John Saul: Three Terrifying Bestselling Novels: Suffer the Children; Punish the Sinners; Cry for the Strangers [Hardcover]

Being a John Saul fan since Suffer The Children, I'm glad to see these offered in a set. These three, along with Comes the Blind Fury are still my favorites. Each has its own unique spine-tinglingness. Even after I've finished his newest one, these still remain in my fondest memories. If you like his work and haven't read these, you're missing the best!

John Saul is a master of horror story telling. His stories cause shivers up and down your spine, butterflies in the stomach, and the uncontrollable urge to keep reading. I am deliberately keeping these reviews vague so as to not spoil anything.

In Suffer the Children, Rose and Jack Conger are suffering marital problems because of an incident that happened several years back, causing their daughter Sarah to retreat inside herself and stop talking. Their older daughter, Elizabeth, appears to be the perfect daughter and sister - doing well in school, taking care of her sister patiently and generally maintaining the status quo as much as possible.

But there is something lurking in the woods. The children have been told to stay out of the woods - because there is something dangerous there. However, Elizabeth keeps going into the woods, although she denies she has, and then suddenly children begin to disappear ...

Full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing throughout the story, and Saul - of course, is a master story teller. I couldn't put it down.

Punish the Sinners (Saul, John) is a bizarre story, set in the backdrop of a private Catholic high school called St. Francis Xavier High School. When Peter Balsam begins teaching a controversial psychology course, he notices that the children in this school have been very well indoctrinated in the attitude of the whole village (Neilsville, WA), which is very much a small town filled with very religious people.

However, something isn't quite right at the high school and Peter is determined to find out what it is. There are strange rumors, whispers about a dark secret society. And then the children start dying ...

This story is just creepy and I loved reading every word. Don't miss it if you are a fan of horror.

Cry for the Strangers was, in my opinion, the creepiest/scariest of the three stories. Brad and Elaine Randall are looking for a place to stay for a year so Brad can write a book. When they come into Clark's Harbor, they think they've found the perfect place. It is a lovely little town with several beautiful little beaches ... and strangers are NOT welcome here. From the moment they decide they want to live there, strange things start happening. A fisherman falls overboard and drowns - tangled in his own net. Elaine discovers the corpse of a dog on the beach, with its neck broken. The fisherman's wife commits suicide. And one of Brad's former patients (he is a psychiatrist) is here - a young boy who suffered from terrible hyperactivity - and is apparently completely cured.

As things get uglier and uglier for the Randalls (and the Palmers, whose child I just mentioned), they are repeatedly told that it is because they are strangers and they don't belong here. Can they discover the secret to save their lives in time?

Saul writes true horror, so don't expect any happy endings here. But DO expect to be thrilled and chilled. Don't miss these great stories.

A friend of mine read these two out of the three books (suffer the children and cry for the strangers)and then she lent them to me to read, she told me that I would love them so I read them and she was
right they are great. Now I am buying them so I can read them again I don't often find books by the same author that I like, but John Saul's novels are great and I am looking forward to reading Punish the Sinners.

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