Amazon MountainofDreams Category:  Action/Thriller Publisher: 1st Books Library ISBN-10:  0759628807 Type: Fiction Pages: 393 Copyright: Jun 1 2000 At his wit’s end because a phantom has just abducted his current girlfriend back in time to 1893 Chicago, Thad is now accused of the murder of his ex-girlfriend. He must somehow transport himself to a bygone era, rescue Ottilia and dispatch the ghost of the serial killer who has bedeviled him for several months. This is no ordinary haunting, for the chilling purpose of the ghostly visitations is to spirit women away in the present and murder them in past time. The charming psychopath is the shade of Chicago’s first documented serial killer, Dr. Herman Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes. Thad Majeski, Chicago native, geologist, connected with the land since boyhood, driven by his love for things old -- artifacts, houses, historical places -- is swept into the 1890s, triggered by his distress with the encroachments of urban development. On a plane flight to Detroit he hooks into Chicago’s history. Thereafter, two visitors from the past intermittently disturb his life. The main ghost bedeviling him is Dr. Herman Mudgett, an actual serial killer from the darker side of the city’s history. In the process, his old girlfriend, Carol Trilling, is spirited away, a flesh and blood visitor from his personal history--a woman he hasn’t seen for thirteen years. Ottilia Sullivan, the new woman in his life, a photojournalist, is drawn into the vortex of events. With the aid of a positive spirit from the past, Mad Sturgeon, a Potawatomi warrior, who participated in the 1812 Fort Dearborn Massacre, Ottilia and Thad struggle for release from the grip of the past. The ghostly visitations demonstrate to Thad how the city has been built on the bones of the dead. Mudgett takes Thad and Ottilia for a carriage ride back in time to the horror castle the doctor constructed on 63rd and Wallace Streets in 1892. Thad senses that Mudgett’s real object is Ottilia. They know that the disappearance of Carol is somehow linked with Mudgett’s apparition the night she was to leave Chicago for Seattle. Ottilia digs through Chicago histories at the library to uncover the identity of their nighttime visitor. Undaunted, Ottilia thinks she can deal with him from the safety of the present as if he were a normal man, but he is a psychopath. She will discover exactly what that means. In 1993 a psychopath has returned from 1893 to pull his victims from the present and kill them in the past. Ottilia overestimates her ability to deal with the redoubtable bigamist, swindler and murderer from the 1890s. While Thad and Ottilia try to unravel the mystery of the time warp in an effort to discover Carol’s fate, Mudgett lures Ottilia into the past to feed his appetite They careen headlong into Chicago’s lurid history. Ottilia’s demented father, who lives in a nursing home, directs them to “kill the devil.” But, they wonder how does one kill a spirit who walked out of the pages of history? Meanwhile, Carol’s body is discovered in a one hundred-year-old steamer trunk unearthed in Jackson Park, baffling the police. There are no suspects and the police cannot accept Thad’s bizarre explanation of what really happened. Thad and Ottilia discover a way to send Mudgett careening back into the time plane from which he emerged. When Ottilia finds herself in Mudgett’s clutches with no exit to the present, it is Mad Sturgeon who assists Thad in freeing her from the psychopathic ghost’s grip. Thad sees that the past controlled his life, because he gave it the power to do so. In a replay of American history, the couple seek the rejuvenation that Carol sought in Seattle by going west to Puget Sound themselves, and find that the possibility for a new life does exist in a return to their roots. Excerpt “Harold, what would you say if a 105-year old skeleton with 1993 dental work turned up in a steamer trunk over a hundred years old?” “I’d say an antique dealer had a sideline in grave robbery.” “What about the dental work?” “He was from the Frankenstein School of Grave Robbery. Spare parts from his junk yard of bones.” “Why would he hang expensive jewelry on the skeleton?” “Aw, that’s easy. He had this thing about prettying up his work–kind of like putting mud flaps, whitewall tires and a front hood decoration on a reconditioned car.” “What kinda of guy would do this, supposing it was a man, which usually it is, a white male, that is, in his twenties or thirties?” “A classy guy, I think. A guy who likes his things nice, real nice, high-toned.” “Okay, Carl. That’s good. Murderers are twisted kooks who are out to look like nice guys.” “Yeah, I bet they convince themselves every morning when they look in the mirror, ‘I’m a nice guy; the world just misunderstands me.’ They shit, shower and shave like the rest of us and then go out the door to work, like us normal guys, only their job is to kill some poor innocent girl on her way to her grandmother’s house.” “You got it, Carl.” Carl tried to suppress a self-satisfied smile. Morrison’s order was up, so Carl went to retrieve it from where it waited under a heated lamp on the back counter. “If I were you, Mike,” he said, as he placed the food before him, “I’d start checking out antique dealers. Morrison leisurely chewed the wad of food in his mouth. The rhythm of the chump of his teeth grinding the meat engaged his thought process like gears. He refrained from comment on Carl’s suggestion. An obvious possibility, requiring an extensive and expensive search. The dealer, as well as anyone who had purchased a steamer trunk of that description, would be suspect. It was a place to start until something more promising turned up from the complete forensics report.

Midnight Mind Review
BOOK REVIEW: THE PLUPERFECT PHANTOM Midnight Mind Magazine, No. 4, Sept. 2002 Olivia Diamond’s novel, The Pluperfect Phantom, defies categorization. It doesn’t fit neatly into any commercial slot. That’s because it does so many things at once. It’s a murder mystery. It’s a love story. It’s a ghost story. It’s a Chicago crime novel. It takes the reader down not only the real streets of Chicago, but also through some dark Chicago history. Olivia Diamond’s novel begins with a foreword that puts the novel into perspective: This is a work of fiction. Although historical characters and actual places are used, not all the details correspond to historical fact . . . Dr. Mudgett, known as H.H. Holmes, is taken from Chicago’s crime annals . . . Nuscotnomeg and Black Partridge were Potawatomi Indians. Thad Majeski, Ottilia, Carol, Gary, and Aunt Adele . . . are products of my imagination. The idea for this book came while I was reading extensively about Chicago’s first known serial killer. Only after I had started to incorporate the redoubtable Dr. Herman Mudgett as an apparition into the warp and woof of my novel, did I read biographies or other fictional works using his life as a springboard for the stories. If the reader, too, begins to feel transported into the past, I will be satisfied." The setting of the novel is Chicago ­ not just today but in yesteryear. Fort Dearborn, the stockyards, Oak Street Beach, the Hermitage Avenue Polish neighborhood, Lincoln Park, O’Hare Airport, Grant Park, Montrose Avenue, Jackson Park, Graceland Cemetery, Rogers Park, Waubaunsee Street, and the old Levy District on South Street are some of the places the novel takes us. In its near 400 pages, Olivia Diamond’s novel makes Chicago feel real. Here’s just one of many examples: "The Chicago skyline grayed and loured as the days deepened into Lake November. The elm trees invited a blanket of snow to cover their naked limbs. The first snowfall lurked in the wings, not yet ready to rescue the city from drabness. For some people, this was the time of year when a leap from the Chicago River Bridge might appear to be the cure for all ills. The wind took on a keen edge, cutting the necks and ears of those who refused to fend off the blasts with woolen scarves and hats. Thad held no such resistance, took healthy warning from the steely gray clouds and, as a true Chicago native, donned a fur trimmed Russian style hat to meet the blustery winds." (pp. 134, 135) And who is Thad? Thad Majeski is the main character of the novel. He is a bachelor living quietly in the Polish neighborhood when his world is turned completely upside down by love, murder, paranormal visitations of various apparitions, and time travel into the long ago past of Chicago. Thad is of the real world as is Ottilia, Aunt Adele, Detective Morrison, Manville, Carol and Daniel. Dr. Hermann Mudgett and Black Partridge are visitors from the dead, who have chosen Thad and his journalist girlfriend, Ottilia to "befriend." But befriend is really not the right word because Dr. Herman Mudgett is the legendary scoundrel H.H. Holmes returned from the otherworld. Mad Sturgeon speaks through his skull, kept in Thad's refrigerator. And who is Dr. Mudgett? None other than a mad doctor fond of murdering vulnerable women for their scientific value; i.e. as cadavers. This villainous character does indeed come out of the sordid files of Chicago history. Black Partridge was a warrior at the Fort Dearborn massacre. (Who knew that Dearborn Street was named after this horrendous event?) Aunt Adele is the dear, elderly psychic aunt who holds the book together; she is matchmaker and believer of things seen and unseen. Of course it’s Detective Morrison who has been assigned the case. And what is the case? The disappearance of Carol, Thad’s blast from the past, who has come to visit him in Chicago and ends up mysteriously vanishing. In this novel, ghosts aren’t necessarily friendly. The ghost of Dr. Mudgett is far more than a nuisance; he’s a murderer and seducer of the worst kind. Complicating things further is that the plot involves time travel into the ethereal yet horrific past of Chicago¹s most notorious serial killer. Adding to the spice is a gay neighbor, a love story, and a pregnancy that leaves the reader wondering "Whodunnit?" This is a tale of spiritwalkers intrigue, creepy chilling mystery, love, friendship and history all wickedly thrown together in that witch’s brew called Chicago. It’s a strange, old-fashioned, peppy ghost story with an ending that keeps you wondering whether there will be a sequel.