Mrs. Merrill Brewster finally overcomes her paranoia and lets her husband, Dan, rent a lake house where she and her family can spend the summer. They took the only remaining house available, which is a massive Victorian mansion. It seems kind of creepy in the pictures and when they first pull up the driveway, but as their time passes, aside from an instance in which the little daughter, Marci, sees a scary man in a boat with a cross, they enjoy their time at Pinecrest.Eric, the son, finds things to do with his two friends who came from his hometown and are staying at adjacent houses. They start flirting with the locals, inciting the jealousy and anger of the local boys. The boys later start exploring the old house, and they see a poorly bricked-up doorway in the carriage house. They decide to break it down, and behind it they find all sorts of old junk: bladeless hacksaws, shadeless lamps, tables with missing legs, headless axe handle and all sorts of strange broken things. They spend hours looking at the junk and the old pictures, but it only seems like minutes to them.The boys start finding things out about the strange history of the house and the previous occupant who performed psychological experiments and studied serial killers. Even though they start getting weirded out by the room and start hearing/feeling voices from there, they keep going back. Then the dreams start. They all dream about killing a woman and taking out her organs, and they are disturbed later to find that the Merrill’s cat has been killed in the same way.They keep returning to the room and put items together: the blade on the hacksaw, the leg on the table, etc. As they put things together, mysterious murders keep happening, they keep having dreams, but they can’t stop putting things together, even after they figure out that the objects belong to dead serial killers. They suspect that part of the being of the murderers are in the objects. But they know that they aren’t the murderers. They determine to destroy the room and go in there one last time, but driven by the force of the room, they put the axe head on the axe.On the day of a big parade after they put on the axe head, the scary man in the boat with the cross comes into town with the axe, possessed by the soul of the serial killer who previously wielded it, and he kills over thirty people until Eric finds him and kills him with the axe.In the Dark of the Night is and interesting book and keeps you turning the pages. The story is disturbing, and the reader doesn’t really know who to suspect. It is a fun read, but it lacks explanation. The book asks you to simply accept that the doctor who lived there before somehow put the souls of the serial killers in the objects they used to kill.
Eric Brewster and his family have FINALLY rented a house on the lake for the summer. For years, Eric's 2 best friends and their families spent their summer on Phantom Lake and now his family was going to. Eric's mother however, wasn't so happy about this idea. She is the kind of woman who is scared of everything, and the thought of being alone in this huge house on the lake while her husband spent Mon-Fri at home due to work was frightening to her. Even though she's friends with the families her son is friends with, she's still skeptical.Once they get to Pinecrest, the house that they are renting, Eric becomes infatuated with the carriage house and its contents. He and his buddies, Kent & Tad spent A LOT of time in the carriage house. The strange thing is, once they're in the carraige house, what seems like only minutes to them is actually hours in real time. They find a secret room and a ledger of the contents in it. Once they start repairing items they find in the room, strange things start to happen. They all have the same horrific nightmares only to find out their nightmares may be more than just nightmares. What they dream is actually happening only they can't figure out how it is possible.This is a very bizarre story with a lot of twists and turns in it. Once these boys figure out what is going on, (if they ever really figure it out) its too late. Damage has been done, lives have been altered forever.I LOVED this book the first time I read it and couldn't put it down. This is the second time around and I think that I didn't enjoy it as much because I already knew what was going to happen. But nonetheless, it was a good story with a very intense ending. I recommend it if you are a John Saul fan.
What do You think about In The Dark Of The Night (2006)?
John Saul is one of those authors I grew up reading. My mother had a closet full of horror novels, and a great number of them were Saul's books. Though this is not my favorite book of his, it comes damn close. The Lizzy Borden murders is one of those mysteries I've always been obsessed with. Something about a lady with a hatchet drives me crazy. I keed, I keed. As demented as that sounds, you should also know that I love her history for the same reason I dig Amelia Earhart's. It's the unanswered questions, the what ifs. IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT is centered in the Lizzy Borden mythos. Saul does a good job of answering real life questions with fictitious happenings. Though the story takes place in modern day, we're thrust headlong into the murky waters surrounding the deaths of Borden's mother and father. Did Lizzy actually do it? Nobody but Lizzy knew, of course, but John Saul takes us a bit further, theorizing that Lizzy did it, but not of her own accord. In this novel, the city and citizens of Pinecrest are well realized. So much so that the town kind of stole the potlight for me. I looked forward to the families trips into town, and couldn't wait for the celebration that is the focal point of this novel's climactic ending. This book is, at times, seriously creepy. Especially where inner thoughts are concerned. I wish I could say more, but I risk giving away a vital plot point and I refuse to do so, mainly because this book is one of those that is much better the least you know about it. I highly recommend this outing for fans of psychological horror as well as fans of fiction that builds on life's true mysteries. I'm also a bit biased because I love just about anything John Saul writes, so take that into consideration before rushing into IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT.
—Edward Lorn
3.5 out of 5. I loved the concept of the book, but it lost some points to execution. It is interesting throughout, a tad predictable at the end- but nothing egregious. The epilogue was sort of mysterious, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I would like to know who gathered the items again, why the wall was bricked up again (is there a sequel I'm missing?), I find those new questions frustrating. On the other hand I like the idea that those items are still out there. Pretty interesting and cool book!
—Robert
This books makes you wonder about what happenes to the weapons of past murderers and if their spirits remain in their weapons when they pass away.... Things that make you go hmmmmmm. This was a good book, but a bit sick. Where did John Saul get his imagination for this book, hmmmmmm. The reason I gave it 3 stars is because the ending could have been better, needed to be more explanatory of the prior events that happened in the book. It left the reader (myself) wanting to know more. Though a good read, this book was not detailed enough for me. It left me with questions that I looked forward to getting answered at the ending of the book, but was disappointed not to get them :(
—Elida
