The Barnes & Noble Review
Bestselling horror fiction has taken an interesting turn over the last couple of years. While Stephen King has been experimenting with the genre for some time now (Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne don't exactly fit the typical horror mold), every other major horror author clearly decided the time was right to flex his creative muscle. Dean Koontz has found a long life comfortably atop the bestseller lists with his mainstream terrors, Fear Nothing and Seize the Night; Anne Rice mixed the gothic with autobiography in Violin; the V. C. Andrews franchise found new life in the serial novel format King reinvented with The Green Mile; and somewhere Robert McCammon has a new historical epic that may or may not ever see the light of day.
So it's perfectly reasonable that John Saul, author of 22 popular chillers, decided to lighten up on the body count in order to focus more on a traditional haunted-house story for his new novel, The Right Hand of Evil. And fortunately, he pulls it off effortlessly.
Saul has always been most comfortable when pointing his horror toward the familial unit; here, however, the family begins the tale on the very edge of destruction. Janet Conway is a struggling artist who has to worry about not only three kids but also Ted, her alcoholic husband, who doesn't just fall off the wagon — he practically throws himself under its wheels. The kids — teenage twins Jared and Kimberley, and moppet Molly — would actually love nothing more than for Mom to leave the bum and take them with her. Before thatcanhappen, however, Ted's crazy Aunt Cora decides to die, leaving Ted a huge home in the sleepy town (is there ever any other kind in a Saul novel?) of St. Albans, Louisiana.
At first the inheritance of the house seems to actually whip Ted into shape. He's suddenly inspired to turn it into a little hotel — a decision that is met with fierce resistance by the rest of the town's residents, who soon let the Conways know that Ted's ancestors have a history tied to voodoo, infanticide, racism, infidelity, and murder (even cruelty toward animals gets its turn). This is enough to drive Ted back to the bottle. But during one particularly bad drinking spell, a nasty accident leaves him in a vulnerable position — one in which the Conway men unknowingly join hands with evil in a supernatural battle against the Conway women.
Unlike many of Saul's previous novels, The Right Hand of Evil does not feature excessive violence. Instead Saul focuses on giving his readers a satisfyingly suspenseful haunted-house tale. He has painted a convincing portrait of a woman who feels she's trapped in a bad marriage; he also demonstrates the extent to which parents can rationalize their offspring's eccentric — and sometimes disturbing — behavior as "just part of being a teenager." The entire Conway clan's descent into madness makes for quite a page-turner.
At times The Right Hand of Evil brings to mind a mix of King's The Shining and Bag of Bones. And it won't exactly come as a shock to Saul readers that it's mostly men doing the dirty deeds, and mostly women who have to fight against it. Let's face it, strong women characters are a staple of Saul's works, and in Janet and especially the intelligent Kimberley, Right Hand's got a great duo.
With an addictive story of supernatural suspense and appealing central characters, The Right Hand of Evil is a perfect way to generate a chill up your spine in the summer heat.
—Matt Schwartz
Chris Petrakos
Best-selling Gothic Suspense-meister John Saul is back with a gory tale of evil that is both extreme and entertaining. The book's prologue hits hard: A woman suffocates her newborn baby, believing it to be a creature of evil, while her husband hangs himself from a tree.
Jump-cut to the Conway family: alcoholic husband Ted, fed-up mom Janet, and their three children. Dad has just inherited an old mansion in Louisiana from his crazy aunt, who we have met in the prologue. The aunt's will required Ted to send his children to parochial school, and to help pay for the expense, he decides to fix up the mansion and turn it into a hotel.
Faster than you say "The Shining," very weird things start happening in the old house, and the children are in mortal danger. The story's resolution comes on Halloween weekend, which is indicative of how many cliches the author indulges in. Still, he moves them along at a brisk clip and while he does nothing new with the haunted house theme, the idea itself still holds a bit of punch.
— Chicago Tribune
William D. Gagliani
When a drunk Ted Conway is fired from his last-chance hotel job, his ever-patient wife Janet finally decides it may be time to take their three children and leave him. Ted has spiraled to a point where even his perfect teenage twins, Jared and Kim, can't stand him.
But then Ted's Aunt Cora, who never much liked him, dies in the Shreveport sanitarium which had been her home for years and inexplicably leaves Ted the family mansion, along with its bloody history of murder and mysterious disappearances. Another chance? Jane allows Ted to convince her that he can stop drinking, and that the mansion can be converted into an inn. Unfortunately, the Conway name is despised in St. Albans, and the new Conways meet opposition right from the start, not least from an obsessed Catholic priest, and also from Jake Cumberland, last descendant of the voodoo-practicing Conway servants.
Suddenly Janet detects a change in Ted, who becomes the husband she's missed for years. But why has Jared picked up all of Ted's worst qualities? Why has Jared and Kim's "Twin Thing" suddenly been silenced? And what of Father MacNeill's secretive attempts to deny Ted the zoning variance he needs to remodel the crumbling mansion?
Set aside superficial comparision to Stephen King's class The Shining - It's Jared, the son, who appears to have succumbed to the mansion's supernatural influence. And the results are quite different.
John Saul may not break any new ground here, but he has fashioned a slick, competent thriller in which deftly drawn characters must face the demons in their own lives to conquer that which claims the family's souls. That the list of survivors remains unpredictable to the end is testament to Saul's experienced approach, which has resulted in almost two dozen novels, many of them bestsellers.
Not known as a stylist, Saul uses a straightforward, uncluttered voice to good effect. Told with narrative verve from a sliding point of view, and with a penchant for realistic teenage dialogue, The Right Hand of Evil is gripping and fast-paced.
— Bookpage
Kay Black
This is a good read, with just enough mind-numbing action to keep the reader glued to his seat.....[S]ide characters...keep the interest high, but the most fascinating character is that of the father, who has a dramatic change....If you like John Saul's style of writing and want fast-paced action with remarkable characters, you will like The Right Hand of Evil.
— The Mystery Reader Online
Library Journal
The Conways inherit a long-abandoned house and a trust with enough money to allow them to restore the place to a habitable condition. This family of five has its problems--Ted's an alcoholic and Janet's a struggling artist--and they jump at the chance to own their own home. The three children are doing fine until they move into this house, which seems to have a life of its own--a life that includes voodoo, suicide, strange disappearances, and rumors of murder. Bill Weideman's reading is expressive, and his words are clearly enunciated. This easy-to-follow story will be in demand from horror and Dean Koontz fans. Recommended for public libraries.--Laurie Selwyn, Bells, TX Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
Kirkus Reviews
Saul's twentysomethingth horror novel begins with vacuous overwriting that improves only slightly as he settles into a banality far less fresh than his better stuff (The Presence, 1997; Shadows,/i>,1992, etc.). In the prologue, a woman fearing that she's given birth to a creature of pure evil suffocates her newborn, while her husband eviscerates and hangs himself from a nearby tree. Next we meet Janet Conway, her three children (Jared, Kimberly, and baby Molly), and her alcoholic husband Ted, from whom she wants to split. But Ted, an assistant hotel manager just fired for drinking, has inherited a hulking old Victorian house in St. Albans, Louisiana, from his Aunt Cora, the crazy woman in the prologue. When the Conways go to St. Albans to look at the house, they find that a clause in the inheritance insists that their children must attend parochial school or else Ted, a lapsed Catholic, can't claim ownership. Ted's decision is to turn the hulk into a hotel, living in it during the transition — and so it is that young Kimberly starts hearing her great-aunt's suffocated baby wailing through the night. Déjà vu? Stephen King's The Shining, anyone? As the house is gradually repaired room by room, the town seeks to withhold permits for Ted's hotel because rumors abound of Satanism and devil worship taking place inside it. Meantime, when Kim's new friend Sandy sleeps over, she too begins to be drawn into the weird haze (as well as voices) that has swamped the house. Menaces seen and unseen float everywhere; reptilian demons arise; and Kim finds herself lost in a pagan cathedral. Are these events only her nightmares? On Halloween does Jared actuallyeviscerate their dog Scout? When Janet opens a door to find an abyss, is it real? Willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but asking a reader to go along with immeasurably overfamiliar storytelling effects is another.
From the Publisher
"[A] WHOPPER OF A NIGHTMARE TALE . . . DAZZLING . . . DIZZYING TWISTS."
—Publishers Weekly
"[A] TALE OF EVIL THAT IS BOTH EXTREME AND ENTERTAINING."
—Chicago Tribune
"GRIPPING AND FAST-PACED . . . A slick thriller in which deftly drawn characters must face the demons in their own lives to conquer that which claims the family's souls."
—BookPage
