Ghost Hunter’s Daughter – Book Review

Ghost Hunter’s Daughter

by Dan Poblocki

Scholastic, 2020

288 pages

Middle Grade (8 and up)

 

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This book introduced me to a new type of story called “Reservoir Noir.” Apparently so may towns in America have been evacuated and flooded, people forced to leave their lives and homes behind, that it has inspired an entire genre of stories of crime, murder, and ghosts!

Lucas Kent is visited by the apparition of a classmate’s mother begging him to investigate her husband’s disappearance. He’s in trouble. You see, he is a ghost hunter with his own television show, and he’s gone missing.  Lucas’ grandmother Irene has argued with Miles Holiday about his methods, encouraging him not to chase spirits away, but respect that they are spirits with unfinished business.

Claire Holiday, the daughter of the ghost hunter Miles Holiday, is a popular girl surrounded by a clique who is less than welcoming to outcast Lucas, but he’s got to see his way past that to help Claire’s father. Lucas has never had visions before now, and his grandmother explains it is their duty to help those spirits who knock, who appear to them asking for assistance.

The visitation becomes more intense as her ghost will not leave Lucas. He is beside himself. There is no way out other than through to the other side of this mystery. Luckily Claire has realized something is amiss when she can’t get hold of her dad.

Claire and Lucas decide they must head to a town called Hush Falls Hollow where Miles was investigating “The World’s Most Haunted Town” for his show Invisible Intelligence. Of course, against their parent’s wishes. Lucas begins having threatening visions sent by Lemuel Hush, a man cursed to a graveyard watch as the last soul consigned to the cemetery behind his own mansion, now submerged in the darkness far below the stagnant surface of the town reservoir. He’s looking for a spirit to take his place, and he drowns people who come too close to the water’s edge!

Dolly has lived in her grandparent’s motel since her mother died, a victim of vengeful Lemuel Hush. She assists Lucas and Claire in tracking down not only what happened to the Ghost Hunter, but who else may have had a hand in his tragic disappearance.

Poblocki, as always, delivers the goods. Although not too scary, the premise skirts the threat of murder and torment delving into the lonely gothic secrets of a drowned past, vengeful, deadly ghosts, and helplessness in the face of evil, both occult and from the greed of the human heart.