This is never going to earn him a spot in the pantheon of great horror writers who weave a different tale every time. Saul uses the same devices over and over again to tell decent stories. Perhaps, but many great books are retellings of older books. One could complain that Saul tells the same tale over and over again. The small town cop who is friends with the family around which all the evil is transpiring. The wife who has no idea what is going on around her. Did Michelle kill because she wanted to? Or did Amanda’s lust for revenge drive her to it.Īll the usual Saul tropes are here. Saul did leave us with a taste of ambiguity that worked for the story. The main character is two parts sympathetic, one part slacker. The reason the past is important is part of the mystery that is brought nicely to fruition. The story is much tighter than Saul’s earlier works.
Nonetheless, Saul has a way of telling a good story employing this framework again and again. The characters and circumstances are different, but, with a few exceptions, the same trope applies. Child wronged a hundred years ago seeks revenge by employing a child of today. This is John Saul’s fourth novel and he employs what became his standard format for many of his books. Soon, the past and the present converge, brought about by a vengeful spirit and a vengeful human bent on visiting his family curse upon a man he feels wronged him.
The only person present when these deaths occur is Michelle. Those who torment Michelle seem to die in unfortunate accidents or are outright murdered. Soon, kids around Paradise Cove begin dying. After all, she has a new friend in Amanda who comes to show her things. Soon, she is an outcast and the kids routinely make fun of her. She is badly injured.Īfter a while, her physical injuries heal, but she maintains that she needs a cane to walk. Michelle runs away, but trips on the bluff and falls. One day, she is at a picnic on the beach with several friends when a girl starts teasing her about being adopted. She is adopted and becomes painfully aware that her parents now have a biological daughter of their own. Michelle’s mother soon gives birth to Michelle’s new sister and events turn for Michelle. Amanda’s grave is quite well known in the town as his her mother’s whose stone has quite the cryptic inscription. She soon learns from her new friends that a little girl named Amanda once lived in her house and died after falling from the bluff. While moving in, Michelle finds an old china doll in a closet. Cal Pendleton, is there to take over the practice of the aging town doctor. Eager to enjoy small town life and make new friends, Amanda welcomes the move. One hundred years later, Michelle Pendleton moves to Paradise Point from Boston.
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