Saul will make your skin crawl with this one. You will not see open houses the same way again after reading this book. Interesting twists that keep you reading this book, you will not want to put this book down.

"If you open your house to strangers, who knows who might come in. And what they might be after. Or whom."

This book is disturbing... When a horror novel makes my skin crawl, it does its job.

A young teenage girl is missing shortly after her parent's home is shown during an Open House held by the realtor. The police have little to go on and feel it is possible the girl took off because she was upset about the family's pending move. Her mother doesn't agree with this thinking and organizes her own search for her daughter. Then the unthinkable happens, a young mother disappears just as her home is scheduled for an Open House. As the story progresses it gets scarier by the moment. Don't read this just before you have an Open House scheduled!!!

Unbelievable read

It had you wondering from one minute to the next. It was exciting. Carried from chapter to the next. He's an awesome writer. This is the second one I've read of his and the are all fantastic

A creepy end to my creepy season reading. Looking forward to some more of John Saul's work next October.

A little disturbing

Been reading Saul for years. Loved this book...fast paced and exciting. Only one part towards the end there was a bit too much detail, but it didn't hurt the story and it picked up again quickly. I would ,recommend this to anyone who likes to read thriller/horrors.

-Paige

I haven't read a John Saul book for many years. I used to be quite a fan so I was quite looking forward to something more contemporary and up to date. This is a pretty scary novel. Certainly if you have children and are of a sensitive disposition you should avoid. The subject matter is grim and it does make for quite an uncomfortable read. The author conveys creepiness and suspense builds well as you would expect from an experienced writer. The book is well written but a little formulaic. Unfortunately the flaw is in the ending it is just too predictable. I felt that the author had grown bored and rushed the ending. It was a real shame as this should have been an outstanding read from a master horror writer.

Perfect Nightmare was this month's (July) book club pick by a member of my book club. I usually try to read the book club pick first, just in case I don't like it, I can get it out of the way and spend the rest of the month reading books that, hopefully, I'll enjoy. Which is the case this month. I really wanted to DNF this book but I'm actually kind of glad that I didn't because the ending was so shocking!

One of the reasons that I didn't like this book is that I just didn't really care for the characters. All these awful things were happening to them and I was more interested in the story line and figuring out who was responsible for all these horrific things instead of caring about the victims feelings.

I thought a little of what happened was unrealistic. I find it completely plausible that someone would target victims through open houses, coming in as a potential buyer but then hiding and kidnapping their target. But the other tragedies that happened in the midst of everything else just seemed unrealistic.

The other reason I didn't like the book because there were some parts that were from the perpetrator's perspective. Normally I don't mind that because it can be a little creepy. But these little pieces of perspective made me feel dirty because he wanted to touch a teenage girl and he was smelling her underwear. That just felt wrong and I am not down with that.

This is only the first John Saul book that I've ever read so I don't know if all his books are like this or not. I've actually heard that some of this other books are paranormal so I'm not going to completely write this author off until I give another one of his books a try. I was going to give this book only 1 star but that ending was so shocking that I decided to bump it up one more. If you want to try John Saul I would recommend picking up one of his other books.

This wasn’t exactly what I normally expect from John Saul! There was absolutely nothing paranormal about it; it was really a very straightforward serial killer/kidnapper story, at least until the end, where it very much became a John Saul story in ways that did remind me of Suffer the Children and the cat scene so if you’ve read that and know what I’m talking about that and don’t want to relive that. You know. Beware.

The characters weren’t especially compelling but they seemed human enough. The plot was a little contrived at times and I really don’t think the killer could have been as unobtrusive as he had to have been do get this done; obviously, the red herring was the reddest of the herrings for a reason, but, like… everyone knows this guy. Not that I didn’t like the twist (and I sort of called it early on, and then sighed and went, “Well, no, he’s not unobtrusive”, so.), I just wish it was handled differently.

When it came to the why for the killer—yeah. No. Didn’t uh. Predict that one at all, chief.

But it was fine. It was a fine, workable thriller, and John Saul remains a fine, workable author. Not the worst from him I’ve read, and not the best.

John Saul at his best!

This book really was the Perfect Nightmare!
Karas' daughter goes missing from their home, a mother of a young child disappears for their home. Both held an open house for selling their homes to move away.
A gripping and chilling tale, which kept me reading and wanting to know what happened to the two missing young women.

I really enjoyed the story but I've got to say I figured out the plot way before the end, still it didn't stop my enjoyment from finishing the book.

3.5/5

I listened to the audio book.

I'm finally doing these reviews after months. The open house aspect of this story is really creepy, and it was executed well. I wasn't a big fan of the ending and who the kidnapper was.