Sleepwalk [Paperback]

John Saul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994

A peaceful desert town is taken over by a madman with terrifying powers.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Borrego looks like an ordinary New Mexico town: it borders an Indian reservation, its teenagers are bored and restless, and its only industry is the outdated oil refinery. But someone has a plan to shake up Borrego that involves controlling the minds of the local residents. When Judith Sheffield is asked to return to her sleepy hometown to teach high school math, she discovers that the students' mandatory flu shots don't really contain flu vaccine. The teacher joins forces with refinery worker Frank Arnold; his teenage son, Jed, whose mother belonged to the neighboring tribe; and Brown Eagle, the boy's grandfather, to find out what and who is behind the flu-shot edict and an equally mysterious takeover bid for the oil refinery. There are compelling scenes in which Brown Eagle introduces Jed to Native American mysticism, and the novel's climax involves a spectacular display of man restoring nature to its rightful place--after having almost destroyed everything in the process. Saul's ( Creature ) suspenseful tale leaves the reader with no doubt on the question of who wins and who loses in the struggle of good against evil.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (October 1, 1994)
• ISBN-10: 0553541749
• ISBN-13: 978-0553541748
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,796,320 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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Slow-Moving Thriller, January 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sleepwalk (Mass Market Paperback)

Once a quiet New Mexico town, Borrego has become a prime target for a local madman, Greg Moreland, and his associate, Paul Kendall. They intend to run a massive experiment on some of the town's troublemakers--Reba Tucker (a high school teacher), Heather Fredericks (a high school student), and Frank Arnold (a refinery worker), just to name a few. Their goal is to "realign the minds of the nation's youth" by injecting them with pseudo-flu shots that contain mind-controlling transformers. And it's up to three people (Jed Arnold, Judith Sheffield, and Peter Langston) to stop them before they infect the whole town.

Although the synopsis on the back of this book pinpoints teenagers as the main victims, there a lot of adults who also receive the shots, primarily ones who work at Borrego Oil and are seen as future problems. So, if you're expecting a teen-oriented book, this is not what you're looking for.

"Sleepwalk" kind of reminded me of Dean Koontz's "Midnight" in the sense they both took me several months to read, and their plots and book covers resemble each other--a sociopath tries to change the world by experimenting on a small town, and there's a silhouette of a bird on both covers. In my opinion, neither book is worth reading again, even though I'm fans of both Saul and Koontz. This book is excruciatingly slow for about 300 of the 449 pages. The ending does improve, but it's not worth wading through all those pages to get to it. So, unless you're already a fan, I'd skip this one. It's not one of Saul's best.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, December 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sleepwalk (Mass Market Paperback)

I like John Saul's books a lot. He's my 2nd fav. author. Dean Koontz takes the boat as the best. This book is very typical of other of Saul's books, the teens get the "axe"--so to speak. I liked it, but the end was often hard to follow, maybe it's just me...good friendly read overall. One scene was so detailed (when Jed is crawling through the tunnel) that I had to stop reading, and stretch out my legs for I have a small case of claustrophobia.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow take off, December 12, 2000

By 

Herbert A. Martin (Calera, Al. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleepwalk (Mass Market Paperback)

To me it took me almost half way through before things really started picking up. it was real slow to me at first,but after that it was great!