I read Halloween III Season of the Witch by Jack Martin. It was published by Jove Horror. I think that the theme of this book is that things aren’t always how they seem. I think that the storyline of this book was good, but it was hard to keep track of the book. The author wrote it in a very confusing way.
Harry Grimbridge was being chased by strange people wearing business suits. He collapsed when he was a a filling station and he was holding a Silver Shamrock jack-o’-lantern mask. He had to go to the hospital where Dr. Dan Challis was taking care of him and watching him while he is staying in the hospital. While he is in the hospital another man is a suit comes into the room where he is staying. The man in the suit kills Harry and he goes into the garage where his car was. He had his car ready to burst into flames when he was ready. He activated the car and he killed himself.
Harry’s daughter Ellie was curious about her father’s death. Ellie and Dr. Challis began to investigate the death of Harry. They went to the town of Santa Mira, California which is the mask factory was. The hotel manager in Santa Mira told them the reason the town was doing well was because of Conal Cochran and the mask factory that he owned. Ellie later learns that her dad stayed at the same hotel that they were staying at. Some of the other people staying at that hotel are shop owners that did business with the mask factory. All the shop owners get killed by the men in suits. They all have something to do with Silver Shamrock masks or the men in suits.
Dr. Challis get a tour of the factory with some of the people that work there. When the tour was over, they went outside and noticed that the men in suits were surround Ellie’s car. When they get back to the hotel, they try to get in contact with their friends at home, but they find out they can’t talk to anyone that isn’t staying at the hotel. The men I suits kidnap Ellie, and Challis finds out and begins to think of ways to find her and get her back home safely. Challis breaks into the factory so he can save Ellie. He finds out that all of the men in suits are robots that were made by Conal Cochran. All of the Silver Shamrock masks have a chip in them. The company was going to air a commercial that would kill anyone that was wearing any of the hats made by them. They would release a deadly group of snakes and insects killing the people in the masks.
Dr. Challis was a brave person that cared for Ellie and her family. He wanted to make sure that she was safe. Ellie was a curious person. Her curiosity almost got her killed, so I think that she would be more cautious if she could redo everything. Conal Cochran is a very mean and evil person that was responsible for the deaths of many people.
Jack Martin wrote this book to frighten you. I think that he achieved his goal, because I thought that the book was scary and very suspenseful. He could have done a better job on making the storyline clearer. It was pretty easy to get lost and not know what was happening.
What do you think encouraged Conal Cochran to kill all those people?
How do you think the town of Santa Mira would be different in the factory wasn’t there?
How do you think the Ellie and Dr. Challis changed after the events in the story?
I think that the book was very confusing. The storyline was good, but the author could have done a much better job at making the events clearer than he did. Some of the character seem like they could be real but other don’t seem real at all.
For a split second the tiny flame lit the underside of the man’s smooth, perfect face. His close-cropped head turned so that he was looking directly at Challis from the center of a corona of light. With no expression whatsoever.
This is an important paragraph because it is the events right after the first death in the book. It was the murderer getting away with what he did. You find out later that he was a robot and that he felt no pain and he burn the car just to destroy himself.
I think that the book was confusing to read, but the storyline was good. If the author would have done a better job of explaining the storyline, it would have been a very good book. On a scale of one-to-ten I would give this book a 5 because it was very confusing.
