Fire Mask - Softcover

Grant, Charles L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553296736 ISBN 13: 9780553296730

Publisher: Starfire, 1992

Synopsis

Cliff's premonitions and dreams about a mysterious fire lead him and his friends into a fatal confrontation with perpetrators of a terrifying evil

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-10-- A story that contains the makings of a good mystery--strange characters, suspense, unexplained happenings--but one that requires readers to take giant leaps of faith to get through the gaps in the plot. The mystery revolves around a hotel fire that Gil thinks is suspicious. He enlists his new girlfriend (in one sentence he's moaning about never having a girlfriend, then suddenly she's hanging on to him. If life could be so easy!); they initiate the help of his best friend, Del, and his girlfriend. They are followed by a mysterious man in a white linen suit who shoots at them (or does he?). There's a gold mask that lots of people wear, but only two are villains--an old man and his daughter (or is it his wife?) who never age (or never die?). In the midst of the drama Gil worries that his parents are strange (although they're not). He has a parrot that talks like a person and he has a mummy in the basement to be fed (big loopholes here). Unfortunately, although the suspense is well-paced, this far-fetched tale doesn't live up to readers' expectations. --Judie Porter, Media Services Center, Portsmouth School Department, RI
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

From a well-known writer of horror and suspense, a routine, murky thriller. Cliff Abbot is given to dreaming about girls, especially Candy Nagger. After a man who may have started a fire in a local hotel dies dramatically in his arms, Cliff's celebrity gives him an opener with Candy. Then, when a man in a white suit shoots at, then follows them, they are plunged into a mystery that eventually involves a rich, powerful couple's plot to prolong their lives via human sacrifice. Grant tries to spruce up this far-fetched tale with a Capulet-Montague relationship between Cliff's and Candy's parents and by providing an offbeat household to embarrass Cliff, but even a talking parrot, psychic father, and mysterious mummy in the basement don't make up for the ho-hum characters and unbelievable plot. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Starfire
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0553296736
• ISBN 13: 9780553296730
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback