2004 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel

In his latest soul-chilling novel, bestselling author Peter Straub tells of a famous children's book author who, in the wake of a grotesque accident, realizes that the most basic facts of her existence, including her existence itself, have come into question.

Willy Patrick, the respected author of the award-winning young-adult novel In the Night Room, thinks she is losing her mind — again. One day, she is drawn helplessly into the parking lot of a warehouse. She knows somehow that her daughter, Holly, is being held in the building, and she has an overwhelming need to rescue her. But what Willy knows is impossible, for her daughter is dead.

On the same day, author Timothy Underhill, who has been struggling with a new book about a troubled young woman, is confronted with the ghost of his nine-year-old sister, April. Soon after, he begins to receive eerie, fragmented e-mails that he finally realizes are from people he knew in his youth — people now dead. Like his sister, they want urgently to tell him something. When Willy and Timothy meet, the frightening parallels between Willy's tragic loss and the story in Tim's manuscript suggest that they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

"In Black House, Straub and Stephen King wrote of 'slippage,' whereby the borders between reality and fantasy blur. This entire brilliant novel is an act of slippage. In this sequel to last year's lost boy lost girl, and further chapter in the ongoing adventures of Straub protagonist Tim Underhill (Koko, etc.), the most intellectually adventurous of dark fantasy authors takes the apparent slippage of the prequel — in which Underhill's experience of a slain nephew's survival at the hands of a serial killer was indicated to be compensatory imagining by Underhill — several steps into the impressively weird. Underhill, an author, here encounters not the mere survival of a dead relation but the existence of a character he's creating in his journals. Dark fantasy cognescenti will remember that King employed a somewhat similar device in The Dark Half, but Straub's approach is distinctly his own, directed at mining the ambiguous relationship between nature and art, fact and fiction, the real and the ideal. The character Underhill has brought into being is Willy Bryce Patrick, a children's book author soon to be married to coldhearted financier Mitchell Faber, at least until Willy discovers that Faber had her first family murdered. Willy, whom Tim meets during a bookstore reading of his latest novel, lost boy lost girl, believes she is real (as does the reader for the book's first third), and learns otherwise only through Tim's painful, patient revelations. The two fall in deeply in love, but their passion seems doomed — not only is Willy's existence tenuous, but the pair are being pursued with murderous intent by Faber and his goons, as the former is in fact one form of the serial killer of lost boy lost girl, Joseph Kalendar; moreover, a terrible angel is insisting that only when Underhill makes an ultimate sacrifice, righting a wrong he did to Kalendar in lost boy lost girl, will matters resolve. Moving briskly while ranging from high humor to the blackest dread, this is an original, astonishingly smart and expertly entertaining meditation on imagination and its powers; one of the very finest works of Straub's long career, it's a sure bet for future award nominations. Agent, David Gernert. (Oct. 26)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Readers of Straub's previous fiction will eventually tumble to what's going on — but may well wonder whether the muted payoff was worth so much mazelike artifice. Straub can still tease the imagination and chill the blood with the best of them." Kirkus Reviews

"Inventive and moving, though not as dazzling as [lost boy lost girl]." Booklist

"[F]ast-paced, deftly plotted....[A] riveting and elegiac journey....The result is not only a powerful and arresting foray into the dark fantastic, but also a novel that manages to provide a deeply personal glimpse into its author's psyche without sacrificing narrative and suspense." Christopher Rice, The Washington Post

"[A]n impressive display of [Straub's] ability to combine a twisting, fast-paced plot with intelligent writing. It's a horror/love story, but with ideas....In the Night Room is packed with interesting stuff." USA Today

"In the Night Room proves more poignant than frightening — though Straub remains adept at evoking the subtler shades of fear....This is popular fiction of an intriguingly high order..." Philadelphia Inquirer

"Straub...can be an elegant writer. Here he rewards his fans with anagrams, postmodern narrative trickery and amusing speculations on the relationship between creators and their creatures." Los Angeles Times

"Throughout In the Night Room, Straub yields to genre cliches more frequently than he transcends them....[T]hese elements are not resolved so much as abandoned before the plot gives way to a string of car chases and hairsbreadth escapes." Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times Book Review

"It is beautifully and, maybe even more importantly, believably written....The result will leave you puzzled, entertained, maybe a bit angry — and thinking. And that, I would submit, makes this work worthwhile." BookReporter.com

"With In the Night Room, Peter Straub equals and often tops his bravura 2003 performance, lost boy lost girl....Like every great writer, Straub knows the importance of a good story and solid characters, and In the Night Room has an abundance of both." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A children's book author realizes that the most basic facts of her existence have come into question. When she meets a struggling horror author, the frightening parallels between her loss and the author's manuscript suggest they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

In this Bram Stoker Award-winning chiller, a children's book author discovers frightening parallels between her loss and a manuscript by a struggling horror writer, who suggests they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

PETER STRAUB is the author of seventeen novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City with his wife, Susan, director of the Read to Me program.

From the Hardcover edition.