Customer Reviews

Night Cries

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I couldn't put this down. A girl works on a heelp line called rapline. When one day she starts getting phone calls. They start off nice then they get threatening. A jealous man is on the other line and he is a killer. He's killing girls and shes scared she may be next. Reviewed By Vikki Car

I'm dealing with some serious issues in my life right now, and I'm not in the mood for anything heavy. A teenybopper thriller like "Deathline" should have been just what I needed to distract me from my troubles. Ultimately, though, finishing this novel felt like a chore.

Erica Tolbert is a senior in high school, and she spends several evenings a week volunteering on the Rapline, a crisis hotline for local youth. Her gift for helping people in need is sorely tested when an anonymous man calls in and confesses to a murder. Soon it becomes obvious that he's stalking Erica, calling her at home and following her on the street. When the bodies of young women start turning up around the town, Erica finds herself in the middle of the hunt for a serial killer.

It's an exciting premise, but this novel falls horribly flat. Barbara Steiner may have written over forty books at the time this novel was published in 1993, but she has the writing ability of a talented ninth grader. Over and over again she states the obvious, and she has trouble keeping her details organized. I don't object to the artful use of sentence fragments in a literary work, but Steiner employs them left and right for no discernible reason. The characters speak and act in ways real people never would. (Take this for example, when Erica finds herself alone with the killer the night of a school dance she'd been planning to attend: "Now that they were together and so close to the party, they weren't going. She was certain of that.") As for Steiner's understanding of criminal psychology, it's primitive at best.

Perhaps most troubling to me was the fact that the killer was revealed in the end to be mentally ill. This is common in the teenage-thriller genre; how many times does a supporting character in an R.L. Stine novel console the heroine in the end with the promise that the perpetrator "will get the help s/he needs"? In "Deathline," however, the killer is depicted as having a specific psychiatric diagnosis, not just being generally "troubled." Novels like this re-enforce the stereotypical association of mental illness with violence. In fact, very few serial killers meet the legal definition of insanity (the inability to control one's impulses or to perceive the wrongfulness of one's actions), and very few people with mental illness commit violent crimes. Honestly, as a sufferer of mental illness with a serious academic interest in criminology, I don't know what troubles me more: the message that a serial killer might just be a poor troubled soul deserving of compassion, or the perpetuation of the stereotype of the violent mentally ill. I'm not saying that there's no place in suspense fiction for a good exploration of criminal insanity, but badly-written exploitative tripe need not apply.

When I started reading this book, I though it was going to turn out boring. But how wrong was I? I was way wrong. As I started to get more and more into the book I realized how good it was. I kept me guessing what was next and made me wanting to keep on reading it. I never knew what was going to happen next and that's what I like in a book. If you like mysteries, or suspense on what will happen next, this is a book just for you.

This book was about some teens going out for an outing on a remote island with their teacher. They were out because they were doing the famous play Macbeth! It was all going good until some bad things happened. People started disappearing left and right. Since the teacher always takes her kids out before a big play, they thought it had to do with getting closer and all becoming friends. But were they wrong? They all disappeared until there was one. That one was the very lead of the play. She was out looking for the rest of the cast when a shadowy figure appeared behind her and the voice beckons: COME...COME...COME TO ME!

You really want to know what happens next don't you? If you really want to know, you will go and buy or check out this book to find out. When I found out when the mystery person was, I was VERY surprised and I bet you will be also. Happy Reading!

Night Cries
by Barbara Steiner

Reviewer: Pamela Ackerson, author of Home of the Braves trilogy

A suspense chock full of drama for the young adult. A quick read and good story wrapped into an excellent page turner. In a way it reminded me of the movie Ten Little Indians and even mentions it in the book. But it is it's own story and worth every moment you spend reading it. Enjoy.

... The story is very right on about obsessed callers and the fear you sometimes hold; however, our volunteer screening prosess tends to keep out the psychos (at least we think). Although this book is fiction (I checked our records just to be sure), it is still a very intriguing read for anyone who likes a good thriller, and especially for those of us who still answer the phones here at Rapline.