This entire thing is filled with whiny spoilers.

That ending. I was disappointed, then thought he redeemed himself with the sad ending, then he went all WTF. I still enjoyed the book. But I got the feeling Malfi had a hard time picking the way to end things. So, why not ALL the endings?

I liked the sad ending. Narrator was a nutter, guilt-ridden and overcompensating for his own brother's death. Elijah's death was a horrible accident. The police were trying to protect two people they knew were innocent of wrong-doing. Travis was causing immense pain to the community and Elijah's family. That would have been the best twisty ending.

The book had a horrible set up. Why would Adam recommend that his brother, Travis, purchase a home in which a child has recently died in a way that closely resembles the death of their own brother. Adam also neglects to tell his brother about the death, despite knowing that Travis holds himself culpable, and has had two nervous breakdowns over their younger brother's death. It really made no sense.

Okay, despite being fun to read, this was a bad mystery. It's also not horror. There wasn't a scary moment. ( )

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/123980319?book_show_action=false&from_... ( )

Another great one by Malfi. If you haven't read this author, you are missing out. ( )

I finished reading this with my Shelfari horror group on Friday. I've been mulling it over for a few days and this is what I came up with.

Floating Staircase is a well written tale about Travis Glasgow, a man who is haunted. Haunted by his new home and the things that may have been done there and haunted by the death of his brother, (which occurred when they were both very young). On top of all that, he is struggling to feel worthy in the eyes of his remaining brother, who is a cop. We join Travis as he tries to unravel these mysteries, while at the same time trying to come to terms over what happened to his brother all those years ago.

This was an atmospheric tale, but not quite as atmospheric as I would have liked. While I enjoyed the characters and felt for them, (most especially Elijah and Veronica), I didn't feel that this story offered anything new or original to the genre. I guess that's hard to do with things being as they are in the publishing world, but I do think this story needed that little extra something to boost it over the wall of the merely average. With that in mind, I rated this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to a 4 for the quality of the writing. While this is no Shirley Jackson type of tale, I do recommend it for fans of hauntings and mysteries-you could do much worse. ( )

This book was great and I finished it within a matter of days. Everything you want a horror novel to be. ( )