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MIDNIGHT VOICES by John Saul

MIDNIGHT VOICES

by John Saul

Pub Date: June 1st, 2001
ISBN: 0-345-43331-9
Publisher: Ballantine

Saul (The Manhattan Hunt Club, 2001, etc.) rings some changes on a classic horror storyline.

Gosh, Rosemary, you’re back in the Dakota, or rather the Rockwell, just up the street on Central Park West from where you married that actor minion of the Devil and had Satan’s baby. But now you’re a widow named Caroline Evans with two kids, 12-year-old Laurie and 11-year-old Ryan, and the money’s run out, the kids have to leave private school for public education, and the rent crunch is on. So it’s pretty wonderful when you meet supercharming Anthony Fleming, himself a widower of six months standing, and Tony adores kids, and before long you’ve moved into the Rockwell with a ring on your finger and Tony in your pocket. Or are you in Tony’s pocket? It’s all been engineered by elderly neighbor Irene Delamond, who is way older than Ruth Gordon, and Irene and Tony are in the same, uh, well, isn’t the Rockwell known as the witches coven? Ryan thinks his new bedroom smells bad. Laurie falls into tears seeing her few clothes in her big new closet. The two kids have a friend, Rebecca, living with Rockwell neighbors the Albions, and she looks awfully bloodless though being treated by beastly Dr. Humphries. Social worker Andrea thinks Max may be a pervert, and he did give Ryan a new baseball mitt . . . . With fading famed-actress Virgie Estherbrook in the building, it’s all, hmm, homey as hell. After lovemaking, Caroline wakes to gloomy nightmares and hears midnight voices. With happy ghouls smiling everywhichway, why is this all so familiar, Rosemary? Well, talk about déjà vu, you’ll never guess what happens: Laurie hears midnight voices through the walls—and finds the same secret door you found! And does her blood-level dive? Whoo! But let’s not give everything away.

Rosemary’s Remake, with a richly entertaining demonic payoff.