Rating: 
Summary: Once Upon a Time, There Was a Story With All the Answers...
Review: ...and someone was willing to kill, to keep them unknown.When women start dropping dead in Nora Chancel's wealthy neighborhood, she eventually is suspected of having something to do with it. She's barely under arrest, however, when someone with a worse rap-sheet than she could ever hope to achieve (even if she was guilty, which she isn't) abducts her at gunpoint to make his own escape from the police station. Her abductor, a charming, handsome cad named Dick Dart, is a truly despicable fellow for whom no depravity is too low, and Nora has a nasty time ahead of her... This is probably Straub's most unpleasant book, though it is quite good. As usual, it wears out its welcome by going on far too long, and it suffers slightly from dramatic contrivance which weakens its more than usually shaky credibility. The worst thing about it is the skin-crawlingly voyeuristic time Nora is forced to spend with Dart - put simply, Straub writes a very realistic rape scene. The action is steady and interesting, and the plot is the least convoluted Straub has written. The whole thing is pretty straightforward. A typically strong, satisfying Straub read, but be forewarned that it is gruesomely descriptive.
Rating:
Summary: Once Upon a Time, There Was a Story With All the Answers...
Review: ...and someone was willing to kill, to keep them unknown. When women start dropping dead in Nora Chancel's wealthy neighborhood, she eventually is suspected of having something to do with it. She's barely under arrest, however, when someone with a worse rap-sheet than she could ever hope to achieve (even if she was guilty, which she isn't) abducts her at gunpoint to make his own escape from the police station. Her abductor, a charming, handsome cad named Dick Dart, is a truly despicable fellow for whom no depravity is too low, and Nora has a nasty time ahead of her... This is probably Straub's most unpleasant book, though it is quite good. As usual, it wears out its welcome by going on far too long, and it suffers slightly from dramatic contrivance which weakens its more than usually shaky credibility. The worst thing about it is the skin-crawlingly voyeuristic time Nora is forced to spend with Dart - put simply, Straub writes a very realistic rape scene. The action is steady and interesting, and the plot is the least convoluted Straub has written. The whole thing is pretty straightforward. A typically strong, satisfying Straub read, but be forewarned that it is gruesomely descriptive.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: A complex book weaving together ostensibly unrelated plotlines, The Hellfire Club is an incredible read. It has great characterizations and a good plot, that keeps moving along at a good pace.
Rating: 
Summary: Satanic Cult or Ham, Turkey and Tobasco Sandwitch?
Review: A few years back I was pleasantly surprised by listening to the audio version of Koko, a genuinely creepy and intricate novel. After that I read The Throat, which was more of the same. The I read Mystery, which contained some of the same characters and situations as the first two, but was childish, poorly sewn together and neither scary nor suspenseful. Peter Straub, I guess, can write hot or cold. The Hellfire Club is best consumed on a hot day, because it is definitely in the latter category. The sad thing about this book is that there's a great set up. Straub sets the stage for a weird and mysterious drama. The tension in the early part of the book is terrific. Then pieces start falling into place and the answers to mysteries are all anticlimactic. The best example is the title itself - is the Hellfire Club a satanic cult? An evil ancient society? A turkey, ham and Tabasco sandwich? Well, it doesn't really matter because the club is ancillary to the rest of the book. The story is really about a fairly straightforward and uninteresting serial killer. For a good chunk of the book I assumed, then later just hoped, that he was a distraction. He seemed too unimportant and uninteresting to be at the heart of the mystery. But as the book progressed it becomes clear that most of secrets were revealed fairly early on. I suppose we are expected to be entertained by the villain's antics and his interaction with the protagonist. I wasn't. Too bad. It had potential for a while.
Rating:
Summary: Not flawless, but good.
Review: A strange mixture between an extremly complex literary plot and a straightforward thriller. Alas, these elements sometimes hinder each other. Nevertheless: Great atmosphere, a compelling heroine, wonderful off-beat humour (the finale!), all in all: Well worth the read. Beware: Yet another serial-killer. People who long ago got tired of these guys should stay away from the book. I personally liked it a lot, especially the NON-thriller elements.
Rating: 
Summary: Still not sure what to think
Review: After waiting through the first two hundred pages, the book got great! Before that, I kept putting it off. But even as it ended, I don't know if I liked it or not. I felt deeply sorry for Nora and the rape sequences and such. I almost cried when he did those things to her. I only wish it had started differently. It was slow and it is hard to keep interest, but trust me, it does get better!
Rating:
Summary: Great Thriller, great character, great villian.
Review: Although I preferred Straub's "supernatural" fiction, this is his best "mundane" novel to date. By "mundane" I mean those stories lacking supernatural evil. There's plenty of evil in this novel, though. I LOVE the story within the story frame, that lampoons fantasy literature's strange adherents while also celebrating it. The main character really pleases, for so few male novelists construct convincing female characters. The villian is consummately evil, and it's all the more horrifying that he's "merely" human rather than being an superhuman agency of evil. The plot is, well, odd. Yeah, the blurb on the back kind of describes things, but the plot sort of lurches and tilts and ends up where I never expected it to go. Maybe I'm just naive and couldn't spot the obvious. At any rate, this is a fine novel.
Rating:
Summary: Hellacious Mess
Review: First off, I should say that "Shadowlands" and "Ghost Story" were two of my first forays into horror and that Peter Straub has always been near the top of my list of favorite horror writers. But... I found this book a tough read, with a confusing opening and cartoonish characters. It only becomes interesting with the introduction of Dick Dart who energizes things around page 160. But this leads to one of the fundamental flaws of this book. As described in other reviews, the main character, Nora, is raped by Dart in a vividly written scene. Yet even though Nora starts the book still unable to cope with her being raped during military duty decades earlier, she doesn't even spend ONE PAGE dealing with this new assault. It is with the characters that Straub lets us down here. Why Nora cares about anything but killing Dart is a mystery. And Straub doesn't seem to really know what to do with Dart himself, smart and one step ahead of everyone for most of the book. He provides two small glimpses at an Achille's heel, but doesn't really follow up on it. Nora's husband is possibly the character who gets the worst treatment. The reader never really gets a grip on who this person is. The story itself concerns the origins of a beloved fantasy trilogy. Think Lord of the Rings. And yet, as seen through the eyes of Nora, Straub doesn't encourage us to have the same good feelings toward this book that many characters have. The followers of the books are given full geek/nerd treatment for the most part, which undermines the reader caring about who ultimately wrote these classics.
Rating:
Summary: Straight up
Review: Good story. I think Straub is right up there with Koontz when it comes to writting an intense story. The action is exciting and the mystery is intriguing. The best part would have to be her escape from torcher, hitting her assailant over the head with a hammer and its on...
Rating:
Summary: complex, twisting tale of murder
Review: I didn't know what to expect after reading KOKO and hating it! I'm addicted to Straub now. Hellfire Club made me root for one of the strongest and most complex heroines I've seen in a long time. I went back to the prolouge of this book about 15 times, trying to figure out how it all tied together. The book within the book, the story of Pippin,at the beginning of each chapter is also worth re-reading. Hellfire Club is an intelligent book, something I'm not used to when reading mystery books, always figuring out the plot half-way through it...I hate that! I'm on MYSTERY now, and can't put it down, again Straub putting over-drive thought into the characters, and the plot.
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