Another good one from Charles L. Grant. This is number 3 written chronologically in the Oxrun Station series (not including short stories).

A wild rich spoiled girl comes back from two years in Europe to finally settle down in Oxrun Station where the family mansion, a little decrepit, and family are waiting for her. Headstrong she decides to open a bookshop in the Station and no longer wants to rely on the family fortune. It all starts with a grey limousine almost running her over in the street, possibly just some kids joyriding. Then her father has a heart attack.

Once again things are not okay in the Station. Behind the bucolic suburban (Hartford, Connecticut) facade there is something wrong but you wouldn't know it just by looking around. Cynthia's family seems a little odd since she returned. A little cold and distant. Then they start doing things that defy common sense even though on the surface nobody but Cynthia would notice. They don't seem home very much but Cyd never seems to see them in the village anywhere. Is she just a different person since she returned? Also the family fortune seems to be a little strained, the servants have all been dismissed. Then she finds that all the rich trappings in the the house she once knew so well have been replaced by plaster imitations. And she keeps seeing that damned limousine around town. Then she and Ed are attacked by a crow with one wing that doesn't seem to stay dead for very long. And what about that creepy "doctor" Kraylin who keeps trying to put the moves on her; and his clinics that nobody in the Station except her family seems to know anything about. He did save her father though...

Full of subtle odd little details that build a sense of weirdness without anything supernatural really happening (okay there is a little, but it could be just hallucination). Grant can really finish a story. His endings are the kind of thing King would kill to be able to write. ( )

And with the end of the third book in the Oxrun Station series (and the second I've read), I'm already getting that sinking feeling.

Why?

Because, for the most part, this book was plotted exactly light the first one in the series, [b:The Hour of the Oxrun Dead|415484|The Hour of the Oxrun Dead|Charles L. Grant|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325759739s/415484.jpg|404667].

1 - Younger, single woman, who was away from Oxrun and has recently returned, senses an indefinable something's not right.
2 - Very quickly, some vague bad things happen that threaten her life, but not really.
3 - Along comes the unwanted but very quickly welcomed young single man who quickly becomes her suitor.
4 - A lot of stuff, some somewhat important, some not important to plot at all, happens.
5 - People are introduced, one of which, seemingly creepy but mostly innocuous, will be the villain
6 - Heroine makes some really astounding interpretive leaps of logic to finally, about 30 pages before the end, figure out what that something's not right really is.
7 - Villain shows back up and, comic book style, rolls out all the information she needs to prove those really astounding interpretive leaps of logic were exactly right.
8 - Oh, and the means of villainy are really stupid.
9 - Something really stupid happens for her to be saved and the villain to lose.

Grant isn't writing horror here. He's writing potboilers. He seems quite reluctant to define the villain any nearer than the last 10% of the book, aside from some vague threatening actions that amount to nothing. Unfortunately, this leads to the protagonist spending most of that first 90% of the plot wringing and flailing her hands at some vague, undefined threat.

I know I read a couple of books by Grant when I was younger and enjoyed them immensely. The only reason I stopped back then was because I simply never saw his stuff in the bookstores.

Now, I'm really questioning my younger self's standard of quality. Honestly, this book was quite bad and quite boring. The writing is gorgeous, if a little overwrought.

I'm going to give it one or two more books, then I may have to walk away. ( )