I found both the language and the common grammatical and contextual mistakes very annoying.

This was my second time with John Saul, and I had mixed feelings about him after reading 'Hellfire'. That one wasn't great, but I did find it quite entertaining nonetheless. With 'Sleepwalk' now - which was written a little later on in his career - there is a noticeable improvement in both his character development and the fluidity of his prose. This one is better written, with its settings more skillfully constructed and its story more stylishly told. Except despite these improvements, I didn't really like the story - nor did I enjoy the characters. The title and the blurb are extremely misguiding because there isn't anything to do with either until the last quarter of the book. In fact, there is nothing even remotely scary between the very beginning and the very end. It's more just a half-arsed drama about an Indian boy rediscovering his heritage - with a few villainous assholes thrown into the mix...

I could picture this whole book clearly in my head. It was like some find of almost Sci-Fi movie. Somewhat cheesy, but overall pretty good.

elibrary

Such a great thriller. Full of suspense. Although I predicted who was the criminal way before the end. Still a good one.

I am pretty sure that in this book there is a girl whose mother straps her down to her bed at night due to her sleepwalking habit. It might be Second Child, but who knows. It would just make sense for it to be this book, right?

Well written, but felt like it went on forever. Innuendo and swearing, but nothing extreme

I've been on a bit of a Saul binge lately, having picked up a box of his books at a yard sale. This is a reread, but it has been at least a decade. Set in a small, New Mexican town that revolves around a refinery, the main characters are a family (son, father) and a newly arrived high school teacher that came back to her hometown to teach after getting burned out in L.A. The owner of the refinery is facing a buyout and he is trying to keep the place running. Little does he know that something sinister is afoot. Some strange strokes start to fell people in town and things take a turn for the worse.

Picked it up in Paris, at the Shakespeare company book shop, best €2 ever spent. Gripping, couldn’t put it down, loved it

Oil company uses "flu shots" to control peoples minds... people go into seizures and die.

Judith Sheffield needs to escape the dangers of the city where she teaches. When a position suddenly opens up in her home town of Borrego, New Mexico, she takes it. Borrego is a small, decaying town that depends on its local oil refinery to serve its residents. Judith expects the town to be its usual boring self but safe. And she remembers many of its residents. She even reconnects with Jed Arnold, who she used to babysit. He's now a teenager, troubled, and neglected by a widower father who is too caught up in problems at the refinery to give his son enough attention. Besides that, Jed feels like an outsider because he is Indian on his mother's side. When Judith tries to reacquaint him with Brown Eagle, his grandfather, Jed initially dismisses the man as being crazy.

Judith can deal with the normal problems of her work and her life. But something extraordinary and sinister is happening in Borrego. An outside company, Unachem, has come in to take over the failing oil refinery, promising to update and expand its operation and bring prosperity. People are dying, and her students are turning into compliant robots. The people she most cares about are being affected, which includes Jed, his father, and the woman who took her in when she returned from the city. Can the company save the town, or is it part of the problem?

Tension mounts as different people act on their suspicions. As the danger grows, the tale gets downright scary, to where I peeked at the final pages of this chiller to see if my favorite characters would survive.

After an explosive climax, four heroes are left standing. The end is abrupt but not disturbingly so. Rather, even though the story stands on its own, enough issues remain to inhabit a sequel.

This had a very interesting storyline. I would give it a 3.5 star rating because the storyline had so much potential for surprises and twists and turns. I felt that the author played it safe and missed the opportunity for a truly thrilling plot.