With his debut, A HISTORY OF FEAR, Luke Dumas hit a home run. He took the thriller/horror novel and infused it with a feel of classic literary fiction, resulting in a stunning and compelling read. Now, with THE PALEONTOLOGIST, Dumas has surpassed the promise of that first effort with a book that feels like a fusion of Michael Crichton and Stephen King.

Dr. Simon Nealy is your quintessential science nerd. Bespectacled and weighing a mere 105 pounds with a lifelong love of dinosaur bones, he is ready to take on the job he was made for --- paleontologist at the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History in Pennsylvania. The trouble is that he is starting his new gig during the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum is closed, and the only humans working there are the custodian and the occasional security guard. More dauntingly, Simon is stepping into a pair of rather big shoes. His predecessor, Dr. Albert Mueller, is a world-renowned paleontologist and a man of many secrets, one of which surrounds his sudden disappearance.

"THE PALEONTOLOGIST is a tremendously entertaining book that I could not easily shake. Dumas provides such an original take on horror that it practically begs to fall within its own special genre."

With rumors of the museum being haunted and filled with hidden spaces and rooms, Simon has a lot to investigate as he attempts to settle into his new role and make a name for himself. When he was six years old, his sister Morgan was kidnapped and never found. A deeper dive into the facts of the case, along with much soul-searching in his own past, leads him to believe that she may have been abducted at the museum and that Mueller was involved. Furthermore, Simon is convinced that he himself may have been a target as well. Now he has to find out why.

Simon is not surprised when he begins to turn up strange notes and messages that appear to be directed at him: “I WANT YOUR BONES” and “Banish it to hell --- there will she find her brother.” He also uncovers Mueller’s personal journals and is especially interested in the passages involving his most famous find --- a potential new breed of dinosaur that Mueller nicknamed “Theo.”

Simon uses his wit and cunning to look in all the right places, as well as following along with the journal, to locate Theo’s hidden skeletal remains. His bosses at the museum now see a potential grand reopening featuring their enormous find. They put him on a tight, near-impossible deadline to get Theo ready for display.

During this time, odd and inexplicable things happen at the museum, including vandalism, break-ins and more supernatural overtones. Simon becomes fixated on Mueller’s journal entries and believes more than ever that the secret behind Morgan’s abduction must lie within the museum. He even gets the local P.D. to work with him on these deductions of his purely due to the fact that his sister’s disappearance has always been a red mark in the town’s history.

Simon’s obsession grows into near-madness, and he starts to believe that the bones of all the dinosaurs on display are haunted, quite possibly by spirits that include Morgan.

THE PALEONTOLOGIST is a tremendously entertaining book that I could not easily shake. Dumas provides such an original take on horror that it practically begs to fall within its own special genre. Readers are provided with enough chills to keep them looking over their shoulder and are exposed to a plethora of ancient science. It is impossible not to be enthralled by this gripping novel.