Mr. X [Turtleback]

Peter Straub (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2001

The award-winning new supernatural thriller from the acclaimed author of Ghost Story, Koko, The Throat and The Talisman. Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan has a paralysing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious figure in black whom he calls Mr X. Now, with his birthday fast approaching, Ned has been drawn back to his home town of Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother is dying. On her deathbed, she imparts to him the name of his long-absent father and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, he embarks on a search through Edgerton's past for the truth behind his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family. But when Ned becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths, he begins to realize that he is not the only one who has come home!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Peter Straub's Mr. X is an enthralling, complex tale of a decent young man troubled since childhood by barely understood flashes of precognition and an awareness of a shadowy "other."

Ned Dunstan returns home to Edgerton, Illinois, a raffish and atmospheric Mississippi River city, as his mother, Star Dunstan, lies dying. Impelled to trace his tangled paternal lineage after Star's death, Ned finds himself caught up in a web of murder and other heinous crimes, not only in the present but also in a past that his elderly great aunts Nettie, May, and Joy would prefer remained undisturbed. The aunts, whose remarkable gifts include teleportation and telekinesis, frustrate his search for knowledge, partly to protect their own secrets and also to shield Ned from the mysterious and omnipresent force that seems to dodge his every step. He is aided in his efforts to discover the mysteries of his birth by a doppleganger who may or may not be his twin, and also by a lovely young woman, Laurie Hatch. She is the estranged wife of Stewart Hatch, an Edgerton scion whose own history is inexorably linked with Ned's and with the entire Dunstan family.

The secondary characters, from the elderly aunts to a lawyer named Creech who is the essence of the small-town "fixer," are deftly drawn. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Since the publication of Koko in 1988, Straub has specialized in macabre mysteries dense with the details of small-town life and cast with ordinary people who find that the extraordinary crimes they investigate raise doubts about their own moral integrity. In this bravura new outing, he returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural. From childhood, Ned Dunstan has experienced precognitive visions, a recurring dream of being tethered to a shadow and "the sense that something crucially significant, something without which I could never be whole, was missing." Summoned home to Edgerton, Ill., by a premonition of his mother's death on the eve of his 35th birthday, Ned finds himself implicated in a tangle of felonies and murders, all of which point to someone strenuously manipulating events to frame him. Digging into local history, he finds reason to believe that the mysterious father he never knew, or possibly a malignant doppelg?nger, are pulling the strings. Meanwhile, Mr. X, a homicidal misanthrope who reads H.P. Lovecraft's otherworldly horror fiction as gospel, cuts a swath of supernatural destruction across the country, en route to a showdown with his son, the "shadow-self" whom he must annihilate. Discerning readers will recognize this surprise-filled tale of tortuous family relationships as a modern variation on Lovecraft's classic shocker "The Dunwich Horror." But Straub turns his pulp model inside out, transforming its vast cosmic mystery into an ingrown odyssey of self-discovery and a probing study of human nature. His evocative prose, a seamless splice of clipped hard-boiled banter and poetic reflection, contributes to the thick atmosphere of apprehension that makes this one of the most invigorating horror reads of the year. BOMC main selection. (Aug.) FYI: This spring, Subterranean Press published a chapbook, Peter and PTR: Two Discarded Prefaces and an Introduction, that includes framing material that Straub wrote for, and then cut from, Mr. X.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Turtleback
• Publisher: Demco Media (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606216286
• ISBN-13: 978-0606216289
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (92 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that makes you think, March 31, 2007

By 

Sir George Martini "Verbalosity" (Fromage, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. X (Mass Market Paperback)

I've always liked Lovecraft stories, but Poe's poetry has always seemed slightly boring to me. Somehow Straub has melded the two and I think Mr. X is a masterpiece. After reading all of the Tim Underhill and Tom Passmore related books, I decided it was time to read Mr. X and I was not disappointed.

I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I finished it. Ned Dunstan has an odd assortment of relatives that range from a homicidal maniac to deformed cripples with birth defects to kleptomaniacs with enhanced mental powers. It's hard to figure out if the narrator is Ned or his "brother". He may possibly have a split personality. I plan on reading it again to see if I missed a few clues.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth it, July 22, 2000

By 

Alexia (Northern NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mr. X (Mass Market Paperback)

I like thrillers. I like mysteries. I like almost anything so long as it is well-written and interesting. I did not like this book.

After reading this novel, I was left with several unanswered questions and a feeling of dissatisfied confusion. Were Ned's family the descendants of former gods and demons, or just your average psychic inbreeders? Did he have a twin brother? Who and what exactly is Mr. X? Should I care?

From reading the other posted reviews, I'm guessing that this is a book you either love or hate. I didn't care for this story, but that doesn't mean I prefer "book candy" and wouldn't know a good book if it bit me in the a**. I prefer a story with a good plot that grabs your attention and won't let go, not a story that is laid out in a confusing manner, jumps back and forth, and then abruptly ends.

My opinion is that Peter Straub needs to stop being so impressed with his talent as a writer and get back to basics. Maybe a new editor to gently coax him back into telling good stories instead of showing off. Just my two cents, but this book is not worth wasting your time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Self-important & pretentious, September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mr. X (Hardcover)

It pains me to say anything bad about a Peter Straub book. I have been a fan for nearly 20 years. Koko still rates as one of my all time favorite reads, bar none. Mystery & The Throat were sorely disappointing, but Hellfire Club promised a return to form. A return to the horror genre by my favorite author...well, what more could I ask for? Much, in retrospect. Mr X contains more ponderous, pretentious prose than any Straub novel to date. Descriptions of places, persons, and situations drag on ad nauseum. Even the names of characters are distractingly silly. Do yourself a favor, skip this palid, self- important attempt at a modern addition to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and read the original.