When the Cold Wind Blows

Black Oak #5

by Charles L. Grant

Paranormal investigator Ethan Proctor travels to Georgia to investigate a series of disappearances and mutilations -- in the newest mystery in the acclaimed series...

Genres: Horror, Occult Detective, Urban Fantasy, Mystery

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

About the author

Charles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.

Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.

Reviews

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you think you're interested in reading this one, please start with #1 and work your way forward. You really just will be lost if you don't.

In the book before this one, Black Oak: Hunting Ground, our hero Ethan Proctor was fired from his job of looking for Taylor Blaine's daughter Celeste, who has been missing for 13 years. As he ponders this, he receives a communication from a teacher down in Georgia which asks him to come down there and investigate the disappearances and deaths of various people in the swamplands there. Proctor also gets his first good lead on Celeste: it seems that one of the women who disappeared with her looks like a woman by the same first name who had been (until she disappeared) running a New Age type store. So off goes Proctor and his team into the swampy backwaters.

If you haven't read the first one, you won't understand the significance of the ending of this book. I'm hoping that Charles Grant writes a few more of these...it's like the X-Files where the mythos is in the background, but you keep watching because eventually all the threads are hopefully going to connect.

recommended...but DO read 1-4 first!


read: 06/01/2005

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another satisfying, solid book and an entertaining entry in the underrated Black Oak series. It saddens me that the series never got finished but I am thankful for what we got.

[Solim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad to see the series end the way it did. Proctor, Taz, Doc, Vivian, Lana and new member Murray to be never seen again. It had a central story from the first book which you can tell Grant kept building up with each volume. Solid read!

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's sad that Grant didn't get a chance to finish out this series (which, it turns out, was based on sales and not on his illness), but at the same time, I think if I had to read another (at least) five books of this premise, I would have gotten annoyed at Proctor. He's the protagonist, and he's intended to be likeable, but he's more annoying than anything. He intentionally leaves his employees in the dark when the knowledge would help them, he's sexist, and he talks down to people. If he were more verbose, I'd compare him with some of Heinlein's protagonists, but thankfully Proctor isn't THAT insufferable.

Grant grew up in the New Jersey area, but this book is set in Georgia, where I grew up. He didn't make the setting offensive, and he didn't try to make it a Southern Gothic or anything like that, but he did seem to lack an understanding of what the South. It's not obvious, but instead it just feels like it's set somewhere else. Every time Grant would mention Georgia, I'd think, "Oh yeah", but a few minutes later, I was lost thinking I was elsewhere. It's not a criticism, I guess, because it doesn't hurt the story, but when I've read books written by Southerners set in the South, I never lose the sense of the setting (see: Robert R. McCammon).

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been so long since I read the previous books in this series that I was hopelessly lose with all the references to the prior adventures. While that information wasn't critical to this book, there were aspects of previous cases mentioned a lot, and a part of the story that tied in somehow to the earlier books and was left to continue in the sequels. But the main story in this novel was clear enough. The Black Oak Security team is a sort of private eye firm that ends up investigating missing persons and other such things in stories that end up having supernatural elements, some parts of the books are stand alone adventures while other parts play into the overall canon. Kind of like Supernatural before there ever was such a TV show. It was entertaining enough and very quick read, and from what I recall, better than some of the earlier editions to the series.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last of the series, alas, a premature ending of a lovely, understated, spooky horror series that deserved better. Grant doesnt try to resolve all the ongoing plots, thank goodness, focusing on the story at hand, a murderous beasts prowling the woods and swamps of Georgia. So all that other stuff is unresolved, but you still get a complete self-contained story in the book itself, and that's fne, the other stuff can haunt our dreams and nightmares.

[M.P. Conn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end of this series. It was supposed to continue, but unfortunately, Charles L. Grant passed away. He is sorely missed by his legions of fans, and will definitely never be forgotten. This is the third time I have read this series, and I always enjoy it.