Comments on: When the Lantern Swings PB

By: Richard Arnall

Richard Arnall — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 16:16:40 +0000

If you love spot on police procedurals with a strong mix of paranormal intrigue of the X-files sort, you’ll love When the Lantern Swings. Set in Lake Hope State Park in Ohio, the story of Ed Freeman, an ex-cop turned park ranger, unfolds as he faces a series of murders. Has the ghost of a man killed by a train decades earlier returned to seek vengeance, or is a sadistic monster swinging an old railroad lantern impersonating the legend? Tormented with childhood trauma and, more recently, the shooting death of a teenager, can Freeman stop the perpetrator before he kills again-before someone he cares about is murdered-or worse yet, before he’s cornered and beaten to death himself? The stakes and obstacles accumulate, sweeping the reader up and along all the way to the climatic ending at the infamous Moonville Rail Trail in the middle of the night.

By: Andrew Straka

Andrew Straka — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 12:57:53 +0000

When the Lantern Swings is a ghost story on steroids and a refreshing alternative to the slasher genre. The century-old legend of a swinging lantern, a hulking trainyard worker, and a deadly train are reminiscent of spooky tales whispered at backwoods youth camps.

Author Allen Grimes, a former FBI Special Agent from Ohio, uses the real-life setting of remote southeast Ohio as a powerful element of plot—the Moonville Rail Trail, the state park, the roads and the cabins actually exist. Grimes makes his law enforcement background evident through his you-only-know-this-by-being-there descriptions of autopsies, crime scenes, and other police procedurals. His realistically flawed protagonist, park ranger Ed Freemen, adds a level of complexity and intrigue as he copes with guilt from a shooting he cannot forget.

Grimes demonstrates the power of story is so much more than entertainment as he subtly integrates two themes: the healing value of forgiveness, and our choice to accept differing cultures because everyone has the same needs. The legend of the lantern continues to this day, and one might wonder if Grimes’ version is somehow more than just make believe.

By: Andrew Straka

Andrew Straka — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 02:22:33 +0000

Grimes demonstrates the power of story is so much more than entertainment as he subtly integrates two themes: the healing value of forgiveness, and our choice to accept differing cultures because everyone has the same needs. The legend of the lantern continues to this day, and one might wonder if Grime’s version is somehow more than just make believe.

PROMO COPY

The deep forest of southeast Ohio’s Moonville Rail Trail is the real-life setting for the legend of the swinging lantern. The haunting backdrop is the once per decade killing ground for the hulking Jackie Hudak, a railyard worker from a previous century. As park ranger Ed Freemen struggles to reconcile a shooting from his own past, he engages Hudak in a lethal game of predator versus prey where only one can survive. Grimes, a former FBI Special Agent from Ohio, writes as if he lived the story, and the reader is hard-pressed to believe otherwise.