
There are worse places an Ivy Leaguer, desperate to restore a tattered academic career, can pass the mist-shrouded New England autumn of his senior year. There is serenity on the secluded fourth floor of the cavernous stone dormitory, marred only by the occasional echoed footfall...

-- Abandon is a commercial ghost story with literary underpinnings -- a combination that has worked very well for such writers as diverse as Stephen King and Patrick McGrath.