In the Night Room
Peter Straub
Random House, Oct 2004, $21.95, 330 pp.
ISBN: 1400062527

Willy Patrick should be ecstatic as she has found love again with wealthy businessman Michael Faber, especially since he has moved her into his mini-mansion in Hendersonia, New Jersey. Still, the young adult author has some issues. For instance, she has to fight herself from busting into a warehouse where she feels her dead daughter waits for her. Defeating the compulsion, Willy returns to her new home only to find pictures of her deceased spouse in a box in Michael's study, a room she had never entered before.

Stunned, she flees to New York. She enters a Barnes & Noble bookstore where horror author Timothy Underhill is providing a reading. Timothy's life has been unsettled of late since he saw his dead sister's ghost, communicated by email with a being from another dimension, and met an angry angel. When Timothy sees Willy, he recognizes her as the key person to fight the evil waiting for them in the house of a deceased serial killer in their hometown of Millhaven.

Not since GHOST STORY and the TALISMAN has Peter Straub written a more terrifying and chilling horror novel than IN THE NIGHT ROOM. The tale uses characters from LOST BOY, LOST GIRL and weaves them into a future story. The protagonist "wrote" that novel, but made a glaring error that needs correction so that there is no leakage between dimensions that could cause a pandemic. Readers will feel for Timothy as he has to pay a steep price to rectify his transgressions. Mr. Straub is at the top of his game with this powerful pathos and poignant tale.

Harriet Klausner