ANDREW STRAKA REVIEW
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
Andrew Straka, Writer-Editor
Strategic Communications
U.S. Border Patrol
Yuma Sector Headquarters
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.
Richard Arnall