]

3 out of 5 stars

Sequel to Greywalker August 13, 2007
12 out of 18 found this review helpful

This book is well written and well researched but just did not appeal to me. I really expected more from the sequel than we got. There is still to much explainations and I think basing this on a real experiment limited her focus on the novel. I don't think I will be buying the next one until I have read some of the reviews.

Harper Blaine is asked to investigate an experiment conducted at a university. Prof. Tuckman wants proof that there is not a real poltergeist in his project and is unwilling to accept any thought of a real manifestation. He is certain someone in the project is fakeing the incidents.

When one of the members of the group is found dead Harper must find the killer before more people die. Is the poltergeist real? Is it killing people? OR Is someone controlling the energy?

I found it to be slow and parts of the ending very predictible. Not nearly as good as the first novel. I had really expected much more from this novel and it disappointed me. I notice that the other reviewers loved it, so I guess it is just my own point of view. But I would borrow it if I could.

4 out of 5 stars

Exciting New Sequel August 27, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Poltergeist, by Kat Richardson, is the sequel to Greywalker.

Private Investigator, Harper Blaine has been hired to investigate a psychological experiment where the participants have supposedly created a poltergeist. With just the power of their minds. Since the phenomena have been suspiciously over-the-top, Dr. Tuckman believes that one of the participants is somehow tampering with the equipment and somehow fabricating the phenomena. But when a student is maliciously murdered, Harper discovers that each one of the participants have secrets, as well as Tuckman. And one of them is a psychopathic killer.

While I'm not really interested in the paranormal, Richardson is a truly talented writer that pulls me into the story. Each of the characters is unique and fun. Some of my favorites from Greywalker are back, and Harper's long-distance relationship becomes predictably strained.

Of course, when a story involved poltergeist and unexplained phenomena, the story is going to be suspenseful. But I think I would have enjoyed this book even if it just revolved around the character interaction. From Harper's reaction to a rambunctious child to her dealings with the vampire Carlos, whether I can relate or not, I'm hooked.

4 out of 5 stars

The series continues... September 8, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Second in the Harper Blaine "Greywalker" paranormal series, featuring a young woman P.I. who died for two minutes and since that time is able to walk the world that exists between the living and the dead, known as "the Grey." In this book, Harper is hired by a college professor who is running experiments to see if the collective minds of a group of people can make their own poltergeist. He wants her to figure out whom, if anyone, is faking some phenomenon that have begun to crop up, or else authenticate that the experiment has worked and is valid. When one of the participants of the group ends up dead--beaten and mangled--in his apartment, Harper sets out to find whether the energy entity that has become Celia, the poltergeist, did Mark in or whether he was killed by someone all too human.

I enjoyed this book a lot; I wish we had the option of giving half-stars here at Amazon, as I'd give it four-and-a-half. It certainly did have an interesting premise and storyline, though it did take me a good 50 pages to really get sucked in to the story. The only downfall for me is that Harper still feels somewhat "dry" to me--even though we learn more *about* her, what she likes, dislikes, what's important to her, we haven't yet really been shown who she is...the messy parts, the 'soul' of Harper seem to be sitting there just beyond our grasp. It's hard to explain just what I mean. Still, this is a series I enjoy and I am defintely looking forward to the next one, and hope to get to know Harper even better next time around.

One thing I really appreciate is that there isn't a bunch of gratuitous sex and continual sexual tension between Harper and every male she encounters like in some paranormal books. I mean, after all, if I want romance and erotica, I'll read books from those genres!

2 out of 5 stars

POLTERGEIST Stumbles. September 21, 2007
6 out of 10 found this review helpful

I loved GREYWALKER, Richardson's first novel, so much, I recommended it to all my paranormal-loving friends, and pre-ordered POLTERGEIST months ago, eagerly awaiting its publication. I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't. Harper Blaine is still a very interesting character, and her paranormal skills would still be fascinating ----- IF those skills weren't described in such a hard-to-comprehend and headache-inducing manner!

In GREYWALKER, I felt I was getting to know a truly exciting new paranormal character in Harper Blaine. In POLTERGEIST I felt she slammed the door in my face rather than let me know her any better. Even worse, the whole Poltergeist-entity centered plot is so esoteric, I had difficulty understanding it and following the storyline. And to make this story even more disappointing, the new romantic relationship with Will Novak, begun in GREYWALKER, is barely a footnote. I can't help feeling Ms. Richardson has gone way off track with POLTERGEIST.

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