THE NIGHT STRANGERS (Chris Bohjalian) - May 30/12

Rosemary's Baby + The Shining + The Wicker Man = The Night Strangers. Bohjalian is, as ever, certainly a good writer and there are quite a few riveting stretches here, with the best example of this the vivid plane crash that kicks off the novel. But the storyline is just painfully familiar and Bohjalian is simply unable to shake up the conventional narrative (ie things go pretty much exactly as you would expect). It's also worth noting that the writer does a surprisingly poor job of developing the various periphery characters, as I was consistently unable to tell some of the cult members apart (and I even had difficulties separating the two twins from one another). A readable but disappointing effort. (Oh, and it's way, way, waaaay too long.) **1/2 out of ****