Deceiver

Gersh (Wild Wood) delivers impressively creepy jump scares but little substance in this contemporary supernatural thriller. Kathy Bell, a young stockbroker, is assaulted by what seem to be homeless people in the stairwell of her office building, but when she makes it through a fire door back into the building, she isn’t any safer. People start disappearing, the fog outside the windows develops powers of hypnosis, and the company owner has disemboweled himself with a knife, though he’s still walking around. Much of the novel consists of bravura set pieces with Kathy and others attempting to escape the inexplicable horrors, only to run directly into another set. The underlying explanation for the terrors in no way lives up to the well-crafted moments of suspense that lead to it. The characterization is also thin and superficial to the point of stereotype. Still, Gersh gets a lot of mileage out of his setup before it falls flat. (Sept.)