In the Dark of the Night

Pinecrest, a rambling lakeside house, has lain empty since its last owner went missing some years ago. But for the Brewster family it will be this year''s holiday home, and for the kids, Eric and Marci, it''s a perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring.

Which is how Eric and his friends discover a curious collection of discarded objects in a hidden room: bladeless hacksaws, shadeless lamps, tables with missing legs and a headless axe handle - a pile of junk. But someone once took the trouble to list each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger, provoking a mystery that is now whispering to them, coaxing, demanding to be solved. The more time the boys devote to piecing together the puzzle, the more their fascination deepens into obsession, an obsession that consumes their days, while their nights are plagued by ever-more ghastly nightmares.

And finally, when a horrifying discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth of a twisted legacy with a malevolent mind of its own.

''Saul knows how to send shivers up the spines of readers any age'' Pubishers Weekly