KEEPER OF THE CHILDREN

Hallahan alternates between first-rate suspense (Catch Me: Kill Me, 1977) and third-rate occultery, like this Fu Manchuish mumbo-jumbo about a Tibetan monk who has cast some sort of wham-bam mind-spell on a number of teenagers in the Philadelphia suburbs: they blindly cio his bidding, complete with saffron robes and begging bowls. Eddie Benson, father of the monk's latest convert, joins up with other angry parents--all of whom die mysteriously. And when Eddie himself barely survives an encounter with a marionette brought to life by the monk's mind-power, he realizes that he's up against one heavy psychokinetic dude, ""an oobie with PK"" in fact. (""Monks. Yes. They're the heavyweights of the occult world."") So Eddie naturally decides to take lessons in mind-over-matter from Yogi Sanjay Nullatumbi, who instructs him how to stare at a wall for two weeks and thus coax his soul out of his body: ""I left by the top of my head and I floated over my body. . . . And I had a thin cord attached to me."" Now armed with the ability to leave his bed, Eddie can go and do battle against the monk. ""If you can attack him in the astral plane, you will have a tremendous initial advantage. You must seize his silver cord and break it."" So--onward to the hilarious duel of the silver cords (they get tangled). How can someone who writes so well (The Ross Forgery, 1973) also write so badly? Must be them astral spirits messing with his silver cord.