Ketchum holds back just enough information that we begin to believe in ghosts and monsters, just as the characters must. It isn’t clear once the scares start if we are reading a haunted house story or something else, and that uncertainty in itself is unsettling. The second half of the story kicks the horror and suspense into high gear when the four characters decide to play a game of hide and seek in an abandoned house. I loved the first half of the story and thoroughly enjoyed their summer adventures, as the story slowly unwound. Ketchum paints his scenes in such a way that we sense, rather than see, horror existing in the background, while we involve ourselves in the relationship between Dan and Casey. The first half or so of Hide and Seek is almost a dangerous love story. In many ways Hide and Seek is more of a character portrait of Casey than of Dan, as we quickly become aware of her volatile personality (the reasons behind which are slowly revealed). He meets the younger, three well-to-do friends at the beginning of summer, and eventually he falls in love with Casey. The story is told from the perspective of Dan, a town resident who has put off college to sell lumber. The followup to Jack Ketchum’s breakout debut, Off Season (1980), Hide and Seek (1984) is the story of Dan, Steven, Casey, and Kimberly, four young people who spend a frightening first half of summer together in the coastal Maine town of Dead River.
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