As with the first book, Ghost of a Chance, J. C. Chance, Happy Jack Palmer, and Melody Chambers start off dealing with an old menace. Kim Sterling, the ghost with whom J.C. fell in love and vice versa, is now part of the team. The two couples are investigating an abandoned factory where a very nasty murder took place. I listened to the audio version and I had trouble understanding the name of the old man who came to the factory, but his granddaughter was named Susan. Sure, they were Black and Susan was big and strong, but their interaction and dialog reminded me a lot of that between the First Doctor and his granddaughter, Susan, when I listened to Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes 1964-1965. I doubt that's a coincidence. I was very worried for their safety. Just because the old man knew a thing or two didn't mean he couldn't be killed.

J.C.'s team, which has been upgraded from a B team to an A team since their adventures in the London Underground, haven't even had a chance for their guaranteed downtime before Robert Patterson, the public face of the Carnacki Institute, sends them in to deal with whatever happened in the Chimera Building, a pharmaceutical company. There's no real briefing, but they are told that the police officers and the security persons who first entered the building haven't come out.

Happy is a class 11 telepath, but something is interfering with his power. Melody is disgruntled because her equipment is still packed up and on the train. That doesn't stop her from hacking into several computers they find along the way. A good deal of the character development is revealed through dialog. It's interesting to find out how Happy and Melody feel about what changed J. C. in the first book. We also learn about the problems when a living person and a ghost are in love. Hints about Happy and Melody's sex life provide some humor.

What Melody finds out in those computer files doesn't truly prepare the team for the various menaces they face. I really can't recommend the action sequences to the squeamish, but my fellow long-time slasher and horror flick fans should be able to handle it. I think the mad doctors were my favorite.

One of the revelations reminded me of a piece of information given in both The Spy Who Haunted Me and Moonbreaker, two of the novels in the Secret Histories series (Eddie Drood). Interestingly, the Head of the Carnacki Institute, Catherine Latimer, mentions the Droods later on. What she suspects about the Droods was revealed in the first book, The Man With the Golden Torc.

There's a most unpleasant surprise waiting for the team just before they reach the top floor. Melody, Happy, and Kim are rather taken aback about the way J. C. deals with the menace.

What happened after the top floor residents were dealt with reminded me of a classic horror film, only worse. There's a cliffhanger ending, which left me wanting volume three. ( )

The Book Cover:

The Ghost Finders answer a distress call from the private research center of one of the biggest drug companies in the world, where a team of police enforcement agents have vanished. They have no idea what they're facing-except a deadline that threatens to remove the entire building from existence if they fail to get to the bottom of the mystery.

My Thoughts:

It is my absolute belief that science would diffidently be interested in Simon Green's brain. Where does this man come up with the things he writes about?

I found the story interesting...especially in the beginning. The team of Ghost Finders are a likable group but they are in no way believable. Suspend your disbelief and the story carries you along. The only thing that I saw "wrong" with the book was that the dialog, while sometimes funny, was actually rather childish. But I guess that's it's rather hard to be "adult" when writing about giant demon dogs, living, giant human organs that plop across the floor searching for a human host or dead people that just won't stay dead. This is the first book in this series but it is in no way the first book that Simon Green has ever produced. I'm going to read the next one but this one gets 3.5stars. ( )

Eww. And I really mean that: eww. So much grossness. In standard form, Green includes what could be a separate short story at the beginning, then continues with a full story for the rest of the book. And that rest is...icky. There's an awful lot of innards, and beheadings, and such. Also, conspiracies (of course). The characters have grown from where they were in the first book, which was appreciated. But...eww. ( )

Nice entry in series, Sets up search for new big bad, the conspiracy theorists are right. Enjoyable, but fluffy. ( )

The four 'ghost hunters' are back for this second book in the series. They are put into a situation where information is minimal and misleading, and danger lurks around every corner. Now, I do love this series, but at times in this book I felt as if I was playing a video game rather than reading a book. Their going up a level (stairs to next floor) and attempting to defeat the newest nemesis felt more like a video game than a novel that sucks me into it's story. I have a big issue with the New People confrontation, but I can't say more without spoiling it for others. I did love the ending and it left me wanting to read the next one, so I will be purchasing it when it comes out! ( )