GHOSTS OF BALONA

Ghosts of Balona
by Jonathan Pearce
Paperback $13.95
Infinity Publishing
148 pages
ISBN 0741412470

Joseph Kuhl has difficulty passing classes at the community college, especially his English class. When a helicopter crashes into a funeral home, Joseph finds that he begins to have personal ghostly visits in the form of a beautiful woman who gives advice. To add to this, a reporter from the city visits along to investigate possible supernatural happenings along with a very unusual new doctor in town who enjoys barbecuing internal organs. This would be strange enough, however, but the people that eat these organs have no memory of these delectable meals. All of these distractions do nothing to help his studying and Joseph wonders if he really needs the college work if he intends to be a private investigator.

Depending on the source, Ghosts of Balona is either the fifteenth or sixteenth young adult book that Jonathan Pearce has written. The characters seem tired. I found as I was reading this that I wasn’t relating to the character and also not caring what events happened to him. The story lacked the personal voice. In developing each characters failings and successes the reader develops affection as they are transformed into each character’s shoes. This could be the result of having developed this in previous books so the author chose not to repeat this process. Being that I haven’t read the preceding books though, as a stand alone book without the personal voice, I became an indifferent reader.

The book was fair, not great, not horrible. I would be interested to know if readers who follow this series would feel the same.

Jonathan Pearce is a teacher as well as an author living and working in California.