The Throat: Blue Rose Trilogy (3) [Paperback]

Peter Straub (Author)

Book Description

Series: Blue Rose Trilogy | Publication Date: August 10, 2010

Peter Straub’s chilling Blue Rose Trilogy comes to an astonishing close—secrets unearthed, demons revisited, and mysteries solved.
 
The Throat.  Tim Underhill, now an acclaimed novelist, travels back to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois after he gets a call from John Ransom, an old army buddy.  Ransom believes there’s a copycat killer on the loose, mimicking the Blue Rose murders from decades earlier—he thinks his wife could be a potential victim.  Underhill seeks out his old friend Tom Pasmore, an aging hermit who has attained minor celebrity as an expert sleuth, to help him investigate.  They quickly discover that Millhaven is a town plagued by horrifying secrets and there is a twisted killer on the loose who is far more dangerous than they ever imagined.  Expertly tying together the events of Koko and Mystery, The Throat proves Peter Straub to be the master of the suspense novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Straub completes the Blue Rose trilogy with this visceral thriller about a string of unsolved serial murders that have plagued an Illinois town since the 1940s.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Submitted by the publisher to Kirkus too late to review, Straub's latest is a sequel to both his bestselling Koko (1988) and his less popular Mystery (1989), resurrecting characters from each (Tim Underhill of Koko and Tom Pasmore of Mystery among them) to investigate a series of killings known as the Blue Rose Murders. Straub himself appears in the story as the narrator's writing- collaborator (who ``drinks twenty-five-year-old malt whiskey, because he's that kind of guy''), a touch of metafiction in a down- to-earth (or, at least, nonoccult) thriller that veers from Vietnam to the Illinois town of Millhaven (Straub's counterpoint to friend Stephen King's Castle Rock) and that will probably have the author's fans lining up at the cash registers. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for Spring) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1 Reprint edition (August 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030747223X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307472236
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets Better With Every Reading, May 25, 2005

By 

Dov G. "Goldstar" (Bakersfield, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Throat (Paperback)

I've just finished reading this for the second time, and am even more blown away than I was the first go 'round. The details and atmosphere are so rich, so specific to place and time (a thinly disguised Milwaukee, late 40's-early 50's up through the present), and layer after layer of menace is built up in increments that make it all seem so real that you have to wonder what nightmares lie in the author's own past. The depth of character development is unusual for horror/thrillers or however this book has been marketed, and Straub's sheer writing virtuosity makes this book seem more like a literary novel than genre fiction. KOKO and MYSTERY, novels related to the Blue Rose murders detailed in this one, share several characters with THROAT but differ enough in details to further mystify and discomfit a reader who already is convinced that Mr. Straub understands something about the subtle nature of evil that the rest of us are too naive to grasp.

At the psychological junction where child abuse in its worst imaginable form intersects uneven memory stands THE THROAT, exposed. Fiction this intelligent rarely comes along in any genre. That Peter Straub is compelled to use his astounding talents in a probe of the dark side makes for chilling reading, because he is more than smart enough to make you believe. Even in the daylight.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars so much more rewarding than king or koontz, September 12, 2003

By 

Ms. J. Kelly "josie kelly" (Oxfordshire England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Throat (Paperback)

I often see reviews that compare the writing of Peter Straub to that of Stephen King (for obvious reasons) and of Dean Koontz (purely because of the horror genre as far as I am aware). But to me they are illogical comparisons. If you want a contrived plot where man meets woman and they both find salvation from their past horrors through love for each other, read Koontz. If you want to slip into reading something that feels as comfortable as an old slipper, beacuse you've read the same story 10 times before, only in different guises, read King.

However, if you want to read intelligent novels with characters that you care for and who develop over the course of the trilogy, read Koko, Mystery and the Throat - All completely different to each other, yet interlinked beautifully.

I am the first to admit that sometimes Straub's writing can be difficult to get into - it took me 3 attempts over a few years before I was able to finish Mystery for the first time, but now i regularly re read all of Straub's novels (apart from If you could see me now, which is the only one I've not yet been able to get into) and look forward to doing so - to entering the worlds that he creates (even though I am left cold by the constant jazz references!).

Basically, if you're tiring of King and Koontz, finding them too simplistic - read Straub.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Textbook for Creative Writing, March 17, 2003

By 

Dave Moore (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Throat (Paperback)

Seldom does one encounter such an exquisitly constructed novel, wherein a myriad of individual vignettes are woven together with a central focus. The Throat is a masterpiece of writing proficiency combined with a talent for good, old-fashioned story telling. The novel trancends genre and stands as an example of how books should be written.