John Saul is an American author who writes thrillers and suspense novels that I personally would very definitely put in the horror section of any library or bookshop; I was introduced to his books at a fairly early age and I’ve read almost everything he’s written enjoying the vast majority of them.
Here I have put together a list of what I believe are his five best novels, hopefully you’ll either agree or be inspired to try some of this author’s brilliant books.
Suffer the Children
This was the first book of his that I ever read and I was instantly hooked. A century ago a father committed a heinous crime against his young daughter and then, plagued with guilt threw himself into the sea committing suicide.
Move on a hundred years and children are going missing, and their disappearances keep leading back to the descendants of this murderous father.
Sixteen year old me devoured this book in two sittings and it has stayed with me all these years.
Faces of Fear
Alison is a teenage bookworm with a beautiful but vain mother who believes a woman’s value is only to be found in her physical appearance and is determined to ‘improve’ her daughter’s outlook. After giving in to her mother’s constant pressure to have herself tweaked into perfection Alison is subjected to the strange and unhealthy ministrations of her plastic surgeon stepfather.
I remember biting my nails to the quick as I read this, I veered between wanting to throttle Alison and shouting her on in admiration. Her stepfather is beyond creepy *shudder and her mother needs shaking!
Black Lightning
This one kept me up until 3 am (or some ungodly hour of the night anyway) determined to finish it.
A serial killer is being executed and the reporter who was instrumental in his conviction is there to watch him take his final breath. Unknown to her, her husband is fighting for his own life at the very same moment that Kraven dies and although he survives, he has changed somehow.
When the killings start up again and the crimes come closer and closer to Anne Jeffers’ own home she is forced to think the unthinkable.
The Manhattan Hunt Club
This one was a little different to Saul’s usual fare, there’s no family secrets or curses or anything of the sort. In this book we have a wrongly convicted (I think, I can’t remember if he was convicted or accused?) man who, instead of ending up in prison finds himself under Manhattan’s streets, among the homeless and the downtrodden and the subject of a hunt.
I really enjoyed the premise of this novel and the settings made it seem all too easy to be something that might really happen.
The Blackstone Chronicles.
Originally released in six instalments this is probably my favourite of John Saul’s books, I remember being desperate for each instalment to be published and rushing down to my local Woolworth’s to get my next Blackstone fix.
Blackstone is a town that has always been dominated by the Asylum that sits at the top of the hill, and almost every family has links to it either through employment or as a patient. It’s been closed down now and is earmarked to be turned into a mall, but the Asylum isn’t planning on going quietly.
The town’s important folk are receiving strange gifts and they’re not the sort of things you would want to receive, and they’re not from the sort of people you’d want sending them.
I loved these when they were first released but I’ve not read it in its new format as a single book. There was always a lot of going over the previous instalment in the serialised version so hopefully that’s gone but even if not, it’s still well worth adding to your TBR list.
John Saul will never beat Stephen King in my humble opinion but he is damned good at what he does. If you are after a nicely written, uncomplicated, scary book, something that has you galloping for the final pages and the conclusion of a gripping story, something that will leave you nail bitten and checking your wardrobes for bogeymen, then this is the author for you.
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