Book
Perfect nightmare : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 0345467329
- ISBN: 0345467329 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 9780345467324
- ISBN: 9780345467317 (alk. paper)
- ISBN: 9780345467324 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 0345467310 (alk. paper)
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Physical Description:
print
339 p. ; 24 cm. : ill. - Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Ballantine Books, c2005.
Search for related items by subject
| Genre: | Psychological fiction. Domestic fiction. |
Available copies
- 12 of 13 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Sparwood Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 13 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sparwood Public Library | FIC SAU (Text) | 35172000186466 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2005 July #1
Saul's take on the sexual-psychopath thriller, whose grand master is surely Thomas Harris in Red Dragon (1981) and The Silence of the Lambs (1988), and whose unacknowledged master is Whitley Strieber in Billy (1990), is a more disquieting book than Saul may have intended. As a literary performance, it doesn't give Harris and Strieber much competition, for its Long Island setting and relentlessly middle-class characters lead Saul into bland prose and shallow psychology. And the mainspring of its plot--who has snatched two pretty teen girls and a twentysomething young mother?--is unexceptional and generically shopworn. Fortunately, by interspersing the thoughts of the perverted perp throughout a third-person text otherwise following either the mother of the second girl kidnapped or the girl herself, Saul adds considerable nasty fascination, though that fascination affords the kind of pleasure that many may think they damn well ought to feel guilty about. What is genuinely upsetting about the book is its depressing implication that hands held out in loving compassion are precisely what shouldn't be trusted. That rather flies in the face of the mother's love that drives the main character (who is eminently trustworthy), and it makes for a brackish, disturbing ending. ((Reviewed July 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2005 June #2
Veteran suspense-monger Saul (Midnight Voices, 2002, etc.) manages to mess up the foolproof story of a family whose teenaged daughter is kidnapped.The strain of Steve Marshall's backbreaking commute to his law firm means that his family's got to pull up stakes from Camden Green, on Long Island's North Shore. But although his wife Kara gamely makes the rounds of Manhattan brownstones, their daughter Lindsay refuses to accept the inevitable. She's been waiting to hear if she'll be named head cheerleader for her senior year, and she's not about to leave her squad, her friends and the only world she knows. Although Saul spends forever maundering over the Marshalls' squabbles, they're small potatoes compared to the main course. A madman who's already sneaked into Patrick Shields's house, burned it down and left his wife and two daughters dead now has his eye on Lindsay. Taking advantage of that most innocuous of all social occasions, the realtor-sponsored open house, he strolls into the Marshalls' home not once but twice, first to snoop around and take a souvenir, then to snatch Lindsay. Numb Steve alternates between despair and denial (he's soon back at work), and Kara works feverishly to mobilize the neighborhood. But stolid Sgt. Andrew Grant is convinced that unhappy Lindsay's simply run away. Wrong. She's shackled in the basement dungeon of the man the press will soon be calling "Open House Ozzie," and she's not the only one. Fortunately for readers with weak hearts, her captor is so literal-minded in his psychosis that the longer he toys with his captives, the less menacing he becomes. There'll be more violence, more toothless threats ("Drink, or you might die too soon") and of course more casualties, but nothing involving anybody you care about.Just the thing for readers who think there's nothing worse than trying to sell your house in the suburbs. Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2005 May #1
No matter what the police think, Kara Marshal knows that her daughter is no runaway. When she encounters other families whose loved ones have vanished, she decides to find a way out of this nightmare. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2005 July #2
A creepy stalker story becomes a shrewd whodunit as Saul's latest tracks a move from tranquil suburbia to the big city. After a job promotion, the Marshall family prepares to move from Long Island to Manhattan, unaware that a menace edges ever closer to kidnapping their teenage daughter, Lindsay. Eerie first-person chapters from the stalker's close-call perspective effectively counterpoint parents Kara and Steve Marshall's stressful relocation hurdles, as intuitive Kara begins sensing the imminence of the threat, but meets with resistance from harried family members. After the anonymous menace snatches Lindsay, Saul broadens the scope to encompass four likely male suspects, including a pair of real estate agents (one dour and one impossibly chipper). Steve Marshall conveniently dies in a car accident; police sergeant Andrew Grant is cautious and unconvinced of foul play. Lindsay's attempts to escape and the criminal's master plan keep the tension high and the plot accelerating, making this solid suspense from the veteran author of Suffer the Children and the Blackstone Chronicles series. Agent, Don Cleary at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. (On sale Aug. 30) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
