Item - Ghost Hunter

Sequels for CYOA are hard to write. You can't retread too much, and you don't want to veer too far off. In the case of Ghost Hunter, I'm left wondering if its being a sequel to Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey is just an excuse to name-check Thrombey and a very successful book. It's way more speculative and uneven than WKHT, and it's not a bad entry by any means, but we've all seen that sequel that never quite lived up to the original movie and maybe hated it more than we should. They could have done a lot worse, after all. Like, well, anything with "Harlowe Zombie" in the title.

That said, Harlowe Thrombey is one of the ghosts in question in the book. He gets more face time here than in WKHT because, well, he got killed pretty early on in that one. There's a confusing bit about how he explains you weren't able to help him, so he has to haunt you, but there wasn't much you could've done, so he doesn't haunt you much. The other ghosts are -- well, some of them are fake, and some of them scare you to death.

Ghost Hunter does feel like a misnomer as well, given the plot. Most of the book is concerned with finding jewels hidden in Thrombey's old mansion. His wife Jane has died, and a chap named Howard Grimstone who's even meaner than his name has bought it.

You do so with the help of Jenny Mudge, who a bit too coincidentally has also been looking into ghost hunting. You can help her, which is a short divergence with a silly fake ghost ending, or you can ask her for help at the Thrombey mansion.

There things get a bit twisted. Sylvia Rushton, Jane Thrombey's niece, informs you Jane hid some diamonds in the mansion, and she knows where, too. It's pretty clear Grimstone has heard the rumors and wants to find them. Knowing where they are doesn't help you avoid Grimstone and his henchmen. You're given a choice to help Sylvia or Grimstone, but only later the book mentions that maybe the only reason you help him is to pry information from him, or pretend you are on his good side. He's a bit too awful that just siding with him shouldn't go unnoticed, as it does when you make the choice. And you find he's even worse than suspected. However, Grimstone is clever, and if the plot feels convoluted, well, you can see why he's a tough adversary. Sylvia's a lot nicer--she gives you a nice reward if you find the diamonds.

And there are several endings where you do. Some, you make it out alive. Another, you find them, and you hear a gun click behind you. There's an interesting side-track where they slip from your grasp. This all gives enough drama, as do the "turn to page X" pages where the wrong side of a gun awaits. There are enough thrills.

But then there's too much is-it-real-or-isn't-it for GH to really feel like it has direction. There's a passage with a cat that may or may not be dead.

There's also a picture of a policeman smoking a cigar on one page, with the text reading he "removes an unlighted cigar from his mouth." I was missing the detective work from WKHT, so I was pleased to observe that. But it sort of drove home how GH wasn't as well-organized as WKHT.

I can't rightly call GH a bad entry, but it is a bit random and doesn't stack up well against WKHT, so people expecting more of the same should temper their expectations, and it will be enjoyable enough.

More reviews by andrewschultz

This direct sequel to Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? isn't quite as good as its predecessor in terms of goal-oriented gameplay, but it's still a slightly better-than-average entry in the series. The writing is decent, the story is adequate (though unexceptional), and most paths through the book manage to be quite lengthy without being slow-moving.

More reviews by Demian