Punish the Sinners

Rating:
Summary: I love it, I hate it
Review: This is the best book Saul wrote, it's great. I read it a few times actually and each time I couldn't leave it and move on with my life, like doing something for school or something. It touched me, the subject is very well built, so are the characters. Peter Balsam, and old childhood friend of Peter Vernon (now the Monsenior) is asked to come and teach psychology. He is an outcast in a relligious society and relates only to another oucast, a divorced woman. Prejudice coming from religious ideas is a great background for the Monsenior who finally came with a plan how to punish the "sinners". He is a very disturbed character and if you are a smart reader you'll get the idea why he is as he is. He is by no means the common religious fanatic, he's more. You enter a world of dark, creepy secretes hidden under a mask of peace and God. It's so usual for saul to do this, paint a perfect picture and turn it into grothesque, showing the true evil. I like that he's not a writer that ends books the way most do, he doesn't make it sweeter than life is. I hated this book, I threw it on the floor in rage when I finished it. But I loved it too, believe me. I understand it, it has a certain logic. Oh, you have to read it to see what I mean. If you didn't read Saul before - this is the best and the most evil book I'd say. Ok, let's say, the most evil from the pleasant ones. "The right hand of Evil" is the most evil. I am 22 and still it gave me nightmares. It wasn't believable and it was kind of distgusting like also "Suffer the children". Morbid. I would relate it to "Comes the blind Fury". It's about fury, but at a more unconscious level, I don't suspect that the evil character realizes hos rage so well, he can't controle it, it's madness and yet a perfect plan, so cold, and so calculated. It's brilliant! Great, grrrrrrrreat book.

Rating:
Summary: Really good.
Review: This is the first novel I have read from Saul and I admit I was impressed. From the first page it hooks you in and keeps you there. The ending was not typical and much of a surprise. Overall really good book, along the lines of Stephen King novels, which have that eerie and mysterious flavor to them that make them such good thrillers. I look forward to reading more of John Saul's work.

Rating:
Summary: Saul's Best?
Review: To date, this is by far the best *and also the first) John Saul novel I have read. And based on other reviews, I think that sentiment is shared by a lot of other readers. Had I not had other commitments, I probably would have read this cover-to-cover. All in all, I think it took me two days. If you are looking for a quick escape - read it. Too bad, nothing else by John has even come close to this one.....