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    Perfect Nightmare: A Novel
    Perfect Nightmare: A Novel
    Perfect Nightmare: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Perfect Nightmare: A Novel

    Written by John Saul

    Narrated by Dick Hill and Susie Breck

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    If you open your house to strangers, who knows who might come in. And what they might be after. Or whom. Now, ponder the unthinkable and surrender to your darkest dread, as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul weaves a heart-stopping tale of lurking terror and twisted intent.

    Every parent’s nightmare becomes reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night. The police suspect that the girl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry over leaving behind her school and friends because her family is moving. But Lindsay’s recent eerie claim—that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective buyers—drives Kara to fear the worst: a nameless, faceless stalker has walked the halls of her home in search of more than a place to live.

    Patrick Shields recognizes Kara’s pain—and carries plenty of his own since he lost his wife and two children in a devastating house fire. But more than grief draws Patrick and Kara together. He, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger in this tragedy. And as more people go missing from houses up for sale, Patrick’s suspicion, like Kara’s, blooms into horrified certainty.

    Someone is trolling this peaceful community—undetected and undeterred—harvesting victims for a purpose no sane mind can fathom. Someone Kara and Patrick, alone and desperate, are determined to unmask. Someone who is even now watching, plotting, keeping a demented diary of unspeakable deeds…and waiting until the time is ripe for another fateful visit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 23, 2005
    ISBN9781597108973
    Perfect Nightmare: A Novel
    Author

    John Saul

    John Saul’s first novel Suffer the Children became an instant bestseller, as have many of the thirty-three novels of dark suspense he has published since. Amidst this busy writing schedule, he divides his time between Seattle, Washington and Hawaii.

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    Reviews for Perfect Nightmare

    4/5

    176 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The narrator's in this audiobook made this story so much more creepy and exciting. The male, was excellent at capturing the insanity and relaying the demented aspects of his main character. I think I would have found the story a bit vanilla but his vocalizations shifting from person to person and adding his twists to the bad guy were outstanding. The female narrator also did a great job interacting with other characters, the best was how she portrayed grief and somber moments, you felt it. I liked the book by John Saul but I loved it so much more as an audiobook. Super suspenseful, twists and turns and to me human depravity makes the most scary writing. I loved it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Now I remember why i will always LOVE the psychologiacal horrors and terror of Saul's writings. I am so glad that I did not become a Real Estate agent......or have kids.
      Look for the video review on my Youtube channel; Nightmares, Tears, Anyone?
      Richard

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This narrator is really great, he made story so real.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent story. Excellent narration!!!!!!!!! This is my all time favorite John Saul story, and I’ve read many. Definitely recommend.
    • 3/5
      It was a good read. It kept me reading but the ending needed something more. It is a 3.5 star read for me.
    • 3/5
      It's been a long time since I read a John Saul book...but i believe I have now read everything he has ever published. His books are supernatural in content but has enough of a non-ghostly story to satisfy almost everyone. I don't want to even imagine what it would be like to have a child go missing but John Saul did an excellent job of portraying a mother who does not give up regardless of what everyone is telling her. This creepy stalker story becomes a shrewd whodunit that will appeal to mystery fans, suspense fans and supernatural /horror fans alike.
    • 4/5
      John Saul is probably my favorite author of all-time but this book was rather disturbing. It was more psychological than his typical scary ghost type of story. It kind of left me with a sick sort of feeling, kind of like after I watched the movie "Seven" or "Saw". Not one of his better books in my opinion.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed reading this book. I usually read all my books on an ereader but this one I got from my daughter and is a hardcover. It was a wonderful book with all the twists, turns, nail biting, edge of your seat, who done its ever. I expect nothing less from Saul than a wonderful book.
      In this one you really do get caught up in the lives of Kara, her husband and their daughter who goes missing. Just vanishes into thin air along with two other people.
      All the kids from school come together to help Kara find her daughter and she feels so alone because her husband and Lindsey's dad is not there. But he has a reason. You will feel so sorry for Kara. She feels that she has lost everything but she still will not give up on finding her daughter alive.
      Lindsey is a smart and strong teenager who begins to think she will never be found and endures so much. Then an older woman is abducted and there are three of them now.
      The villain is really very sad. He endured such torture as a very young boy and in a way I felt it was not him there but the crazy part of him only. I had him figured out only in the last half of the last chapter. It did take me a while with this one. I thought it was someone else but then it hit me. I didn't expect it to be the way it was though and there was a lot of twists and turns, edge of your seat and sadness in the story. You didn't know what to expect when Kara kept thinking she was hearing her daughter crying, singing, yelling and just things that a distraught mother would hear if her daughter just went missing and you could not get the police to believe that she had not run away because they were moving during her senior year of high school. But even though in the end all did not go exactly as you might like it was a wonderful book with a wonderful ending. Some people got exactly what they deserved, but others.... not so much. Great book. I love John Saul's books and now can't wait for a new one to come out.. Read if you like scary, not horror but intense scary reading.
    • 2/5
      This book started off promising and then, as others have stated, started going downhill and never recovered. I ended up skimming quite a bit towards the end and finished the book feeling disappointed. The ending was completely depressing and the overall uneven pacing and nonsensical plot twists just felt contrived and very out of place. Not a fan of this one...
    • 3/5
      "Perfect Nightmare" by John Saul starts with a nifty premise. A kidnapper targets victims by stalking open houses and homes for sale on the internet. Great idea, and one that hasn't been done yet, to my knowledge, or done to death (no pun intended). The main and core characters are likable, sympathetic and realistic. You can relate to them and you care about what you just know is going to happen. But starting about midway through the book, I felt that Saul began to lose his focus. Maybe it was the introduction, or reintroduction, of some secondary characters - - mostly thrown in for red herring purposes. But I felt the book lost some of its snap. The seemingly pointless and senseless death of a major character threw me for a loop - - and not in a good way. The "big reveal" at the end of the kidnapper was no surprise, as the signs were much too obvious much too early in the book. The story seemed to end rather quickly, as if Saul himself got tired of the characters and the story. That being said, although I like Saul's other works, I felt this was formulaic (for him) and seemed an almost phoned in effort. For a new writer, or one less prolific or proven, it might come across as a better effort, but I expect more from Mr. Saul.
    • 4/5
      A creepy book. 'John Saul knows how to make your skin crawl.'
    • 3/5
      Typical John Saul fare. Young girls fall prey to a crazed kidnapper who kidnaps to fulfil some childhood fantasy of revenge to his abuse. Not a bad story though nothing special here. I just could not get drawn into the story. Quick read so I didn’t waste too much time here. I feel I should write more here, but it just wasn’t a memorable story.
    • 5/5
      INCREDIBLE THRILLER!!!!! Fast paced!
    • 2/5
      Distressing that this guy has such a following. I guess he used to write supernatural stuff, and he is praised as a story-teller. I guess…thinking about the plot, if someone else had written it, it might have been compelling. Dead girls disappearing, villain turns out to be the hero, etc. But it was so bland, full of flat characters and flat dialog, and missing motivation. I REALLY objected to the characterization of the teenage girl’s relationship with both her parents and her friends, and her dialog. SOOOOO off the mark….sort of circa 1950s, with very little angst with the parents. And the villain? First person does NOT work with a psycho!!!!
    • 4/5
      I have to start off by saying that after reading Black Creek Crossing, I was a tad leary of reading another Saul book. However, this easily exceeding my expectations by a long shot. This was back to good old John Saul. The book tells the story of a girl who disapears right before her family is planning to move from the suburbs of Long Island to New York City. I don't want to say much more about the plot, as I don't want to give anything away. I did figure out the ending pretty early on, but it was okay, because there was more depth than I originally thought. A nice quick read for the horror/crime fan.