Digging deep

 So, as I've been slowly sorting boxes of books from the basement that came out of Mom's house, I found a high school favorite, Thrill by Patricia Wallace. Now, let me point out the obvious, it is a Zebra Imprint from the early 90's, and therefore generally regarded as supermarket pulp. To which I say, who cares? it's readable and memorable, even with a few formatting errors and a resolution that makes no sense at all. 

Anyway, the whole set up in that Billionaire Sheldon Rice has built an exclusive amusement park north of San Francisco, excavating a mountain to do so. ($3000 a day, 7 day stay for everyone coming.) Wesley Davidson, who's barely 20, designed all the rides. Part of Wesley's contract stipulates that once a month, 5 disadvantaged youth get to come for a week free. Which gives us child prostitute Celeste, tough guy Max, oddball Ben, good girl Betsy (who's being groomed by her principal), and Jesus, who slipped over the border from Tijuana after his family died. 

We have local doctor Taylor, who's father owned part of the mountain The Park is built on. When he sold it, he got harassed to death. We have Sheriff Young, who really doesn't want to deal with the headaches The Park brings. And then there's the enigmatic Ezra, the mountain man who Rice thinks is sabotaging The Park. 

Anyway, other than a few minor accidents on opening day, things go ok until the Thursday, when all hell breaks loose. There's quite a bit of "Did Ezra sabotage things? Did the insects do this acting on behalf of a deeper power? Was it an EMF pulse?" to go along with the known things, like the security guard who covers up crushing a man to death when the man breaks into a ride, or the software engineer who maybe was screwing with Wesley's code. 

I mean, it's a fun, in nonsensical at times ride, that brought back a sense of vicarious excitement I felt reading it years ago. Much love to an old classic.