Preview John Saul
Despite the high death toll generated by some pretty nasty weapons (claws, fangs, shotgun, fire poker, pitchfork), there's not much terror here because banal details and very ordinary people overwhelm the fear factor. MaryAnne Carpenter, trying to cope with the return of the loutish husband who earlier deserted the family, heads off to Idaho with her 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son in order to comfort her recently orphaned godson. Joey Wilkenson's parents have died in mysterious accidents and his mother, MaryAnne's best friend, had named her Joey's guardian. Joey seems an average 13-year-old, if given to understandable bouts of moody withdrawal. But the apparently peaceful mountain valley becomes menacing when a camper is brutally killed, perhaps by an animal, and MaryAnne feels increasingly isolated as winter approaches. Rumors of a wild mountain man or sasquatch circulate, and Joey starts to exhibit strange behavior. Further horrifying events occur, but their final explanation is too pat. A sequel is threatened, but hopefully Saul ( Darkness ) who has done better, will reconsider.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Saul's 16th horror novel (Shadows, 1992, etc. etc.) finds the author in a less horrific, even speakable mode, since the pivotal plot device seems possible, if definitely unlikely. Maryanne Carpenter was abandoned by her husband for a younger, prettier, richer woman, and now he wants to return to her and young Alison and Logan. Meanwhile, Maryanne is the godmother of Joey Wilkeson, and when Joey's wealthy parents both die in accidents on their fabulous Western mountain retreat, Maryanne flies to Joey to care for him--and discovers that as Joey's guardian, she's now wealthy herself and need never work again. The pubescent Joey, however, is odd, loves to fade into the hills with his dog and stay away for long periods. What's more, townsfolk have a strong aversion to him. At the same time, a shadowy figure haunts the mountain retreat and soon more bodies drop, horribly bloodied. Does Joey have something to do with these deaths? He, in fact, has strangely inhuman characteristics and is turning into the wolfboy son of the shadowy figure--a man to whom government scientists once gave the DNA of a wolf to discover what immunities he might come up with. But the wolf DNA bonded with his own, and his physical structure and appetite changed so drastically that he parted from mankind and for 14 years has lived in the wilderness--a killer. He and Joey's mother, though, had been lovers and now his DNA has bonded with Joey's. Wisely, as with Lon Chaney, Jr.'s, Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man, Saul works up some sympathy for his canine killers who, after all, are victims of the moon as well as of the government and those hunting them down. Bound for bestsellerdom--like many of Saul's others. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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