Overview

WINNER of the Dan Poynter Global Ebook Awards - Gold Medal - for Best Mystery Fiction 2025 WINNER of The BookFest - Silver ★★★★★ - for Best Literary: Mystery, Thriller and Suspense 2025 WINNER of the Author Shout Book Awards - Top Pick 2025 "" A__H A U N T I N G__H I S T O R I C A L__M A S T E R P I E C E "" - Reader Views ★★★★★ "" M I N D - B E N D I N G "" - Forward Clarion Reviews ★★★★ "" E L E C T R I F Y I N G "" - BestThrillers Reviews (Highly Recommened!) "" I N T E N S E "" - BookLife "" H Y P N O T I C "" - Chanticleer Reviews ★★★★★ "" G R I P P I N G "" - Readers' Favorite ★★★★★ "" M E S M E R I Z I N G "" - Self-Publishing Reviews ★★★★ "" E V O C A T I V E "" - Kirkus Reviews (OUR VERDICT: ✓ GET IT) An attorney investigates a mysterious hippie who has been named his friend's sole heir, leading to a dangerous obsession in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. A H i p p i e N o i r What should an attorney do when, out of the blue, his best friend pressures him to draw up a will leaving his entire estate to a no-good hippie? A good-for-nothing hippie no one ever heard of. Investigate! That's what he should do. But his good friend not only rejects this advice but forces the attorney to make a solemn promise never to investigate the cryptic hippie beneficiary under any circumstances - not ever. The attorney finds this bizarre. Perhaps his friend is the victim of some kind of nefarious plot...? So, he decides to break his promise and follow the rogue hippie on one of his nocturnal escapades into the Haight-Ashbury. The attorney, disturbed by what he witnessed in the Haight - and wanting to save his friend from himself - now becomes obsessed with a single purpose: to unmask the debauched hippie as a provocateur flirting with fraud, blackmail and (it becomes more conceivable by the day!) murder. The Attorney - Mild-mannered, polite, pleasant to be around. But when he becomes convinced his best friend will be murdered by a mysterious hippie, he becomes obsessed with uncovering the hippie's true identity and intentions, throwing all caution and reason to the wind. The attorney's friend, a Medical Researcher - Sophisticated, erudite, sensitive and empathetic. But turns inexplicably angry and vindictive when he learns his attorney has betrayed his solemn promise not to investigate a certain hippie, the new sole benefactor of his will. The Hippie - Brooding, mysterious, and dark. He wears colorful hippie garb, but unlike the carefree hippies, his clothing oddly seems to be tailer-made. He grins a lot, but you wonder if it's because he's about to lunge for your throat.

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9781967227051

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Reviews

""An electrifying debut that is part murder mystery, part psychological thriller, and most of all, a memorable plunge into the dark soul of the Summer of Love... Themes of transformation, identity, and corruption ripple through the novel... This descent into philosophical madness is paralleled by the city... where innocence is devoured under the guise of freedom."" -BestThrillers.com ""Longfellow's belief that Youngblood is a hipster-and his mistrust of that potential status-accentuates the ideological clashes that defined the '60s subculture, playing out in scenes where Longfellow steals through the fog-lined streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in pursuit of an ""indigo plush velvet"" clad Youngblood who is frequenting midnight raves... [An] Intense, layered thriller with startling atmosphere."" -BookLife Reviews ""Forget the peace signs and flower crowns. This isn't a nostalgic romp through Haight-Ashbury. It's a slow-burning gothic mystery where the air smells of something rotting just beneath the incense, and reality unravels one eerie page at a time... it creates a dense atmosphere that allows the reader to feel the dread. If you like stories where a seemingly rational world starts to fray at the edges-where one must question not only the nature of the villain but that of reality itself-then The Summer of Haight... might be your kind of delirium. It's haunting, heady, and more than a little hypnotic."" -Chanticleer Reviews ★★★★★ ""The Summer of Haight is a gripping tale full of suspense and intrigue. Author George Petersen teases the reader until the end by layering the narrative with a hint of the supernatural. It enhances the mystery and builds an atmosphere of tension and anticipation that is immersive."" -Readers' Favorite ★★★★★ ""Mesmerizing, deviant, and steeped in counterculture madness... a mind-bending odyssey through the depths of debauchery, careening from smoke-laced basements and feverish dance floors to clandestine stakeouts, harems of impish flower girls, and the iconic Human Be-In of 1967... Dancing at the edge of magical realism with its drug-induced drama... this is a farcical tour de force that never takes itself too seriously, nor fully shows its cards... the novel crackles with tongue-in-cheek mischief, as if John Kennedy Toole, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Wolfe conspired to craft a flashback classic... Youngblood is a masterfully drawn character, a puckish trickster who swerves between mystical and malevolent, perpetually leaving readers one step behind his motives and true nature... Beyond the deliriously weird plot, the novel's explorations of self-discovery and bold boundary pushing are inspiring. This is a visionary, sometimes hallucinatory work of fiction, cleverly layered with nostalgia, philosophy, comedy, noirish drama, and a deliciously odd plot that revels in its eccentricity."" -Self-Publishing Reviews ★★★★ ""The intriguing historical mystery novel The Summer of Haight is narrated with an undercurrent of surrealism. In George Petersen's whimsical mystery novel, The Summer of Haight, 1960s San Francisco is subjected to intrigue and otherworldliness... The Summer of Haight is a mind-bending mystery novel set amid eerie gray areas and unsettling cultural phenomena."" -Forward Clarion Reviews ★★★★ ""Petersen's novel offers a winning Summer of Love take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... this story is fleet-footed, moving quickly from scene to scene in short chapters in which the author displays an impressive command of atmosphere... A smart and fast-paced hippie noir."" -Kirkus Reviews

""The Summer of Haight is a haunting historical masterpiece, with elements of psychological suspense, some gothic mystery amid 1967 counterculture in San Francisco. Readers who enjoy a slow-burn unraveling narrative in similar works like Matt Haig's The Midnight Library or Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic will find The Summer of Haight to be unforgettable."" -Reader Views ★★★★★ ""An electrifying debut that is part murder mystery, part psychological thriller, and most of all, a memorable plunge into the dark soul of the Summer of Love... Themes of transformation, identity, and corruption ripple through the novel... This descent into philosophical madness is paralleled by the city... where innocence is devoured under the guise of freedom."" --BestThrillers.com ""This isn't a nostalgic romp through Haight-Ashbury. It's a slow-burning gothic mystery where the air smells of something rotting just beneath the incense, and reality unravels one eerie page at a time... it creates a dense atmosphere that allows the reader to feel the dread... It's haunting, heady, and more than a little hypnotic."" --Chanticleer Reviews ★★★★★ ""The Summer of Haight is a gripping tale full of suspense and intrigue. Author George Petersen teases the reader until the end by layering the narrative with a hint of the supernatural. It enhances the mystery and builds an atmosphere of tension and anticipation that is immersive."" --Readers' Favorite ★★★★★ ""Mesmerizing, deviant, and steeped in counterculture madness... a mind-bending odyssey through the depths of debauchery, careening from smoke-laced basements and feverish dance floors to clandestine stakeouts, harems of impish flower girls, and the iconic Human Be-In of 1967... Dancing at the edge of magical realism with its drug-induced drama... this is a farcical tour de force that never takes itself too seriously, nor fully shows its cards... the novel crackles with tongue-in-cheek mischief, as if John Kennedy Toole, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Wolfe conspired to craft a flashback classic... Youngblood is a masterfully drawn character, a puckish trickster who swerves between mystical and malevolent, perpetually leaving readers one step behind his motives and true nature... Beyond the deliriously weird plot, the novel's explorations of self-discovery and bold boundary pushing are inspiring. This is a visionary, sometimes hallucinatory work of fiction, cleverly layered with nostalgia, philosophy, comedy, noirish drama, and a deliciously odd plot that revels in its eccentricity."" --Self-Publishing Reviews ★★★★ ""The intriguing historical mystery novel The Summer of Haight is narrated with an undercurrent of surrealism. In George Petersen's whimsical mystery novel, The Summer of Haight, 1960s San Francisco is subjected to intrigue and otherworldliness... The Summer of Haight is a mind-bending mystery novel set amid eerie gray areas and unsettling cultural phenomena."" --Forward Clarion Reviews ★★★★ ""Petersen's novel offers a winning Summer of Love take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... this story is fleet-footed, moving quickly from scene to scene in short chapters in which the author displays an impressive command of atmosphere... A smart and fast-paced hippie noir."" --Kirkus Reviews (OUR VERDICT: ✓ GET IT)

5 Stars! Highly Recommended! Chanticleer Book Reviews THE SUMMER Of HAIGHT by George Petersen - Surreal Fiction, 1960s, Literary Fiction, Absurdist Fiction, Magic Realism In The Summer of Haight, George Petersen opens a doorway into the hallucinatory dreamscape of 1967 San Francisco, where the counterculture's bright ideals are shadowed by something far more sinister. Forget the peace signs and flower crowns. This isn't a nostalgic romp through Haight-Ashbury. It's a slow-burning gothic mystery where the air smells of something rotting just beneath the incense, and reality unravels one eerie page at a time. The Summer of Haight centers on Longfellow, a straight-laced, impeccably dressed British lawyer living in San Francisco. He's logical, loyal, and just rigid enough to feel like he's constantly one step out of place in the groovy chaos of 1960s counterculture. His best friend, the brilliant and eccentric scientist Dr. Jonathan St. Amour, seems to be riding high-hosting elite parties, building a private laboratory under his Victorian mansion, and showing off his mysterious new pet cat, Zelda, who wears a custom-cut diamond in the shape of a cat's eye. Things start to tilt sideways when Jonathan suddenly asks Longfellow to draft a new will-one that leaves everything to a man named Dr. Asmodeus Youngblood. This 'Youngblood' is nobody Longfellow has ever met, and Jonathan refuses to introduce them. In fact, he makes Longfellow promise not to investigate him. Naturally, this only makes Longfellow more suspicious. What follows is a descent into something much stranger than legal drama. Youngblood isn't just a mystery; he's a walking contradiction, a man who looks like a flamboyant hippie but moves with something menacing in his step. He sleeps during the day, unnerves everyone in the house, and seems to have an unnatural hold over Jonathan. Even Zelda is terrified of him. As Longfellow breaks his promise and trails Youngblood through the fog-choked streets of the Haight, the novel morphs into a fever dream. There are LSD-drenched parties, glowing body paint, hallucinatory visions, and ominous signs that Youngblood may not be entirely human. The scenes at the Fillmore Auditorium-strobe-lit nudity and shadowy faceless figures-feel like a cross between Eyes Wide Shut and a haunted lava lamp. At one point, the atmosphere turns almost otherworldly: ""Wide-eyed and anxious, I climbed the stairs to the auditorium, a red apple in one hand, a bright yellow balloon in the other... Janis Joplin belted out 'Summertime' on stage... tie-dye backdrops bathed in luminous liquid colors... A puppeteer hung a life-size marionette from the balcony so it could dance with the flower girls on the floor below..."" Despite the surrealism, The Summer of Haight is also about aging, longing, and identity. Jonathan's longing to be young again, to break free from the restrictions of respectability and embrace something primordial, is familiar but also terrifying. Readers will find the story clearly depicts how simple it is to lose oneself while pursuing the illusion of independence. The prose is moody, poetic, and at times playfully gothic. There's fog, firelight, hidden blades, secret cellars, and symbolic snakes. But the pace is deliberate; it doesn't sprint. Rather, it creates a dense atmosphere that allows the reader to feel the dread. If you like stories where a seemingly rational world starts to fray at the edges-where one must question not only the nature of the villain but that of reality itself-then The Summer of Haight by George Petersen might be your kind of delirium. It's haunting, heady, and more than a little hypnotic.

Author Information

George Petersen is the award-winning author of The Summer of Haight, a Dan Poynter Global Ebook Awards Gold Medal Winner for Mystery Fiction 2025, The BookFest - Silver ★★★★★ - Winner for Best Literary: Mystery, Thriller and Suspense 2025, the Author Shout Book Awards - Top Pick 2025 and the award-winning screenwriter of Scatterbrained, Best Comedy at Creative World Awards 2025, and Surfing Grandpa, Best Family at StoryPros Awards 2025. Petersen holds a M.A. Degree in film and television, emphasis on screenwriting, from San Diego State University. He has been the owner and operator of George Petersen Productions in San Diego for over forty years. He was the original Screenwriting Book Reviewer for Creative Screenwriting Magazine. As a member of the Professional Photographers of America, he studied under the environmental portrait photographer, Arnold Newman. He has studied Motion Picture Production Techniques at the UCLA Film School and taught at UCSD Extension and St. Mary's College of California Extension. His screenplays have won over one hundred finalist awards, consistently ranking among the Top 1% in screenplay competitions. He lives in San Diego.The Summer of Haight is his first novella.

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