A good introduction to John Saul

books:


	• In the Dark of the Night: A Novel John Saul Ballantine Books, 2007 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 41 reviews view larger image
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It's okay

This is the second book I've read by John Saul, the other being "Creature", I know he's written better one's that this but for some reason it just grabbed me. As I've seen in other reviews it does take too long for anything to get started about 110 pages. And it did still leave alot of questions and holes in the plot but overall it was entertaining enough to keep me coming back. I'd recommend this for other people who are fans of horror but they can skip right to page 100.

Compelling yet lacking in areas

After reading the novel, I must admit that the ending does not measure up to the finale I was expecting. Saul's idea of using serial killer's objects to possess their spirits, and then transmit those feelings/emotions to those unfortuante enough to handle the objects, was compelling. I honestly couldn't put the book down, once the three teens entered the carriage room and discovered the items. Still, I was waiting for a better ending. Saul created a roller coaster of a book, complete with the suspensful and long rise to the top. Once the coaster got going,I was fully entertained, yet at the end, I felt a tad bit cheated. The ending is obviously one of the most difficult parts of a book to compose. Saul left the reader feeling unfulfilled and wanting more.

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HE'S DONE IT AGAIN!

I have read just about everything John Saul has written and this was as terrific as the others. I could not put it down and read it in a little less than three days. Highly recommended to all John Saul followers. S.L. Chessor author of Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers and My Tongue Fell Out. Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers: A Poetry Collection

A good introduction to John Saul

3 best friends are looking forward to their upcoming summer vacation in The Pines, a vacation community on the cusp of Phantom lake. Tad and Kent and their families take the trip every year. When the infamous PineCrest house becomes available for rent, their families convince Eric's family to rent the summer vacation house to join them in their summer fun on the lake. After some convincing of his Agoraphobic mother, they agree. The three friends are ecstatic to be spending the summer together.

Pine Crest is an old Victorian Gothic house that reminds them all of a haunted house, whose previous owner , Dr. Darby mysteriously disappeared 7 years prior. It has since been empty. When the boys arrive, and begin to explore portions of the house's carriage house, they begin to find secrets they will soon regret exploring. Time spent in the room seems to pass quickly, as they continue to search for the secrets of PineCrest. As the semi-subconscious voices they hear continue to lure them into the room, things seem to be awakened in the town that had been asleep for many years.

I don't wish to further venture into any plots or storylines, not wanting to spoil the read for anyone.

Between the well written story writing, and Mel Foster's voice characterizations in the audio book, In The Dark of the Night is an entertaining listen. It serves as a good introduction to John Saul, as it was for me.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Summer vacation becomes a season in hell for an ordinary family who unwittingly stir something invisible, insidious, and insatiable from its secret slumber?unleashing a wave of horror only the darkest evil could create, that only a master of spine-tingling terror like John Saul could orchestrate. For deep in the shadows in the dark of the night lurks something as big as life . . . and as real as death.

It has waited seven years for someone to come back to the rambling lakeside house called Pinecrest, which has stood empty since its last owner went missing. For upscale Chicago couple Dan and Merrill Brewster, the old midwestern manse is an ideal retreat, and for their kids, Eric and Marci, it?s the perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring. Which is how Eric and his teenage friends discover the curious cache of discarded objects stowed in a hidden room of Pinecrest?s carriage house. The bladeless hacksaws, shadeless lamps, tables with missing legs, headless axe handle, and other unremarkable items add up to a pile of junk. Yet someone took the trouble to inventory each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger. It has all the makings of a great mystery?whispering, coaxing, demanding to be solved.

But the more the boys devote themselves to restoring the forgotten possessions and piecing together the puzzle behind them, the more their fascination deepens into obsession. Soon their days are consumed with tending the strange, secret collection?while their nights become plagued by ever more ghastly dreams, nightmares that soon seep into reality. And when a horrifying discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth?about the terrifying events that rocked the town seven years before, the mysterious disappearance of Pinecrest?s last resident, and a twisted legacy with a malevolent life of its own . . . and a bottomless hunger for new victims.

From the Hardcover edition.

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