Lost boy, lost girl : a novel /

Once more, Straub employs the scene (Millhaven, Illinois) and the protagonists--'nam-vet novelist Tim Underhill and rich, super-attentive and -intuitive P.I. Tom Pasmore--of his hefty best-sellersoko (1988), Mystery (1989), and The Throat (1993). Relegating Pasmore to the secondary cast and using Tim as both first-person recorder of events and third-person general narrator, Straub explores two appalling tragedies. Tim's sister-in-law, Nancy, an appealing woman whom many pity for marrying ill-tempered Philip Underhill, kills herself for no apparent reason. Mere days later, Philip and Nancy's handsome 15-year-old, Mark, disappears. Since a serial killer has been "disappearing" middle-teen boys from the park in which Mark and his best friend,imbo, hung out nights, the worst is feared. With Pasmore working behind the scenes, Tim sets out to understand his two losses. Mostly, he must getimbo to reveal all that he knows. As he succeeds with the boy, Tim discovers that in the abandoned house across the alley from Philip and Nancy's are the keys to the puzzles of her death, Mark's vanishing, and other mysteries. Much of what Tim learns is hideous, but some of it points to transcendent redemption for Mark and a girl who disappeared long ago in even grislier circumstances. This is the great novel of the supernatural Straub has always had it in him to write, one as beautiful, moving, and spiritually rich as the best stories in his dazzling collections Houses without Doors (1990) and Magic Terror (2000). --Ray Olson Copyright 2003 Booklist

For its high artistry and uncanny mix of dread and hope, Straub's 16th novel, his shortest in decades, reaffirms the author's standing as the most literate and, with his occasional coauthor Stephen King, most persuasive of contemporary novelists of the dark fantastic. This brilliant variation on the haunted house tale distills themes and characters from Straub's long career, including two of the author's most popular creations: Manhattan novelist Tim Underhill (from Koko, Mystery and The Throat) and Tim's friend, legendary private detective Tom Pasmore (from Mystery and The Throat). Written from multiple viewpoints, the narrative shuttles disturbingly through time and space as Tim travels home to Millhaven, Ill., to attend the funeral for his sister-in-law, a suicide. In that small city based loosely on Straub's hometown of Milwaukee, Tim spends time with his callow widowed brother, Philip, and his nephew, sensitive Mark, 15, who found his mother's naked body in the bathtub, wrists slit and a plastic bag over her head. Meanwhile, a serial killer is snatching teen boys from a local park, and Mark and his sidekick, Jimbo, begin to explore a nearby abandoned house. Mark grows obsessed with the house, eventually revealed as the rotting source of the evil that stalks Millhaven, but also as the harbor of a great marvel. When Mark disappears, Tim pursues his trail and, with Tom Pasmore's help, that of the serial killer who may have taken the boy away. Straub remains a master of place and character; his insight into teens, in particular, is astonishingly astute. His myriad narrative framings allow multiple interpretations of events, making this story work on many levels, yet they also increase the urgency of the story, up to its incandescent ending. With great compassion and in prose as supple as mink, Straub has created an exciting, fearful, wondrous tale about people who matter, in one of his finest books to date. 100,000 first printing; 6-city author tour. (Oct. 7) Forecast: Straub's last book, the King-coauthored Black House, hit #1 on bestseller lists. Readers will remember Black House and The Talisman, as well as Straub's earlier major solo bestsellers such as Ghost Story, Floating Dragon and Koko. The book's brevity may draw new readers, as should strong reviews and, down the road, inevitable award nomination. This title has the potential to be Straub's biggest seller in years. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Timothy Underhill (remember Koko and The Throat?) returns to his hometown to track down a "lost boy" whom he fears has been lured into a spooky house by a "lost girl." (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The veteran horror writer's circuitous 16th outing (stories: Magic Terror, 2000, etc.). A suburban mom's suicide, a spooky abandoned house, and a teenager's unwitting pursuit of the truth about "one of the nation's livelier serial killers"--such are the ingredients here. They're pieced together, after a fashion, by successful NYC novelist Tim Underhill (first seen in Koko, 1988), who's summoned to the midwestern town of Millhaven by his brother Philip, a misanthropic high school vice-principal. Tim learns that his teenaged nephew Mark has found his mother Nancy dead in her bathtub. Following this essentially straightforward setup, the novel breaks apart into alternations of present action with flashbacks, experienced and relayed through various characters' viewpoints, Tim's "journal," and an omniscient narrative voice only intermittently firmly distinguished from Tim's own. The central action is Mark's exploration (initially abetted by best pal Jimbo) of the uninhabited house directly behind his own--a house, we're asked to believe, that Mark had scarcely noticed (!) prior to his mother's suicide. Its secrets--sharply imagined and brimming with promising narrative menace--have to do with Nancy Underhill's first cousin Joseph Kalendar, a serial rapist, child abuser, and murderer. As the intrepid Mark (a sweet-natured golden boy whose stunning good looks are rather creepily overstressed) keeps uncovering nauseating things, Tim and Philip and involved local authorities (aided by Detective Tom Pasmore, on loan from Mystery, 1989, and The Throat, 1993) also zero in on Kalendar's horrific legacy. The fates of adolescent boys lured away by a malign sexual predator are painstakingly, laboriously connected to that of a "lost girl" (herself an otherworldly seductive force) who "haunts" those who failed to save her. And, in a nod to Straub's sometime collaborator Stephen King, Tim realizes that (à la King's The Dark Half) his own literary creations may have assumed lethal form. Strikingly imagined indeed, but the zigzag structure blurs the momentum and effect of what might have been one of Straub's best. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.