conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled December Park about King, Although, Maryland with the genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Some novelists find something that works and stick with it for years; others like to jump around, experimenting with genres and writing styles. the author appears to be one of the latter. Although most of his novels fall into the thriller, horror, or sf genre, they are stylistically quite different. This one, about a group of teenage friends living in a Maryland beach community from which some children have gone missing, feels a bit like Stephen King crossed with Dennis Lehanespecifically, the early portions of Kings It melded with Lehanes Mystic River. But, just as Lehane doesnt sound very much like King, so the author doesnt sound much like either of them. He has his own voice, and hes telling his own story, one that begins with some disappearances, segues into murder, and ends with a violent confrontation. the author is a man of many voices, a sort of literary version of Mel Blanc (the man of a thousand voices), but all of his voices are captivating, though none of them quite the same. Horror and crime fans will find much to like here. --David Pitt
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: --David Pitt. the author appears to be one of the latter. Although most of his novels fall into the thriller, horror, or sf genre, they are stylistically quite different. This one, about a group of teenage friends living in a Maryland beach community from which some children have gone missing, feels a bit like Stephen King crossed with Dennis Lehanespecifically, the early portions of Kings It melded with Lehanes Mystic River. But, just as Lehane doesnt sound very much like King, so the author doesnt sound much like either of them. He has his own voice, and hes telling his own story, one that begins with some disappearances, segues into murder, and ends with a violent confrontation. the author is a man of many voices, a sort of literary version of Mel Blanc (the man of a thousand voices), but all of his voices are captivating, though none of them quite the same. Horror and crime fans will find much to like here.Some novelists find something that works and stick with it for years; others like to jump around, experimenting with genres and writing styles.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: December Park
  By the time I was ready to leave the house, my grandparents had retired to the den to watch television. I kissed them both on the tops of their heads before slipping out into the night. I had a cigarette between my lips before I reached the end of the flagstone walk. I fished my dirt bike out from the dense wall of ivy that clung to the side of our house and hopped on, my feet quick to pedal, my backside never touching the seat.
  It was jarringly cold. The residential streets were dark and poorly lit, and there were hardly any cars on the road. Deciding to take the shortcut instead of sticking to the main roads, I rolled up the Mathersons' driveway, cut across their lawn, and whipped through a stand of hemlock trees that loomed tall and dark against the backdrop of night.
  A moment later, I was thudding along a dirt path through the woods, my bike rattling while my teeth chattered. The woods here weren't too dense, letting the occasional porch lights shine through the thicket so that I felt like Magellan being guided by stars. I'd used this shortcut an inexhaustible number of times in the past, typically at night, but it was never the same. The woods were always moving, always shifting.
  I cleared the trees at a fine pace, bursting out onto an open field. It was mostly scrubland and unkempt bluegrass, but it made for tough negotiation on a weary, tire-bald dirt bike. To the east, the field sloped gradually down into a small valley surrounded by more woods. A small white farmhouse, abandoned for as long as I'd known it, sat in the center of this valley, obscured on this night by a heavy veil of mist. All I could make out was the light of the solitary streetlamp on the edge of the property, boring an eerie pinpoint of yellow illumination through the fog.
  My friends and I called it the Werewolf House, because it looked just like the run-down cottage in a werewolf movie we'd seen a few years ago at the Juniper.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Police discovered the backpack of Howard Matthew Holt, 13, yesterday evening in the woods off Magothy Road in the section of Harting Farms known locally as the Cape. Holt was reported missing June 1 by his mother, Susan Holt, when the boy failed to return home from school.
  Police said the backpack was discovered after conducting a thorough search of the area surrounding Cape Middle School and the route Holt would have taken to walk home. Holt's mother had informed police that it was a route her son had taken every day to and from school, usually with a group of his friends.
  The backpack was discovered in a shallow section of woods beside Magothy Road in view of some tenements and a small park, police said. The backpack was searched, then sent to a laboratory for analysis. According to police, it is too early to determine if the backpack contains any evidence that would assist police in uncovering what has happened to the boy.
  Howard Matthew Holt, 13, of Harting Farms, Maryland, has been missing since June 1. Holt's disappearance marks the sixth adolescent to vanish from the streets of the small bayside community since last August. Fears about a child predator were finally confirmed last October when the body of Harting Farms resident Courtney Cole, 15, was found bludgeoned to death in a wooded area off one of the city's main thoroughfares. To date, no other bodies have been found.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Scott came right up the center, his long legs pumping effortlessly, his Orioles cap turned backward. He wore a pair of black cargo shorts and his Oh Shit Shark Shirt despite the chill in the air.
  Doing a fine job keeping pace, Adrian rode along with them on my bike, seemingly unsteady at first but slowly gaining confidence. Dangling from a length of shoelace around his neck was a small heart-shaped locket.
  When we reached McKinsey, my dad glanced up and saw them all in the rearview mirror. He laughed, then reached over and rubbed the back of my head. I turned around in the passenger seat, watching them through the back window, my eyes brimming with tears. My dad slowed as we crossed the highway so my friends could keep up.
  As the distance between us became greater and greater, I leaned out of the window and waved at them with both hands. Tears streamed from my eyes.
  And that was how I chose to remember them, with the sunlight shimmering off Michael's army helmet, with Scott fanning his Orioles cap high above his head, with Peter's hair a fiery red beneath the noonday sun, and with Adrian waving at me almost timidly as the distance between us grew. I hung on to them for as long as I could until they were nothing more than ghosts against the backdrop of.