Genesis

Black Oak #1

by Charles L. Grant

Black Oak Investigations is a firm that handles office fraud, missing persons, and a variety of white collar crime. But Black Oak also investigates situations that are not so quite the norm as owner Ethan Proctor discovers when one of his operatives turns up dead in a town cowering in fear from something roaming the hills, leaving dead bodies in its wake....

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Occult Detective, Mystery

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

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

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

This reads like a slow burn X-Files, or more specifically Kolchak episode with an extra helping of mystery.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this to people like myself who enjoy a good supernatural mystery. This book sort of reads like an episode of the X-Files; not surprising, since this author also wrote a few X-Files stories!

basic plot summary/no spoiler

Ethan Proctor owns a company called Black Oak Security. One of his team of investigators, Sloan Delaney, is taking some needed time off, traveling the back roads in search of really campy kitsch. I can relate...I love the stuff myself. Anyway, one of the places he has planned to see is the Cumberland Museum of the Odd, in the hills of Kentucky. So he goes there, takes a room at the attached motel & asks the motel owner to show him the museum. A day or so later back at home, Proctor is returning from a visit to a nursing home (his mom), and goes over his phone messages, when he hears one left by Sloan. Sloan gives him the name of the town where he is, then screams into the phone. In the background, there is also an eerie noise. By the time Proctor & one of the team, Taz, get to KY, they find out that Sloan is dead. They also find that the people in the town are scared spitless but aren't talking. Proctor will not leave until he has solved the mystery of what happened to Sloan.

Very fun novel and the rest of the series is good too.

read: 11/08/2004

[Kevin Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, of course. Looking forward toward the rest of the series.

[Hayden Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I saw that Charles L Grant had a horror series following a detective involved in supernatural mysteries, I knew I needed to seek them out. And while not quite as much my thing as his cozy-as-all-hell Oxrun Station books, this little X-Files-y pulp was pretty fun.

I wasn’t really enamored with the setting like I was reading The Grave, because the atmosphere isn’t really the draw here. No, in Black Oak, Grant wants you to be 100% invested in our leading man: Ethan Proctor. A mysterious guy, with a mysterious past, who’s just so damn “cool”. He wears sunglasses a lot; has a denim jacket with a custom-holster sewn into it; he refuses to let anyone call him anything other than “Proctor”; he doesn’t care about money; he never, ever cries, but when he does, it’s just a single tear; and, of course, he can intimidate men just with his mere presence, and woos women by saying things like “Hey”.

I always complain about the endings of mystery novels where the bad guy monologues and explains everything. I hate that. But here is a case where I almost wish it had happened because I’m still not entirely sure what the *thing* was that was responsible for the spooky murders. In fact, I was confused for a good chunk of the first 1/3rd of the novel. Grant has a way of keeping you on your toes, which usually doesn’t bother me, but here I was wondering who tf everyone was as he kept throwing new characters and plot lines in every chapter. Some of which weren’t even satisfyingly paid off in the end—I know they’ll carry over, but it seems like one-too-many.

[Merritt Lipsmeyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Black oak: Genesis. The first book in the black oak series, by Charles Grant, is definitely a mystery book. The story is about Ethan Proctor, receiving a voicemail on his answering machine. This voicemail being the final words of one of his employees, Sloan Delaney. He follows Delaney into the Kentucky wilderness to try and find his killer. This book, starts off slow. They only get to Kentucky around chapter ten, and they don't really talk about Delaney, since the voicemail, until around chapter twelve. When the book starts to get towards the end, and the big reveal, it starts to get more interesting. The twist at the end of the story, is one of the better twists in a mystery book. Overall, this book is quite good. I had a little trouble reading the beginning of the book. But as the story progressed, it got better.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

My guess is Grant had a lot of plots worked out for his potential run on writing the X-Files novels, and then had them left over when Kevin J. Anderson took over that series, because this reads very much like an X-Files story. Granted, most of what Grant wrote could have been an X-Files novel, but when your main character works for a private agency that gets the cases no one else wants to touch because they're a little too off, and when he's a guy who doesn't like people calling him by his first name, it gets a little more suspicious.

This is a typical Grant book, heavy on the atmosphere and the detail, but a little light on plot. There's still a decent story here, but it's buried beneath the weight of that detail, so this is a book that might be better for the die-hard Grant fans. I expected the book to be a bit tighter, thanks to how well Grant handled the X-Files stories, but there's something missing here that was present there. It could be that he couldn't rely on the pre-existing knowledge of the characters, but it feels different enough outside of just the characters. It's hard to pinpoint.

I have the rest of this series to finish, and then Grant's run on the Hercules novels (as by Timothy Boggs), and then I will have finally read all the Grant books I want to read (he was prolific, so I've just focused on the horror and dark fantasy novellas and novels). It's been an interesting journey so far.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt like an old-school The X-Files Monster of the Week episode - which makes sense, since Charles Grant got commissioned around the time he wrote the Black Oak series to work on XF tie-in novels. A member of Black Oak, a sort of PI/security company, goes missing while on vacation, leaving a cryptic and frightening message on his boss's phone. Two members of the team travel to a backwoods town in Appalachia to investigate.

The story was a little predictable, and there were some unfortunate dated tropes (the hooker/exotic dancer with a heart of gold, who also just so happens to be a damsel in quite a bit of distress), but I like Grant's writing style so much that it was easy to brush away. His mastery of the eerie Gothic atmosphere is unparalleled.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting a reread of this seasonally appropriate series by the master of low-key spooky chills, we have a remote motel in the Appalachias with something nasty on the crner of its Museum Of The Weird. After his friend and employee turns up on the side of the road, Proctor investigates.

[Solim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grant is a master of dread, suspense and creepiness. Just wish there was more mystery to it! Good start to a series. On to book 2!

[Amanda]

Rec'd by Ruin

[bailey Frazier · Rating 1 out of 5]

i didn't like it so much that i stopped reading it. i couldn't finish the book

[James Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is clearly CLG doing his version of The X-Files (a series for which he also wrote a few tie-in novels).

Cabins in the woods, small town creepiness, strippers, hunters, and a backwoods creature on the loose that seemingly kills at random. Proctor comes seeking answers to his friend's murder at the creature's claws. More of a mystery with supernatural overtones (again, like many episodes of X-Files).

As expected from Charles Grant, this is a slow-burn. Also, it's the first in a series, so we get elements of set-up, but not that get in the way. Even elements clearly being set in place for future novels serve a purpose, here, so as to be unobtrusive.

I've been away from Grant for many years. This was a nice, comfortable return. Less Grindhouse, then Hitchcock. With a monster.

[Pat Nestor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this back in its original publishing year of 1989 and had very fond memories of it. Found it in a huge trunk of books I had in storage and was excited to read it again, but found my memories of it were better than reality. Didn't hold up well in the fifteen year span. A decent read, and interesting enough to get you through the whole thing, but thin in spots and needing of some more meat and fleshing out. Worth a read especially if you like the X-Files meets Private Eye genre. Going to give the second book in the series a shot and hope it stand up to the passing of time better.

[Captain_Creepy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A plethora of books in the late 90’s jumped on the stylings of the red hot X-Files series. Genesis, the first of five in a series by author Charles Grant about Black Oak Investigations runs at the front of the pack. I read these books as they were released and loved them, and I am finally doing a reread many years later. So far so good. Reading this again was a treat for me. Others mileage may vary but I found Genesis to be interesting, captivating, and nostalgic.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Grant was the master. This book was so good. The beginning of a series, that unfortunately, he did not get to complete before his death. The sries is well worth reading none the less. Excellent!

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a detective story than fantasy. Think X-files with a PI. Engaging but no big surprises.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start to a sort of paranormal investigating series. Hard to get, I had to get it via ILL.

[M.P. Conn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this one with no idea what I would find and I am hooked. Fast, entertaining, twists... so good, I just finished number five in the series.. amazingly good!