THE PALEONTOLOGIST
USA Today Bestseller | 2024 ITW Thriller Award Winner
Esquire Best Horror Books of 2023 Pick | Barnes & Noble Monthly Pick | Amazon Editor’s Pick | 2024 Silver Falchion Award Finalist for Best SupernaturalNOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK, EBOOK & AUDIO
A haunted paleontologist returns to the museum where his sister was abducted years earlier and is faced with a terrifying and murderous spirit in this chilling novel—perfect for fans of Simone St. James and Katy Hays.
Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent break-up and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished, in search of the bones they never found.
But from the moment he arrives, things aren’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin, still closed amid the ongoing pandemic, and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can’t explain. Strange animal sounds. Bloody footprints that no living creature could have left. A prehistoric killer looming in the shadows of the museum. Terrified he’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery 150 million years in the making that could be the answer to everything.
Are these the ravings of a madman? Or is there something supernatural at play? And what does this have to do with Morgan’s disappearance?
Another atmospheric mystery from Luke Dumas, The Paleontologist is a ghost story unlike any other that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
Raves and Reviews
“I read The Paleontologist. It scared the shit out of me!”
— Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
“‘Night of the Living Dead’ set at Jurassic Park . . . erudite, atmospheric and at times genuinely creepy—a book to be read in bed, with the covers pulled tight.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Well-rendered characters and an original premise distinguish Dumas’s unnerving second thriller. Fans of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Relic will relish this suspenseful and moving page-turner.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A moving, sorrowful story of secrecy, institutional rot, and the everlasting power of love and loss that even geological eons cannot diminish. The Paleontologist is a mixture of sober Gothic and B-movie flamboyance. It’s a family drama, a crime procedural, and a social critique, but did I mention the GHOST DINOSAURS?!”
— Esquire
“Attention, please, Blumhouse: here’s your next blockbuster. The Paleontologist is Night at the Museum as reimagined by Michael Crichton and Stephen King – an extravagantly fun creature-feature, a shivery haunted-house chiller, and an unexpectedly moving meditation on grief.”
— A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
“If you fancy scientific curiosities and scares, or know a grown-up who’s still a dinosaur nerd, this book could be for you . . . unnerving.”
— The Australian
“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. It is impossible not to be enthralled by this gripping novel.”
— BookReporter
“A cross between Night at the Museum and Jurassic Park with a dash of Poltergeist, The Paleontologist will chill you to the bone and terrorize your dreams. Luke Dumas has crafted a harrowing tale that’s scary enough to make you stop reading, but curious enough to force you to keep going.”
— Best Thriller Books
“A delicious and intense psychological thriller with just enough supernatural to have horror overtones. If ‘Night at the Museum’ meets The Shining with a heavy Jurassic Park influence has an appeal, then this is the book for you. Be prepared for surprises the whole way.”
— Barnes & Noble