#Spooktober-‘The Guardians’ by Andrew Pyper

About the book…

When Trevor’s childhood friend Ben commits suicide, he and the remainder of their tight-knit friendship group must return to Grimshaw – the provincial Canadian town of their youth from which they have all been running for the last 20 years.

Don’t all kids think there’s a haunted house in their neighbourhood?

Can you remember yours?

What if, as a child, you knew something bad really had happened in that house?

What if you actually saw it? Then you tried to forget it for the next thirty years?

And then, one day, you had to go back inside that house?

Andrew Pyper’s ‘The Guardians’ is a ghost story for grown-ups. Prepare to enter the Thurman House on Caledonia Street.

You have been warned…

Friends Carl,Ben, Randy and Trev are all members of a hockey team known as The Guardians and hence the title of the book, but also as guardians of a dark secret from when they were 16 years old.

The story begins with a phone call to Trev, letting him know that Ben, the one who suffered from mental health issues, has killed himself.

This brings on a period of reflection for Trev as he makes his way to Grimshaw, on the decades between the fateful night in the Thurman House and now.

A diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease means that he,the one who was the most steady of the 4 is now becoming more disengaged and shaky about reality and his bodily functions.

His decision to begin a diary that will serve as a function to remember events by is intertwined with his return to his hometown, and the events in the present.

The interconnection between past and present relies on how far you trust Trev as a narrator.

He is not entirely likable, the way in which he and his friends manage the situation they find themselves in, really hit me hard on the way they claim ownership,or guardianship of the female body.

The woman they all have burgeoning feelings towards, their teacher,vanishes without a trace and their thoughts and feelings about her are shown through Trev’s eyes.

After the events in the Thurman House, the Grimshaw version of Salem’s Lot’s The Marsden House, he is unable to find sexual gratification with his girlfriend. When he breaks up with her and she accuses him of cheating, she is not exactly wrong.

As 16 years old I would have expected them to have behaved more responsibly but their actions have consequences where they are all haunted,some to the grave and beyond.

This is the first Andrew Pyper novel I have read,he carries his influences on his sleeve and there are notes of Stephen King and Peter Straub scattered through the novel.

He succeeds in making a very realistic town in Grimshaw,and accurately depicts how the veneer of a cost home town hides a malevolence that festers over the decades…

The novel is scary and creepy as hell,, the boys by their actions tie themselves to this,and creates a sense of menace and foreshadowing of future tragedies.

Highly recommended and I would definitely read more by this author.

About the author..

Andrew Pyper is the author of nine novels, including the ‘The Homecoming’ (February 2019). Among his previous books, ‘The Demonologist’ won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Hardcover Novel and was selected for the Globe and Mail’s Best 100 Books of 2013 and Amazon’s 20 Best Books of 2013. ‘Lost Girls’ won the Arthur Ellis Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Three of Pyper’s novels, including ‘The Homecoming’, are in active development for television or feature film. He lives in Toronto.

Links-http://www.andrewpyper.com/