John Saul In the Dark of the Night

In the Dark of the Night

John Saul

Ballantine, Aug 2006, $25.95

ISBN: 0345487018

Seven years ago in Phantom Lake, Wisconsin Dr. Hector Darby vanished. His house remained empty all that time until now. Dan and Merrill Brewster decide that a summer outside of their home in Chicago would be great fun for them and their two children, Eric and Marci. They rent unseen the sprawling blackened Pinecrest, former home of Dr. Darby.

At first sight, Merrill feels fear up and down her spine, but Dan and the kids persuade she is being silly. Not long afterward, Eric and his friends Kent and Tad uncover a bricked in hidden room in the nearby carriage house; inside it is eerie as the room is filled with surgical instruments, medical records, broken furniture, assorted other junk and textbooks as well as bizarre items collected by Dr. Darby related to his research into serial killers all catalogued in a ledger. As the boys hear weird voices and suffer nightmares, it is back after a seven year hiatus itching for a new encounter.

What is most fascinating about John Saul's superb haunted house thriller is that the audience knows what terrifying event will happen next in the plot yet somehow the author manages to constantly frighten the reader. The support cast is solid whether they are family or local while the three male teens are at the center of the tale as they uncover the clues about the house in daylight, but learn the secrets of Pinecrest IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT.

Harriet Klausner