This was a pleasant surprise, as I have heard of Saul for at least 20 years and tried and failed to get drawn into several of his books through the years. Finally though I came acroos this at just the right time, and while I would likely rate it 3.5 stars 4 will suffice...were it not for the ending, which was a little lackustre to me it would have been a solid 4 anyway.

A teen girl, discovers her family must move prior to her senior year of high school and thus ends her hopes of graduating w/ friends and attaining the head cheerleader position. Enter a faceless creepy psychopath stalking some perfect specimens....and we have a creepy scary almost from the headlines type of horror read that should delight fans of the genre....but also has the realism of being something that could happen in any town to any family. Since I abhor supernatural elements, this book was a good one for me as it is totally devoid of them. A string of disappearance occurs, with no clues leading to the perpetrator. While there are certanly cops involved this is in no way a crime thriller.....the creepy antagonist combined the realistic and mostly likeable main characters set up some creepy, horrifying and heartbreakig scenes. I loved that halfway through the book I kind of figured out the sicko was 1 of 2 individuals...but I seemed to go back and forth between which one I thought was really behind this.....other than the surprise of finding out who it really was, the ending didn't live up to the enjoyment that most of this read held me in.

I would recommend this to all horror/suspense fans.

It’s rare that I don’t see the ending coming, figure out Whodunit and why. Not only did this have a couple freaky twists, the happy-ish conclusion that I was expecting (based on how I thought each character would end up) was completely impossible. I kind of liked not having a neat ending with a two or three page epilogue, which I almost always crave when I read. This one ended right where it needed to and I applaud that. I can only hope *I* don’t have nightmares from it, though.

pretty good psychological thriller. Even though i'm into more paranormal scary books, this one was def a page turner and i finished it in less than a day!

Just Wow

John Saul has been my all time favorite since I was a teen…. Looking at his books list i noticed I had not read this one. Of course I immediately purchased and read it in a few sittings. What a ride and not until the very end did I understand what had happened. It’s an awesome read …..

Excellent

I love John Saul !
He keeps you engrossed until the very end of the book.
I will continue to read his books until I've read them all !!!

Perfect Nightmare

Perfect Nightmare was a thrilling, keep you on the edge of your seat read until the last heart stopping minute. The ending was such a surprise. John Saul never lets his readers down. Amazing.

What a creepy book about thow the cycle of abuse can affect a person. We sold our house 5 months ago and had a few open houses. I'm so glad I didn't read this book during that time. Eek! It's bad enough having people go through your house and touch your things without having the creepy guy in this book hide to come out later to kidnap victims.

Perfect Nightmare was my first John Saul book and it was fast, intense and extremely dark as simple words rang truth in my ears like bells and they were terrifying and depressing but made for a really good horror book. There were no super natural monsters, no vampires and witches but a soul of a man so dark and rotten that it chilled me to the bone as I read this book in two days, as it was a very fast and smooth read. I must admit that the story left me feeling down and sad because it was so real and horrifying yet I knew it was a book so I kept reading, if it was a newspaper article I don't know if I would have had the guts to continue.

Kara Marshall and her husband Steve were planning on moving form the charming Long Island home to the city, where Steve worked because they couldn't afford to stay in the house and needed help with their finances. As they decided to put their home out on the market, they unknowingly invited a stranger into their house for an open house who ended up doing the worst harm a mother can imagine; he was responsible for having her only daughter, Lindsay who was a seventeen year old girl, disappear without a trace. I have never read a book so dark and twisted, as the mother's agony was so clearly written, I felt pain as I read it and I felt sick reading about the cold blooded killer who tortured and kidnapped women out of their homes and who were thought to be dead by their family members. I have been told by some people that a loss of a child is the most macabre thing a parent can suffer, and I got a major does of the end, the sadness and the finality of someone else's actions as they ended a mother's happy life and set her life in eternal shadows as her own child was being tortured and pushed to brinks of death. I got to read and feel the emptiness, the sadness, the way the mother knew her child was out there and was not coming back, that no matter what dreams she woke up from that nothing was ever going to be the same. Just as things got bad they got worse very quickly and darkness turned to inky blackness as I had no hope for any of the captured girls.

This was a gloomy, morbid book, and it caught me in a surprise a few times, but I'm glad I read it, as it made me look around more at people and made sure to always keep safe. This really read so realistically that I'm still trying to shake it off, but I know its fiction and it was a good read from a solid and well known author, and I will definitely read more of his stuff.

As someone else mentioned, I don't know hot Saul wrote this, as it was insane and real but I respect him as a writer, as clearly his skills were sharp, and despite the negative reviews, maybe this was too dark for some, to me this was a great read.

I’m always going to love this book!!

It’s so disturbingly perfect that you can’t put it down

I read this book first when I was 13 years old and it’s been in my head since and I had some credits for an audiobook, so why not?

It was better this time around.


Lesson #1: never have an Open House if you plan on selling a house.
Lesson #2: never trust a stranger.

Can't stand listening to it anymore. The narrator Dick Hill goes way way overboard in narrating the psycho that it carries onto the other characters he portrays a little. Besides that, the psycho kidnaps a girl and everybody but the mother thinks she ran away from home so where is it going. The way John Saul wrote this you think he was a little bit of a pedophile or something or he was a little psycho writing it.

A fun, fast-paced, and twisted thriller. I enjoy John Saul's writing and this was on par with his best. There are multiple POVs in the novel including the antagonist and man that POV was creepy and disturbing.

This one I think will stick with me for a while. I loved the family relationships Saul explored throughout the story and the connection that a mother and daughter have. Mum...if you're reading this, you HAVE to read this.
This was perfect to read during a spooky/creepy readathon as I found myself shivering or getting goosebumps while reading because it was just creepy.