The Seeker: A Mystery at Walden Pond

I was intrigued by everything I had read about this book by R.B.Chesterton, but ultimately I was disappointed and did not finish the whole book. It is essentially a ghost story set in Concord/ Walden Pond, MA during the fall and winter. Aine Cahill is a doctoral student from Brandeis who is set to break things open with the revelation that Thoreau did not spend his time at Walden Pond alone, but was cohabiting with a woman--Aine's great great great aunt Bonnie. Aine's proof is Bonnie's journal which was mailed to her anonymously. Aine keeps searching local historical records but can find no proof of Bonnie's existence, much less any mention of her in Thoreau's heavily philosophical and emotionally spotless writings. She is staying at a cabin behind an inn to give her the isolation she needs to write. She meets a park ranger, Joe, who was formerly a school teacher, but left town after one of his students went missing in the woods. There was no evidence to say he had anything to do with the disappearance, but the gossip mill made life unbearable. He only returned to care for a dying mother. Then a drug addicted former girlfriend of Joe's shows up and makes life crazy scarey for Aine by physically attacking her twice. Aine comes from a long line of brutal and crazy people and was sent away by a grandmother to boarding school to give her a chance at a normal life. But as time progresses and Aine realizes that she is the only one to see a young girl haunting the Walden woods (all puns intended), she realizes her "second sight" is gaining in strength and she doesn't know how to control it. The child, who matches the description of the missing child from 10 years ago, torments Aine with sinister threats and deeds. When this all started to feel incredibly repetitive (about 200 pages in), I skipped to the last few pages and found things only got worse. Kirkus Reviews puts it this way, "Chesterton—a pen name of the well-known Carolyn Haines—deftly blends the supernatural and the historical, but she offers little resolution to an intriguing conceit." Done.