Peter Straub is an outstanding writer. He simply can't write a bad book. He doesn't have it in him. However, like the rest of us mortals, I think sometimes he just gets tired, and can't rise to the level of master of horror that he nearly always obtains. A book like "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" is the result of Peter Straub on an off day. It's a good book; but not excellent like "Koko" or "Floating Dragon".

The plot jumps a bit -- some things are not explained as well as they should be. Again, we have a "haunted" house; I wish sometimes he would move beyond this metaphor. We have a few character types that we have seen before as well; for example, here in this book we have another "Davey".

Yet this book is still a million times better than most of the other horror novels on the shelf these days. Read it, but don't expect TOO much. It's very light.