Book picks similar to
Brain Child by John Saul


horror
john-saul
fiction
thriller

Strangers


Dean Koontz - 1986
    The six begin to seek each other out as puzzling photographs and messages arrive, indicating that the cause may lie in a forgotten weekend stay at an isolated Nevada motel. Koontz has topped a fine roster of horror and suspense novels with an almost unbearably suspenseful page-turner. His ability to maintain the mystery through several plot twists is impressive, as is his array of believable and sympathetic characters. With its masterful blend of elements of espionage, terror, and even some science fiction, Strangers may be the suspense novel of the year.

77 Shadow Street


Dean R. Koontz - 2011
    I live in the Pendleton as surely as I live everywhere. I am the Pendleton’s history and its destiny. The building is my place of conception, my monument, my killing ground. . . .The Pendleton stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a dark tide from which few have escaped.Dean Koontz transcends all expectations as he takes readers on a gripping journey to a place where nightmare visions become real—and where a group of singular individuals hold the key to humanity’s destiny. Welcome to 77 Shadow Street.

The Door to December


Richard Paige - 1985
    What happened to nine-year-old Melanie during the six years she was subjected to terrifying experiments? And what is the unstoppable power that she can unleash from behind the "Door to December"?

Thinner


Richard Bachman - 1984
    Billy Halleck, good husband and loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American good life: He has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career as a lawyer...but he is also fifty pounds overweight and edging into heart attack country.

Desperation


Stephen King - 1996
    It's known as Desperation, Nevada.It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die.Let the battle against evil begin.Welcome to ... Desperation

The Damnation Game


Clive Barker - 1985
    There are games so seductively evil, so wondrously vile, no gambler can resist. Amid the shadow-scarred rubble of World War II, Joseph Whitehead dared to challenge the dark champion of life’s ultimate game. Now a millionaire, locked in a terror-shrouded fortress of his own design, Joseph Whitehead has hell to pay. And no soul is safe from this ravaging fear, the resurrected fury, the unspeakable desire of The Damnation Game.

The Servants of Twilight


Leigh Nichols - 1984
    To the Servants of Twilight, however, he is an evil presence who must be destroyed - an Anti-Christ who must die.The terrifying ordeal for Joey and his mother begins in the supermarket car park where an old woman accosts them and pursues them with her terrible threats. Christine's world is turned into a nightmare of terror. Only her love for her child, and the support of the one man who believes her, gives her the chance to survive the Servants of Twilight...This book was originally published under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols.

The Mask


Owen West - 1981
    A teenager with no past, no family - and no memories. Carol and Paul were instantly drawn to her, this girl they named Jane - she was the daughter they never had. It was almost too good to be true.

Lost Boys


Orson Scott Card - 1992
    But from the first, eight-year-old Stevie's life there is an unending parade of misery and disaster.Cruelly ostracized at his school, Stevie retreats further and further into himself — and into a strange computer game and a group of imaginary friends.But there is something eerie about his loyal, invisible new playmates: each shares the name of a child who has recently vanished from the sleepy Southern town. And terror grows for Step and DeAnne as the truth slowly unfolds. For their son has found something savagely evil ... and it's coming for Stevie next.

Rushed


Brian Harmon - 2013
    With no idea how to cure himself of this odd new compulsion, he decides to let it take its course and go for a drive, hoping that once he proves to himself that there is nowhere to go, he can return to his normal life. Instead, he finds himself hurled headlong into a nightmare adventure across a fractured Wisconsin as the dream reveals itself one heart-pounding detail at a time. <br><br>Horror, science fiction, dark fantasy. From the author of The Temple of the Blind. 84,000 words.

The Hellfire Club


Peter Straub - 1996
    Their murderer remains at large. Nora Chancel, wife of publishing scion Davey Chancel, fears she may be next. After all, her past has branded her a victim. . . . Then Davey tells Nora a surreal story about the Hellfire Club, where, years before, he met an obsessed fan of Chancel House’s most successful book, Night Journey—a book that has a strange history of its own. . . . Suddenly terror engulfs Nora: She must defend herself against fantastic accusations even as a madman lies in wait. And when he springs, Nora will embark on a night journey that will put her fears to rest forever, dead or alive. . . .From the Paperback edition.

White Shark


Peter Benchley - 1994
    But even Simon doesn't know that a far deadlier creature is about to come out of the deep and threaten everything he cares for. A creature whose malevolence is unthinkable. Whose need to feed is insatiable. And whose relentless hunt for prey is unstoppable.Twenty years after his huge bestseller Jaws, the master of the deep has done it again, letting loose a chilling new predator that only he could create. Drawing on his singular knowledge of the sea, science, and history, Peter Benchley masterfully spins a suspense-filled novel that hits you on a primal level, makes your heart pound, and leaves your blood running cold.White Shark is Peter Benchley at his best. Read it at your own risk.

NOS4A2


Joe Hill - 2013
    On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.” Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

The Descent


Jeff Long - 1999
    In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. Some call them "devils" or "demons." But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them…

The Face of Fear


Brian Coffey - 1977
    With a beautiful, terrified woman. On the 40th floor of a deserted office building. By the psyshopath they call "The Butcher."DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause you're an ex-mountain climber. Because a fall from Everest left you with a bad leg... and a paralyzing fear of heights.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause he has slaughtered the guards and short-circuited the elevators. Because the stairways are blocked, and for you and the woman with you, there's only one escape route.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause 600 feet of empty space are looking back at you."A real breath-taker... should hold you glued to its pages till the wee small hours." --West Coast Review of Books