The Sanetorium

The Sanetorium

Adult chiller
"Her gaze moves to the woman's wrists. They're tightly bound
with a thin, woven rope.
She's been restrained.
Then her eyes catch something else. Several of the woman's
fingers are missing."
You want a recipe for a real spine chiller? Set your narrative
in a hotel with a rather lurid past. Make sure it's in a place that
gets cut off from the rest of the world when there's too much snow.
Then bring on the blizzard. Stephen King taught the class on this
with The Shining. Sarah Pearse's The Sanetorium is another fine
offering.
Le Sommet is a new five star resort in the Alps. It was created
from an old tubercliosis sanetorium. This transformation had stirred
up much controversy. There were rumors of evils carried out in the
building's first incarnation. Many people believed that nothing
should ever be built on the site.
Elin, Pearse's protagonist, a detective on leave, and her fiancé,
Will, arrive at Le Sommet in the teeth of a storm. Ostensibly
they're there for the engagement party of Elin's older brother, Isaac,
to Laure who is high up in the hotel's administration. Elin, however,
has an ulterior motive. When she and Isaac were children their baby
brother, Sam, drowned. She thinks he knows more than he's let on and
may even be responsible for their family's loss. She's determined not
to leave until she gets answers.
But staying is not exactly in Elin's best interests. The
blizzard doubles down, putting the hotel in the path of potential
avalanches. Laure disappears. The first mutilated corpse is found.
There is no way police can get through, even by helicopter, as the
killer roams among all their potential victims.
Like King, Pearse has a fine grasp of the evil that can lurk in
the human heart, the strange and complex reasons for our actions, and
the ways in which the most civilized seeming of us may be the most
dangerous.
The Sanetorium is not for the faint of heart. Don't say I
didn't warn you. But if you're a true chiller fan you won't want to
miss out.
On a purrrsonal note, it's the first drizzly day of a wet weekend.
It's also Homecoming Weekend which I would have cancelled if I was in
charge. An influx of people from all over to campus with Delta
surging and Penobscot County having the highest new infection rate
seems like such a recipe for disaster. At least I could do a little
good at work. As I cleaned the tables I talked to the undergrads
about the renewed importance of doubling down on masking, distancing,
and other precautions with the alumni in town. We served lunch to
nearly 700. (Jules).
Jules is staying home. Not taking chances. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to all the students and people who have
to work this weekend doing their best to stay safe.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway




Sent from my iPod