Lost Boy Lost Girl (2003)

''The only person who sees dead people is Haley Joely Osmond, or whatever his name is,'' Mark Underhill's best friend tells him, but that doesn't stop 15-year-old Mark from poking around a spooky abandoned building in search of spirits who might explain his mother's suicide. Straub's first novel since ''Black House,'' his brilliant 2001 collaboration with Stephen King, freshens shopworn horror elements -- an undead young girl, a haunted house, a serial killer -- with an inventive structure (incorporating e-mails and journal entries), masterfully fleshed-out characters, and real emotional content. As a result, ''lost boy lost girl'' proves much more than just a ghost story: Straub puts the natural back in supernatural.