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The Haunted One
It starts out as a perfect summer for eighteen-year-old Paul Barrett. A championship swimmer, he lands a plum job as a lifeguard on a beach at a New Jersey resort. It gets even better when he meets the beautiful Jody Miller, a ballet dancer on vacation. In fact, it's love at first sight....
But all that changes the day he sees Jody, crying out to him for help far out beyond the breakers.
Time is running out. He can't reach her. Not today, not ever. But Jody can reach him -- on the phone, on the street, at the beach.
And Paul is about to become...
The Haunted One
But all that changes the day he sees Jody, crying out to him for help far out beyond the breakers.
Time is running out. He can't reach her. Not today, not ever. But Jody can reach him -- on the phone, on the street, at the beach.
And Paul is about to become...
The Haunted One
- GenresMystery
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Jay Bennett
45 books16 followersJay Bennett (born in New York City, December 24, 1912, died June 27, 2009 in Cherry Hill, NJ) was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 30, 2018
The book "The Haunted One" is almost like an abnormal love story between a lifeguard and a victim who drowned under his watch. Her name was Jody Miller and she was beautiful according to the story. She was a ballet dancer on vacation at the beach that Paul was supervising. Unfortunately, she had gotten too far past the breakers and Paul was unable to reach her. It wasn't a surprise that the girl that Paul allegedly fell in love with at first sight haunted him after her death. This also is the reason the book is named what it is referring to Paul as the one being haunted. This traumatic event leads to as far as Paul hallucinating about Jody and just constantly thinking about what he could've done different to try and save her. I'm not much of a romance or love story kind of guy but I do enjoy spooky or creepy stories. This book was a good mix of both and therefore I recommend it to anyone looking for a short but good book to read.
August 20, 2026
The spine of this book says it is a YA Suspense novel and that may be a little true, but I find it more of a modern-day noir with a touch of Gothic melancholy. Tragic romance set in the last days of summer in the late 1980s as it was first published in 1987.
When you live near the Jersey Shore, developing a love for the water isn't hard. Paul Barrett is a champion swimmer and already looking forward to Syracuse University after graduation. He is taking a job as a lifeguard and his boss, Joe Carson, is tough man who only hires the best to uphold the right to protect the people on the beach.
This little stretch of beach feels like Paul's own little kingdom in this last summer before senior year as he sits up on his lifeguard tower. He saved a young man who never learned to swim, and the guy has a mother who now loves Paul as a hero. A heartfelt letter and a hand-knitted sweater as a gift of gratitude mean the world to Paul.
Life with his parents is okay and his oldest sister lives out in California, but Paul is mostly a loner until the day he sees...her.
The girl who reads on the beach and then swims out in the ocean for a couple of hours. She moves with a grace that he has seen before not in swimmers but in ballet dancers at shows he used to attend with big sister Jean. One day, Paul finally gets up the courage to talk to her.
Her name is Jody Miller, and she is indeed a ballerina, no longer in high school, and her instructor says she could be really good. Paul is dazzled by her blonde hair and her green eyes and thinks of her as a goddess from the sea. They flirt and Jody says she wishes Paul wouldn't wear his dark sunglasses and hide his beautiful hazel eyes.
He watches the sunset with Jody to keep her from leaving and almost forgets to clock out at his job.
Paul finds Jody on the boardwalk at the amusement park riding on the Ferris Wheel later that night and then they go to the same tower on the beach at night to see the stars together. Paul and Jody kiss and it seems like a summer romance that could bloom into something more.
Paul receives a note from Jody left at the hotel where she is staying a few days later.
She had to rush back home to New York City to get a start on school, her love for ballet stronger than her love for Paul and the ocean, and he has his heart not broken but wounded. A despondent Paul sits at his tower and decides to numb the pain by smoking a joint.
Paul thinks he can hear a voice calling out to him for help, Jody's voice, but he thinks it is only a hallucination. That is until he can see her out in the ocean beyond the break in the surf, but Paul is too late.
Joe tells Paul that Jody was going to surprise him with her return. Joe's sadness for Paul evaporates when he finds the joint near the lifeguard tower and Paul is fired from his job. Joe goes off to Florida as Paul begins his last year of school, a different young man.
When Paul gets home one night, his mother tells him a girl has called to speak with him.
She says the girl's name is Jody.
Paul is not thrilled at first, but he never told his mother about Jody, and the number is the same one as the motel where she was staying. He calls and speaks with the manager and finds that it is the same room number as before.
Paul is patched through at it is Jody's voice that answers.
Jody asks to meet Paul at the same Ferris Wheel, and he finds her riding it again in the same clothes as that night they first kissed. The summer is over and the Boardwalk is closed up but Paul is so happy to see Jody...at first.
Soon, his fear gives in, and he runs away from Jody. He bumps into the ride operator and finds out the man was paid by Jody to start the wheel back up again, just for them. He talked to her and felt her hand when the twenty-dollar bill passed between hands.
Going to the motel, Paul is told Jody checked out and left him a letter. The words indicate that she is no longer in love with him, her heart broken.
Then Paul sees Jody under streetlamps and hears her voice on the phone, calling when neither of his parents are at home. Her voice is no longer sweet, and she tells Paul that he is guilty of her death, and she will make sure he is punished. Jody promises to haunt Paul until he loses all hope and finally receives his just punishment.
The Haunted One soon leads to a twist in the tale and leads to a truly aching ending.
As summer is slowly coming to an end, this story is poignant and chilling but also a study in how we deal with grief and the changing tide of life.
I highly recommend it.
When you live near the Jersey Shore, developing a love for the water isn't hard. Paul Barrett is a champion swimmer and already looking forward to Syracuse University after graduation. He is taking a job as a lifeguard and his boss, Joe Carson, is tough man who only hires the best to uphold the right to protect the people on the beach.
This little stretch of beach feels like Paul's own little kingdom in this last summer before senior year as he sits up on his lifeguard tower. He saved a young man who never learned to swim, and the guy has a mother who now loves Paul as a hero. A heartfelt letter and a hand-knitted sweater as a gift of gratitude mean the world to Paul.
Life with his parents is okay and his oldest sister lives out in California, but Paul is mostly a loner until the day he sees...her.
The girl who reads on the beach and then swims out in the ocean for a couple of hours. She moves with a grace that he has seen before not in swimmers but in ballet dancers at shows he used to attend with big sister Jean. One day, Paul finally gets up the courage to talk to her.
Her name is Jody Miller, and she is indeed a ballerina, no longer in high school, and her instructor says she could be really good. Paul is dazzled by her blonde hair and her green eyes and thinks of her as a goddess from the sea. They flirt and Jody says she wishes Paul wouldn't wear his dark sunglasses and hide his beautiful hazel eyes.
He watches the sunset with Jody to keep her from leaving and almost forgets to clock out at his job.
Paul finds Jody on the boardwalk at the amusement park riding on the Ferris Wheel later that night and then they go to the same tower on the beach at night to see the stars together. Paul and Jody kiss and it seems like a summer romance that could bloom into something more.
Paul receives a note from Jody left at the hotel where she is staying a few days later.
She had to rush back home to New York City to get a start on school, her love for ballet stronger than her love for Paul and the ocean, and he has his heart not broken but wounded. A despondent Paul sits at his tower and decides to numb the pain by smoking a joint.
Paul thinks he can hear a voice calling out to him for help, Jody's voice, but he thinks it is only a hallucination. That is until he can see her out in the ocean beyond the break in the surf, but Paul is too late.
Joe tells Paul that Jody was going to surprise him with her return. Joe's sadness for Paul evaporates when he finds the joint near the lifeguard tower and Paul is fired from his job. Joe goes off to Florida as Paul begins his last year of school, a different young man.
When Paul gets home one night, his mother tells him a girl has called to speak with him.
She says the girl's name is Jody.
Paul is not thrilled at first, but he never told his mother about Jody, and the number is the same one as the motel where she was staying. He calls and speaks with the manager and finds that it is the same room number as before.
Paul is patched through at it is Jody's voice that answers.
Jody asks to meet Paul at the same Ferris Wheel, and he finds her riding it again in the same clothes as that night they first kissed. The summer is over and the Boardwalk is closed up but Paul is so happy to see Jody...at first.
Soon, his fear gives in, and he runs away from Jody. He bumps into the ride operator and finds out the man was paid by Jody to start the wheel back up again, just for them. He talked to her and felt her hand when the twenty-dollar bill passed between hands.
Going to the motel, Paul is told Jody checked out and left him a letter. The words indicate that she is no longer in love with him, her heart broken.
Then Paul sees Jody under streetlamps and hears her voice on the phone, calling when neither of his parents are at home. Her voice is no longer sweet, and she tells Paul that he is guilty of her death, and she will make sure he is punished. Jody promises to haunt Paul until he loses all hope and finally receives his just punishment.
The Haunted One soon leads to a twist in the tale and leads to a truly aching ending.
As summer is slowly coming to an end, this story is poignant and chilling but also a study in how we deal with grief and the changing tide of life.
I highly recommend it.
September 3, 2021
THE HAUNTED ONE by Jay Bennett was a "Young Adult/Suspense" novel (as it says on the spine) published by Fawcett Juniper (Fawcett's YA imprint) in May 1989, although the book has a 1987 copyright date. It's a thin book, only 136 pages, and the plot is pretty thin, too -- filled out by a lot of padding and repetition in the text. The novel is split into three parts, with a total of 40 chapters, although some chapters are only a page long. In the first part of the book, an 18 year old lifeguard named Paul meets a young woman around his age named Jody. There is a sense of impending doom about their brief encounters, as Paul senses that their relationship can't last. (The book is told from the omniscient third person perspective, but Paul's thoughts and POV are meshed within it.) By the end of Part One, Jody has drowned and Paul failed to save her, perhaps because he was smoking a joint at the time, which he shouldn't have been doing. Part Two deals with Paul's guilt over Jody's death and her apparent return from the grave to torment him. By the last page of Part Two (page 109 of the book), I was able to guess the identity of the culprit. Part Three of the book has the big reveal, the return of an earlier character, and wraps things up. Unfortunately the ending is not quite as satisfying as it could have been, leaving some unanswered questions. It's an easy read, with a couple spooky parts, but not as spooky or scary as the cover would suggest. I rate it only 2.5 stars, mainly due to the repetitive, dialogue-heavy, padded-out writing style. If more stuff had happened, then it probably would have rated higher with me.
October 25, 2025
Great middle school ghost story. Quick read. Will pull at your heart strings and give you a chill too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews