Midnight Voices - Hardcover

John Saul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345433319 ISBN 13: 9780345433312

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2002

Synopsis

What if insidious evil flourished in the one place where you feel most safe: your very own home? The chilling answer comes from New York Times bestselling master of suspense John Saul–in a new novel that makes terror a household word.

The sudden, tragic death of her husband leaves Carolyn Evans alone in New York City to raise an eleven year-old son and a twelve-year-old daughter on little money and even less hope. But then she meets and marries handsome, successful Anthony Fleming, who wins her heart and embraces her children. When Carolyn settles her family into Anthony’s spacious apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West, her fears of an uncertain future give way to a sense of abundant happiness. But soon, new terrors will come home to roost in the luxurious, exclusive building named The Rockwell. Midnight voices whisper of a cruel and hungry presence that also calls The Rockwell home.

First, Carolyn’s daughter begins to suffer from recurring nightmares of strangers in her room at night. Then her son insists that a neighbor’s recently deceased child isn’t dead at all–but being held captive somewhere in The Rockwell. And when Carolyn discovers a startling secret about Anthony’s past, it seems she, too, is falling victim to the creeping paranoia infecting her family. Should she doubt her perfect husband, their kindly fellow tenants, or her own sanity? Does someone–or something–in her new home have sinister designs on Carolyn and her children? Is her new life charmed or cursed?

Step across the threshold of The Rockwell–and into the dark realm of John Saul . . . in a spine-tingling novel that will haunt you wherever you live.

About this title

Review:

In a Rosemary's Baby meets Hansel and Gretel thriller, John Saul's Midnight Voices is packed with bump-in-the-night chills that will frighten and delight readers with its nostalgic nod to urban legends and campfire tales. With short, edgy chapters and all-too-vivid imagery, Midnight Voices begs to be enjoyed in one sitting, in the dark, huddled on the corner of your couch. As usual in Saul's world, strange things are afoot in the city, and the Evans family is the target.

At the heart of this spooky tale are the children, Laurie and Ryan Evans, who are unwittingly exposed to danger when their recently widowed mother marries widower Anthony Fleming. The too-good-to-be-anything-but-evil Fleming lives in the Rockwell, a building rumored to be inhabited by witches and vampires, that has the children in the neighborhood terrified:

"Amber's eyes were still fixed on the building. They were just stories, she told herself once again. They weren't true. But even as she silently spoke the words to herself, a strange chill of apprehension ran through her and she turned away ... I'll die, she thought. If I go in there, I'll die."

Of course, the newly married Caroline does not share the anxiety of her children, despite Fleming's Bluebeard-like determination to keep everyone out of his study, not to mention the horrible whispers and strange sounds coming from empty rooms in the middle of the night. It is this tension, and Caroline's dawning realization of her new husband's shortcomings, that drives the novel to its startling conclusion.

Saul uses familiar horror images--an ancient building with even older residents, creepy neighbors that are not quite right, whispers in your room after midnight--to spin a new tale of evil that will remind readers why one should always leave the closet light on. --Daphne Durham

About the Author:

JOHN SAUL’s first novel, Suffer the Children, published in 1977, was an immediate million-copy bestseller. He has since written twenty-three successive bestselling novels of suspense, including The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, Guardian, and The Homing. 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. Mr. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Maui, Hawaii.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0345433319
• ISBN 13: 9780345433312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 341