In the Dark of the Night: A Novel [Hardcover]

John Saul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this unoriginal but undeniably creepy horror chiller from bestseller Saul (Perfect Nightmare), Eric Brewster and two high school pals, Kent Newell and Tad Sparks, are looking forward to a summer vacation with their families in picturesque Phantom Lake, Wis. The Brewsters have rented Pinecrest, an age-blackened old house once the home of Dr. Hector Darby, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances seven years before. Eric's mother, Merrill, has a bad feeling about the house, as well she should, but the rest of the family is insistent, so she goes along with the plan. Once at Pinecrest, Eric and friends discover a secret room in the carriage house, a room filled with deadly surgical instruments, medical files, books and artifacts relating to Dr. Darby's research into the minds of serial killers. The boys begin to hear strange voices and experience terrifying dreams. Or are the dreams real? It's more YA novel than adult, but Saul has been in the business long enough to know how to send shivers up the spines of readers of any age. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With twelfth grade looming, Eric Brewster is finally getting to join lifelong buddies Kent and Tad at the northern Wisconsin lake on which their parents rent summer homes every year. Despite Eric's worrywart mom, Eric's dad commits to a restored mansion as right next to Eric's friend's places as 10-acre lots allow. Of course, a boathouse accompanies the manse, as does a carriage house that irresistibly draws the three boys. There's one further accompaniment in the form of a shaggy recluse, a former mental patient, who trolls the lake at night in a rowboat fitted out with a cross at the bow. The night rower knew the former tenant, a specialist in criminal insanity who disappeared nine years ago, after which the rower stowed the psychiatrist's most important stuff in--the carriage house! He bricked up the door of the room he put it in, but his handiwork is no bar to curious Eric, Kent, and Tad. Whenever they're in the carriage house, they lose track of time, and the more they discover, the worse dreams they have, and all dream the same, gruesome things. Resolving itself in mayhem on the Fourth of July, Saul's latest is another of his kids-in-spooky-trouble thrillers, not as good as Black Creek Crossing (2004), perhaps, but exerting a certain Hardy Boys charm. Great beach reading, especially for those days when a chill would be oh so welcome. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034548701X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345487018
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,370,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

House of Reckoning is John Saul's thirty-sixth novel. His first novel, Suffer the Children, published in 1977, was an immediate million-copy bestseller. His other bestselling suspense novels include Faces of Fear, In the Dark of the Night, Perfect Nightmare, Black Creek Crossing, Midnight Voices, The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, The Homing, and Guardian. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling serial thriller The Blackstone Chronicles, initially published in six installments but now available in one complete volume. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Hawaii.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting premise that Saul isn't able to fulfill, August 7, 2006

By 

Derek Jager (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Dark of the Night: A Novel (Hardcover)

(SPOILER WARNING)

The idea of items that serial killers use containing a leftover "evil" power is a great idea. But Saul doesn't really use it much--he could have had the boys become "possessed" by the spirits of Lizzie Borden, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, et al. But nothing really happens to the premise and the book concludes with "Lizzie" running amuck. (In fact, this was the real flaw in the book because the axe she was accussed of using was NEVER found.)

And other than the subject matter, this is really a YA novel -- the main characters are teenagers and the secondary story -- "townies" versus the "summer boys" -- is merely filler and goes nowhere.

Would have been much more interesting to see the ADULTS become slowly obsessed with the items. Again, interesting idea, just doesn't work.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to John Saul, April 26, 2008

By 

Sick Daddy "Sick Daddy" (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: In the Dark of the Night (Audio CD)

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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrorizing the teens, August 10, 2008

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: In the Dark of the Night: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

In the Dark of the Night has a central premise that is difficult to resist - what if the belongings of famous serial killers were gathered in one place? A better writer than John Saul really could have done something with this idea. But, unless you're 14, there's not much here to snag your attention or scare you. The three high school buddies out to get laid on their summer vacation stumble into a nightmare of a situation from which they can't extricate themselves. Why they couldn't have figured out what was going on after their first week at the lake doesn't say much for their intellectual powers. Saul's writing is formulaic. Phrases that were overused in some of his previous titles keep popping up here as well. "It was as if..." "All he could think/ see/ feel was...."
There's nothing new or genuinely horrific here, and what this book does contain isn't worth the time it takes to read.