Could the sudden unexplained death of Sally Montgomery's otherwise healthy baby daughter and then the mysterious disappearance of her neighbor, Lucy Corliss' young son be an indication of something amiss in the otherwise peaceful small town of Eastbury, Massachusetts? Could the fact that those two children and other Eastbury children have been secretly monitored since birth by a covert medical research firm going by the unlikely acronym CHILD have anything to do with it? Ya think? It's another silly movie of the week plot from John Saul that is for some reason ever so much more entertaining than it has any right to be with a decent ending to wrap things up. Add an extra half a star if you enjoy Saul's brand of 1980's cheese as much as I do.

This book was a good read. It flowed so well that I could not put it down. It makes the mind wonder again on how much is the government doing out there with out our knowledge. How far will the scientist and government go to continue to researching things they have not business in. Leave things up to God and his plan.

enjoy the read

Have been picking up John Saul whenever I find his works (as a horror fan), this was the first introduction to his writing. Trying to go chronological order to get his writing style and growth.

Be warned this book starts off with heavy material, sudden infant death syndrome, child abduction, and all the associated emotions in between. Could easily be considered horror, but this is something darker, more nefarious.

This is an 80's story before we cracked the DNA code, but still holds ups with is meticulous insight and application. Saul does a solid job of putting the reader in the victim's seat, hitting us with the situations and predictable observations from those outside the know.

Part medical "Frankenstein", part adult sorrow and adaptation, part police procedural, and part secret government agency doing illegal $hit, it all adds up to a great "What if?" tale of curiosity.

Easy to get hooked into what's going to happen until the surprise ending indicative of 80's horror stuff.

Work a look if you can find it.
Thanks for reading.

Mi primera incursión el obra de John Saul, y seguro no será la ultima.
Me parece que es acertado compararlo con autores como Stephen King, Dean Koontz o Peter Straub. Es decir, un terror urbano y contemporáneo, donde el mal se aggiorna y adapta a la modernidad. Aunque lo que caracteriza a Saul es que en sus obras siempre sufren los niños, lo que le agrega cierto morbo a sus historias ya de por si terroríficas. Y por eso este proyecto científico termina siendo "diabólico".
Es un libro que va de menos a más, empieza como la típica historia de "algo raro esta pasando con nuestros hijos" (de hecho comienza con la muerte de un bebe en un inicio traumático), después pasa a la investigación donde van apareciendo datos cada vez mas escalofriantes, pero avanza mostrando las distintas vivencias de los personajes ante esta situación, y llega un momento que uno esta tan inmerso que no deja el libro hasta saber como termina.
No es demasiado original, es el tipo de Best Seller del que hay a montones, pero esta bien construido es uno de los buenos productos del genero "científico loco jugando con la vida".
La historia es lo suficientemente interesante, los personajes son creíbles, la acción se regula correctamente, y el terror esta muy bien dosificado.
Si les gustan las historias de los autores que mencione antes, o las de Ira Levin o Peter Blatty, esta también la van disfrutar.

What can I say? Best shlock horror of the 80's. Love this guy. :)

Love all of John Saul's books. He focuses on teenagers, at least all the books of his that I've read were that way. I empathized with his lead characters because I always feel like an outsider, which his characters always wind up being. Saul mixes it all up with some Sci-fi to boot.

In checking this from the library I came upon a timestamp on the card, last checked out in 2001, that's when my mom checked it out. I remember this book is highly messed up, and if you don't like kids dying or messed up books, then man, you are reading and reviewing the wrong author's materials.

While this was not one of his best in many ways, it's up there. Saul writes you child horrors about children and he goes into things most don't. The characters are written how it works, treated and seen as insane because what they are saying sounds crazy. It's a ride and it's easy to grasp why SIDS is used as a scapegoat. It, much like many things in the medical field, works well as a cover up.

It was fun to revisit this book, but the ending's both amazing the first read, and totally something two brats would say that makes you mad as well.

I really think I like Saul's earlier work best. I like this novel so far-- a lot. I have tried to read his later works... the ones written in the last few years, and they just didn't work for me. The writing just wasn't very good.

I am halfway though this one, and it had a couple good twists. It's suspenseful and interesting.

A major medical project to produce "supermen" is uncovered by the victims parents.

Wow. This was a tough read in the beginning because it involved children. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I won't say what was so difficult about it. However, as the story progressed and the suspense built, I was drawn in more and more. The author has quite the knack for changing how I felt about the characters over the course of the book. Some who I liked and was sympathetic with in the beginning became despised while others I didn't like in the beginning I grew to sympathize with. Definitely recommend for anyone who likes medical mysteries!

I almost wish there had been a sequel so I could see how the story played out.

This is my 3rd John Saul book and my admiration for him just grows. Some books are just amazing that it leaves me speechless at the end (just like a Jeffery Deaver book).

The first few chapters of the book would leave you wondering: is a supernatural force responsible for the death of a baby? Is a sect responsible for the kidnapping? Or is there something inherently evil within the children?

The suspense goes down admittedly in the middle part of the book because you now knew what's happening. I felt it became a psychological suspense because it now dealt with growing rifts and suspicions between the characters (John Saul did this superbly in the Blackstone Chronicles where there is apparently no supernatural culprit and the characters' fears and emotional/psychological turbulence led to deaths and devastation within the community).

The action and conflict though skyrockets in the end where the true nature of the characters and the system (apparently the God project involves the collusion between a leading pharmaceutical corporation, the medical community, and the government)is revealed and what the God Project survivors turned out to be.

Note that this book is written sometime in the 80s. I'm an IT expert and I know that the main character couldn't have possibly "hacked" or extracted all the data she needs from any computer, given that the character's "specialized expertise" was not established in the story; she is more of a "general computer expert" and her expertise is in the intermediate level at the most. But this is the 80's and systems then probably wasn't as secure and controls weren't as stringent and robust as they are now. So it just seems reasonable to give the author some slack on this aspect.

I also would have preferred the title "The God Project" instead of the "All Fall Down" (which my copy has). The former has a much more disturbing feel that is more apt to the theme of the novel.