Customer Reviews

The Hellfire Club

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It has taken me a long to enjoy the works of Peter Straub. Or maybe it just took him a while to write ones I like. First, I read his "classic" Ghost Story ... and hated it. Bored me stiff. Still, I decided to give him another try and picked up the shorter -- and therefore more easily experimentable -- Julia. It was more interesting and had more sympathetic characters, but it still was a struggle to get through. Koko was no better, it being more a Vietnam novel than the less-reality-based horror I was used to.

By this point, I had almost entirely written Peter Straub off as an author for me. I was still curious due to his collaborations with Stephen King (The Talisman and Black House) and his pure stature as an author. Then, lost boy lost girl won the Bram Stoker award of 2003 and something told me to try again. I'm so glad I did. However, it's unfortunate that I've read The Hellfire Club this early, because nothing is likely to top it.

On the surface, The Hellfire Club concerns Davey Chancel, scion of the multi-generational family that rules Chancel House, a struggling publisher that is being kept afloat by its ownership of the copyright of author Hugo Driver's Night Journey. Night Journey is one of those books that people obsess over, name themselves after, and gather together to perform their own versions of, and their number includes Davey Chancel and several other characters in the book, including one who came as a complete surprise, especially given how he is written from his entrance on. The history of this book is a major plot point and is so well-described as to make it eminently frustrating that I'll never actually be able to read it.

But it's not long before we realize who the lead character really is. I don't want to give much away, because the ride of surprises offered by Straub in The Hellfire Club was most of what kept me reading. Sure, it reads like gangbusters, but there are a lot of people who can write fast-paced fiction. There are much fewer who can write fast-paced fiction and strong characters (especially female ones) and the most fascinatingly disturbingly-evil-yet-somehow-charming villain since Hannibal Lecter in Dick Dart and weave a mystery all through the pages and keeping bringing new and more fascinating characters into the mix without derailing the whole thing and tie the whole works together in a rocket of an ending that leaves you nearly breathless and wanting to start the whole thing all over again. All of which makes The Hellfire Club a compulsive read that I was picking up in every available free moment. Straub may never top this, but this will certainly keep me reading him in the meantime.

Peter Straub is my favorite author, and this novel is certainly his best. Full of suspense and intriguing twists of the plot, this book will fully capture your attention. If you like Peter Straub, don't pass this one up. You may also want to read Peter Straub's Mystery and Floating Dragon; they are captivating.

This is my third Straub book, the first was Shadowland. I must say that this one is written better technically but I enjoyed the plot of Shadowland much better because it was so unique. The Hellfire Club, however, had classic Steven King elements along with the classic Straub flare. A King fan could see the vilian Dart coming a mile away. As regards the style of the book, Straub is one of the most confusing writers that I have ever read (barring Hawthorne of course) because there are times when you just don't understand why he says what he says or what he means. However, the book did have its flashes of genius. The plot was varied and unexpected which was refreshing. The weaving in of the book Night Journey into the plot was inventive. But Straub dashes his genius with an over-the-top writing style that can get a little tedious to get through. While he seems to be getting better as an author he needs a good editor to tell him how to clean a novel up.

I can tell from this book that the author is talented at weaving a tale, but this book was just terrible. Good technique cannot save this story.

None of the characters in the book are well-developed. The author did not create any attachment to the main character, which is a fatal blunder.

Most of The Hellfire Club is filler. There is too much detail, and too many parts that could have been left out without affecting the plot. The only salvageable parts of this book are the parts with the villain. This novel is 463 pages long, yet it easily could have been around 200 pages.

After reading The Hellfire Club, I was left scratching my head. It is not scary nor suspenseful. The book is simply boring. I had much difficulty finishing this book, and I admit I had to speed-read through at least 150 pages.

I'm very glad I did not purchase this book, and I recommend that you do not waste your time with it.

I didn't know what to expect after reading KOKO and hating it! I'm addicted to Straub now. Hellfire Club made me root for one of the strongest and most complex heroines I've seen in a long time. I went back to the prolouge of this book about 15 times, trying to figure out how it all tied together. The book within the book, the story of Pippin,at the beginning of each chapter is also worth re-reading. Hellfire Club is an intelligent book, something I'm not used to when reading mystery books, always figuring out the plot half-way through it...I hate that! I'm on MYSTERY now, and can't put it down, again Straub putting over-drive thought into the characters, and the plot.

Straubs latest book, leapfogs over any other book published by his dear friend, the increadibly over rated, Stephen King. Dick Dart, is a most orginal character, in a twisted, sick, phycopathic way. Great twists, even better characters, with evil sins and shadowy pasts. "This world is populated by ingrates, morons, assholes and those beneath them." So true. Straubs finest to date. Brav

This was decent, i guess. Haven't read a lot of Peter Straub - only Koko (which I thought was marginally better than this), and his collaborations with the great Steven King (The Talisman, Black House). I enjoyed The Hellfire Club overall, but Straub's dialogue (in this and Koko as well) just isn't completely believable for some reason. And I had a hard time really accepting Davey and Nora Chancel (and Dick Dart, for that matter) as real, fleshed-out characters. Again, I enjoyed the book overall, and if a friend asked me about it, I would recommend it, but I don't think I'll ever regard Mr. Straub as one of my favorite authors. Good story-teller, though; if I was huddled around a campfire listening to him spin some spooky ghost-story, I would most likely be delighted. I'll definitely read more Straub in the future (hopefully more creations with Steven King, who I suspect must handle all the technical guts of their joint efforts: dialogue, character development, etc.). One last thing, not a big deal: how many times in one book do I have to read "..she padded into the kitchen," or "she padded into the living room," or "she padded back into the kitchen," or "she padded upstairs." ugh...quit "padding" around and just walk once in a while. Anyway, if you're thinking of buying and reading the book, I say go for it. i don't think you'll be dissapointed, but I don't think it will change anybody's life, either.

For me, Peter Straub's most interesting phase was the Blue Rose short stories and novels (including "The Buffalo Hunter") which culminated in The Hellfire Club. Don't get me wrong, The Hellfire Club doesn't belong to the Blue Rose series, but coming after it, is able to utilise its dense and imagistic style. The Hellfire Club is the best type of experimentation - it's a great story which also creates a series of stories-within-stories in an absolutely authentic way. So Straub is able to ventriloqise a Djuna Barnes-style poetry in "Unwritten Words", mimics a frustrated housewife's gargantuan roman a clef written partly on hotel stationary and bar coasters from around the world, and most pivotally creates a pastiche of Lord of the Rings in a "talking trees" fantasy trilogy which inspires insane cult devotion and a whirlpool of litigation and pre-Internet Internet-style exegesis. It's also the best serial killer novel that doesn't feature Hannibal Lecter. The more I try to explain this book, the more convoluted I seem to make it. But it's hilariously funny, deadly serious, deeply emotional, scathingly satirical, is a fantastic mystery with an endangered and endearing female amateur sleuth (think Rosemary's Baby - piecing together a tapestry of clues while in extreme danger), and has some beautiful and lyrical descriptive writing that makes scenes spring to life. While Hellfire Club sets up its main characters in the first hundred pages, and we grow to know and like Nora Chancel, the book goes completely ballistic when Nora is kidnapped by Dick Dart, a DIY surgeon (he's not a serial killer - that's libellous talk!) with some refreshing and not altogether wholesome social philosophies. When Dart first explodes on the scene, there is a long section of the novel which I think is one of Mr Straub's most incredible achievements.

I've tried and failed to read each and every one of Peter Straubs' novels and it was with trepidation that i approached "The Hellfire Club". However once i started i absolutley couldn't put the book down. Well drawn characters, sharp plot twists and turns, as well as being darkly comical. This is truly Straub's best work, and i highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't want to get a whole lot of sleep :o)

A strange mixture between an extremly complex literary plot and a straightforward thriller. Alas, these elements sometimes hinder each other. Nevertheless: Great atmosphere, a compelling heroine, wonderful off-beat humour (the finale!), all in all: Well worth the read. Beware: Yet another serial-killer. People who long ago got tired of these guys should stay away from the book. I personally liked it a lot, especially the NON-thriller elements.