Rating: 
Summary: Book Has Great Potential But...
Review: ...the ending was rushed, loose ends were not tied, and that was disappointing. The beginning of the story was a little slow, but the book eventually started picking up pace as the protagonists, Anne and Mark attempt to find a killer.I read the book in two days (it was that exciting!), but when I finished the book, I still had questions. Go ahead and give the book a try, but remember that the ending will be a big dud.
Rating: 
Summary: Black Lightning
Review: Black Lightning,
Cliché? Well, yes. This book has been written many times in the past. Does this take away from the enjoyment of the read? I say NO! I rather enjoyed this book. If I would have listened to what other reviewers had to say I would have never discovered John Saul.
Anne Jeffers and her husband Glen are caught in a nightmare, which seems to have no end.
A serial killer seems to be haunting them from the dead. Anne and her husband are taken on a whirlwind of a ride.
I thought the book moved at a great pace, it kept me turning pages. I don't like to give away plot so I'll just continue with my opinion overall.
This book does seem to have elements of many horror books that have gone in the past, but I believe there is plenty of room in this genre for many more books like this. Overall this book was fun and enjoyable. I never felt bogged down or bored. The pages turned at a nice pace and the story flowed smoothly. John Saul has a very smooth way of telling a tale.
Although this book may not be great, I felt it was very good and deserved much better treatment than many reviewers gave it.
I liked the book well enough to purchase other Saul books.
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable, poor plot
Review: I enjoy a good mystery and horror book as much as the next person. But I also enjoy being surprised about where the plot takes me. Nothing irritates me more than being able to predict what happens with the story after reading 1/2 of the book. Unfortunately, this is what occurred with John Saul's Black Lightning. In addition, the book's plot moves very slow, and I felt almost forced to keep turning the pages. Definitely not a book that you feel you have to keep reading.
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat predictable
Review: I enjoyed this novel to an extent, but it was predictable at certain parts. The character development was excellent, though and it was fast - paced. And thank goodness - no neat ending in sight.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing at best
Review: I haven't read a John Saul book in a few years so I thought I'd catch up. This is a bad one to begin with as it makes the other two I have sitting here look rather unappealing. The ending, as many have said, is terrible. I was sitting there reading with about five pages of paper left and I couldn't help but thinking, there's no way this can finish off good. It really made no sense either. Without giving the plot too much away, the explanation of how things happened at the "moment of truth" was just too far-fetched and didn't add a thing to the story. There were no emotional connections to any of the characters except in the beginning of the book when you feel for Glen (Anne's husband) and Anne herself. But that all goes away very quickly as the boredom begins. I would not bother with this book.
Rating:
Summary: There's not much to fear from this Black Lightning
Review: In Black Lightning, John Saul builds his plot around a serial killer of unusual distinction. I have a morbid fascination with serial killers and their motivations, but midway through the book it was quite apparent that Saul was going in a weird direction; glimpses into the mind of the maniac dwindle with time, and the door to insight is slammed shut by the paranormal elements of the story. This is by no means a bad novel; it's always nice to read a Saul novel that has nothing to do with some type of hundred-year old curse or mysterious genealogy. The writing is quite tight and riveting in places. The scenes describing one character's acrophobia attacks are incredibly intense, and the descriptions of the individual murders are painstakingly realistic. The novel begins with the execution of serial killer Richard Kraven. Journalist Anne Jeffers, who worked diligently to assure the killer's conviction, is there to witness the event. While Kraven is being electrocuted, Anne's husband is suffering a near-fatal heart attack. The doctors don't seem to really do anything at all for Glen Jeffers, but he is soon back home resuming a fairly normal life. Warned by the doctor that her husband's behavior may be changed as a result of the heart attack, Anne and eventually her children become increasingly disturbed by Glen's behavior. They would really have worried had Glen told them he was having blackouts; he continually finds himself having to explain actions he has no conscious memory of having performed. Meanwhile, a new killer is on the loose, committing murders eerily similar to Kraven's handiwork. Soon the killer begins entering Anne's home secretly and leaving her messages. When cops begin finding Kraven's "signature" on fresh murder victims, a signature that no one besides the deceased Kraven and the cops could possibly know about, things go from bad to worse. When the killer finally turns his eyes toward his nemesis Anne Jeffers, things get worse still. This is no average serial killer, as Anne soon discovers when he strikes truly close to home. The basis of this novel winds up seeming a little hokey. Midway through the novel, the story switched directions on me a little bit, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but by the time I reached the conclusion, this potentially impressive plot really started sputtering. At times, incidents and dramas last a little longer than they should, and this drags down an otherwise fairly brisk story. I can't address the paranormal aspects of the tale without divulging too much information, but it is not quite original and pushes the limits of credulity in the context of the novel Saul constructed around it. There are also a few subplots that seem important early on but sort of fade into obscurity, such as the relationship between Anne and the lead detective. Sometimes riveting, sometimes a little drawn-out, Black Lightning is a perfectly satisfactory horror novel. It makes a good change of pace for Saul, who sometimes seems to get in a rut of old curses and young teenagers. The effort is undeniably there, but unfortunately the book seems to shoot itself in the foot at the very end.
Rating:
Summary: Saul - Black Lightning
Review: In looking over previous reviews I've seen words and phrases like "point of view" and "character development." This leads me to believe that people are either expecting too much of Mr. Saul or they're over-thinking the book. Saul writes horror and thriller novels - he does not attempt to reach the modern literary equivalent of War and Peace each time he puts pen to paper. If that's what he was trying to accomplish, he would be an astonishing failure. To the contrary, he's actually quite successful and good at what he does. He writes entertaining, escapist thrillers that are, at best, amusing and, at worst, a cheap thrill. Black Lightning is no different than previous Saul novels although it deals less with the traditional supernatural horror elements and focuses on fairly standard "serial killer" fare. But there are problems. The novel is probably 100 pages too long, the ending is poor and the overall plot is merely a slightly enhanced version of hundreds of novels already on bookshelves. Saul has written better - check out The Blackstone Chronicles. There are better novels and authors but there are also worse. Saul is, as always, middle of the road.
Rating:
Summary: Saul - Black Lightning
Review: In looking over previous reviews I've seen words and phrases like "point of view" and "character development." This leads me to believe that people are either expecting too much of Mr. Saul or they're over-thinking the book. Saul writes horror and thriller novels - he does not attempt to reach the modern literary equivalent of War and Peace each time he puts pen to paper. If that's what he was trying to accomplish, he would be an astonishing failure. To the contrary, he's actually quite successful and good at what he does. He writes entertaining, escapist thrillers that are, at best, amusing and, at worst, a cheap thrill. Black Lightning is no different than previous Saul novels although it deals less with the traditional supernatural horror elements and focuses on fairly standard "serial killer" fare. But there are problems. The novel is probably 100 pages too long, the ending is poor and the overall plot is merely a slightly enhanced version of hundreds of novels already on bookshelves. Saul has written better - check out The Blackstone Chronicles. There are better novels and authors but there are also worse. Saul is, as always, middle of the road.
Rating: 
Summary: Great until the last 2 pages.....
Review: This book tried to be too many different things. First believeable and then way too much unbelievable. The characters were shallow and uninteresting. There could have been so much more done with this storyline.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing plot line, albeit fairly well written
Review: This is the first John Saul novel I've ever read. I hope his others aren't this formulatic and drawn out, only to reveal a disappointing conclusion. The story is one that, sadly, has been done over and over again in print AND on film. Anne Jeffers, ace reporter, watches serial killer Richard Kraven, whom she helped convict, die in the electric chair. At almost the same time, thousands of miles away, Anne's husband suffers a massive heart attack. Dead for over two minutes, Glen Jeffers recovers, but his personality is just never the same. The gruesome murders attributed to Richard Kraven start all over again - four years after his incarceration. Who can be the killer? Is there an accomplice? Are these copy cat murders? Who can say? Unfortunately, anyone who's ever seen the movie "Fallen" or an old 1980's horror film (the name of which escapes me now), knows what has happened. Saul throws a few mugafins our way, but to anyone experienced in reading a variety of books can see right through the fluff. The most disappointing aspect of the book is that the ending feels thrown together. It's as if Saul had a specific number of pages that he had to supply to his publisher, and he didn't want to go below or above that number. In short, the book just sort of ends. It's not satisfying. The police in this book are more bumbling than the team that investigated the Jean Benet Ramsay case in Colorado. They haven't investigated all their leads and the proof that Kraven was the serial killer is never really fleshed out. The central characters don't act believably and the trains of thought displayed don't follow a logical flow. And when was the last time you heard of a convicted murderer on death row being executed within four years of his incarceration? Four decades maybe - four years - never! I wanted to like this book, because the writing wasn't bad as a whole. Sure, it was a pulp novel - I knew it would be - but it wasn't poorly written - just poorly thought out and executed.
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