RAIN OF THE GHOSTS

A clunky story narrated by a mysterious dog with an omniscient viewpoint and graceless grammar.

Rain Cacique’s grandfather ’Bastian has died but not before giving her his gold armband of intertwined snakes. Now Rain is seeing ghosts. Specifically, they are the ghosts of men operating the B-17 bomber that her grandfather piloted and crashed into the sea years ago, killing everyone but him. The ghosts want to go home. No one but Rain can see or hear them, not even her long-suffering friend Charlie. But when the ghosts, with an ethereal ’Bastian piloting, fly their rusted hulk of a plane out from the sea floor (the best part) and radio to a Navy base, the control tower can hear them. Why? Don’t know. Plot inconsistencies plague readers even as the narrative confuses them. Like ’Bastian, whose soul is tethered to the gold snake bracelet and inconveniently dragged around by it, readers are jerked in and out of the story as the narrative moves from very omniscient third person to tail-wagging-dog first person. One casualty of this know-all narrative (besides lack of tension) is that readers are left feeling no connection to the story. Another is the question of why the dog is narrating in the first place.

Hints of a semi-intriguing premise may, with better writing, make this series palatable going forward. (Paranormal adventure. 10-14)