The Night Strangers [Anglais] [Broché]

The Night Strangers begins with a bang and draws the reader into a story that cannot be denied. Unfortunately, everything that works in the first half of the book is abandoned to an inferior sub plot and finally ends in one of the most dissatisfying conclusions that I've ever read.

Chip Linton suffers extreme depression after failing to land his passenger plane on a lake. This failed attempt results in thirty-nine people dying. Bohjalian depicts an incredibly captivating and horrifying crash, and he won me over right then and there thanks to his mastery of both tension and pacing.

The Linton family moves to a new state and a new home in northern New Hampshire. A ghost story ensues, one that is smartly written and enticing. Is it the house that is haunted, or is it Chip himself? Will this haunting cost Chip his marriage, life, or perhaps even the lives of his twin daughters? I honestly couldn't wait to see what happened next. Bohjalian captured the tone of a family in distress; he delivered a suffering father; he made me care about the Lintons.

And then, sadly, Bohjalian deserted this family to focus upon a group of herbalist/witches that need the twin girls for their own nefarious intentions. The Night Strangers, at that point, became a boring, genre-driven work that failed to connect to the reader on any emotional level. The author gave far too much attention to these herbalists, their green houses, and he became too preoccupied with getting each and every herb just right. Frankly, I didn't find the herbalist the least bit interesting and their herbs were of absolutely no concern to me.

I wanted my story focusing upon the Lintons back, but Bohjalian refused. In fact, after striving so hard to make us relate to them, to see ourselves in them, to love them, he turned them into nothing more than tools to provide an insipid, heartless ending that proved to be extraordinarily inconsistent with previously established characterization.

The first half of The Night Strangers was an amazing, creepy, disturbing read that I couldn't put down. The last half of The Night Strangers was an utter contradiction of the first, and I've never felt more cheated and disappointed by an ending in all my years of reading.

~Scott William Foley, author of Andropia

I am a huge Chris Bohjalian fan and have read most of his books. As with any author with multiple works, I have enjoyed some more than others. I truly thing NIGHT STRANGERS is his weakest work to date.

There is a great set-up to this story. A plane has a bird strike right after take-off and the captain, Chip Linton, tries to make an emergency water landing, but unlike the "Miracle on the Hudson", thirty-nine people die. Based on this, Chip, who is traumatized and depressed, moves with his wife Emily and twin daughters Hallie and Garnet to a small northern New Hampshire town to begin a new life in an old Victorian house they have recently purchased. Chip finds an old door in the basement of his new home that is sealed with, coincidentally, thirty-nine bolts. Okay, this sounds like this is going to be great idea for a ghost story, right? Well, not so fast.

Enter the "Herbalists." Now, I'm sure it's difficult for authors to come up with unique and creative ideas for their stories, but this aspect of the book is what truly makes the story weak. These are the lamest "Bad Guys" I have ever read in any book, and how Emily seems to willingly turn her girls over to these people seems like an all too-convenient plot point. Emily is by far the weakest, dumbest character in the story.

All the female herbalists are named after some sort of herb or plant or flower (cute, huh?), and I'm curious as to why Bohjalian decided this couldn't also be true of the male herbalists. Are the women more "sinister" than the men are are? No, not really. The thirty-nine bolts equaling the number of people dying on Chip's flight never ends up being of any importance to the story. Also, there is one scene in this book that I found gratuitous and totally unnecessary Involving Emily and Reseda. I realize that this was supposed to make the reader understand that Reseda has the ability to read minds, but it was totally out of place and never ended up being relevant to the story in any way. It seemed like a cheap ploy to get a little sex in the book.

The best part of the story is Chip's interaction with the "ghosts." This is where the story shines and where I think Bohjalian should have concentrated more of his efforts. I also like how Bohjalian wrote Chip in the second person voice. That worked very well.

Without giving away the ending, I'll just say it was very unsatisfying for me and left some unanswered questions that genuinely do not make sense. This book was ultimately a real disappointment.

Several other reviewers gave you plotline, so I will add my two cents tempting you into this psychological novel that terrifies. I usually avoid this genre like wasps at a picnic. I am so easily frightened which gets my PTSD going.(a prominent subject in this read) However, because I have read all books Bohjalian, I went to the edge and hung on, excitedly reading his latest effort. It was so brilliant that I ended up on the cliff, dangling my feet, shivering, shaking but also acknowledging I made it through and it was worth every ounce of fear!

This book involves the occult? Witches covens? Ghosts? Demonic possession? Crazed herbalists? Derangement of the mind? Read for your own conclusions of what is going on in Bethel, N.H. and why half the town is living in terror of greenhouses. "Are you a good gardener or a bad gardener?" *evil grin*

Research into multiple subjects had to be vast. In all of Bohjalian books he roots out the subject matters, demanding of his work plausibility and passion. The prose is simply spellbinding.

Here is the potion I would concoct to describe "The Night Strangers." Pinches of Stephen King's(The Shining) John Updike's (Witches of Eastwick) William Peter Benchy's(The Exorcist)Alfred Hitchcock's (Psycho) get stirred into Bohjalian's rich imagination, creating a recipe of terror no one else could create. It is Chris's savory dish if you enjoy blood in your stew.

I dare you to read it.