THE UNINVITED: HAUNTING OF THE BIG RED ONE
by Nina Mandelik "A 323 page spellbinder. I read my copy from cover to cover in one sitting."-Herb Hyde, Lincoln Journal-Star MILITARY BASES HAUNTED?Water gushes out of spouts all by itself. Doors that are locked at night stand wide open by morning. An officer's wife feels a ghostly touch on her leg. Spawned by these and other stories came the idea for Nina Mandelik's novel, The Uninvited: Haunting of the Big Red One. The book puts forth the very plausible notion that Fort Riley Army Base is haunted. Yes, some of the incidents between the covers are true. She is not saying which ones. Fort Riley teems with tales of hauntings. A young officer sees a whole day ahead. When driving, he makes his car change speed, even with the cruise control engaged. He knows one of his female colleagues will marry, knows where he will sit in the church, knows her husband will die within the year. Then he begins talking and walking in his sleep, until-to his horror-he finds himself making an obscene late night phone call. A female ghost resides in an officer's quarters. She comes at night, to the room of the teen-aged daughter, and plays with her miniature animals on a shelf. If the girl opens her eyes, the woman vanishes. She is most active when the officer is gone. Then she moves all the furniture: desk, bookcases, chairs, away from the wall--and when the furniture is put back in place, half an hour later, three rooms are disarranged again. One day, the girl walks into the bathroom, and the shower curtain snaps shut about the tub. She yanks it open, expecting to find her little brother, and instead she is face to face with the female ghost, who disappears in front of the shrieking girl's eyes. Other stories are not so nice. A page is ripped from a family Bible. Bloodstains appear on the stairwell at 150 year-old Custer House, after a storm extinguishes the lights. Ghostly hands reach from a cloud, to fasten about a soldier's neck. An unusually high incidence of death occurs in a certain place. The Uninvited tells the story of Michael Triplett, a military brat, after he returns to Fort Riley. He sees impossible things, and no one believes him. People die. His thirteen-year old sister matures overnight. Then a soldier's corpse vanishes from its drawer in the morgue, and the malevolent atmosphere about Michael explodes. "A very scary horror story…a page turner of the first order," said Susan Rife of the Wichita Eagle. "An engaging supernatural thriller that brings a breath of fresh air." --Rave reviews. "For two nights in a row, I suffered…goosebumps, quick glances at the shadowy stairs where I expected to see a shadowy apparition appear, and…insomnia-and I was sure I put the cat outside."
--Laurie McKinnon, Manhattan Mercury The Uninvited was originally published by Berkley. This is a second printing, arranged by Mystery Writers of America with iUniverse. It can be ordered from any bookstore. For comments, contact Nina Mandelik at (785) 539-2895 or by email at: ninajh@ksu.edu. | 
