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by Hans Rathgeb
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by Maureen Ann Burns
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by Bil Keane
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by John Wesley Howard
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(Larger Image)
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Twist of Fate: The Locket (The Blackstone Chronicles, No 2)
by John Saul
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Fawcett (1997-01-29)
ISBN: 0449227847
EAN: 9780449227848
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Mass Market Paperback: 86 pages
Edition: 1st
Release Date: 1997-01-29
SKU: mon0000009138
Condition: Good
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
His career as president of the First National Bank threatened by a troubling audit, Jules Hartwick is further disturbed when he receives a mysterious silver locket that, once opened, sets off a terrifying chain of events, in the second of a six-part serial saga.
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Customer Reviews
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"I have something for you...to celebrate our being together."
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-01-05
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
In this second volume of the Blackstone Chronicles, author John Saul continues his account of the chaos that results when the abandoned Asylum in the small New Hampshire town of Blackstone is sold for development into a shopping mall. A lone, mysterious figure re-enters the Asylum one night and finds the personal artifacts which long ago belonged to the inmates. Distributing these objects to people who have some connection to the long-ago inmates, the mysterious figure ensures that their lives change--and not for the better.
(No spoilers.) After celebrating the engagement of his daughter Celeste to Andrew Sterling, Jules Hartwick, head of the Blackstone Bank, finds a package wrapped in pink paper on the seat of his car, with no card indicating the sender. Opening the package, he finds an antique locket, which he immediately believes has been sent to his devoted wife Madeline. When an image comes to him of Madeline in the arms of another man, he immediately suspects she has lover and goes to great lengths to try to prove it.
As in the preceding novel, An Eye for an Eye: The Doll, the author juxtaposes scenes of horror at the Asylum with present day scenes from the lives of Blackstone's inhabitants, the same characters appearing and reappearing throughout the series. In this novel, the opening scene involving Lorena, a paranoid woman at the Asylum who comes to possess the locket, is far more horrifying (and gory) than any previous Asylum scenes have been.
Oliver Metcalf, the editor of the local newspaper, connects all six of the novels. Oliver, subject to blinding flashes of pain as he uncovers old photographs and records for a commemorative piece on the history of the Asylum, suffered the same pains when the wrecking ball broke through a wall of the Asylum in the previous novel. Born in the Superintendent's Cottage, he is the son of the previous Superintendent, though at this point in the series the reader has few clues about the Asylum and its administrators, other than incidents of cruelty exhibited toward the inmates by unnamed people.
As in the first volume, the story moves along quickly and inevitably, the primary question being how far Jules Hartwick will go in his accusations of infidelity. Once again, the characters are not developed fully enough to make this a "character-driven" horror novel, the Gothic shock evolving more from the amount of cruelty than from our knowledge of the individuals and our surprise at their behavior. n Mary Whipple
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Part 2 in The Blackstone Chronicles
Rating  (5)
Date: 2004-01-01
"Twist of Fate: The Locket," the second part in The Blackstone Chronicles, begins and ends with gory eviscerating scenes, the prologue being more shocking, in my opinion, of a mental patient at the Asylum being gutted to remove a silver locket, which later comes into play. The middle part of the story is bloodless, as it closely follows Jules Hartwick, president of the First National Bank of Blackstone, as he stresses over an audit, then becomes severely paranoid after finding the above-mentioned heart-shaped locket that he believes is a sign of his wife's infidelity. This is a good serial addition to the six-part Blackstone Chronicles, preceded by "An Eye for an Eye: The Doll" (#1) and succeeded by "Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame" (#3), "In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief" (#4), "Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope" (#5), and "Asylum" (#6). As a whole, "The Blackstone Chronicles" is one of my favorite John Saul books.
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Twist of Fate: The Locket
Rating (5)
Date: 2001-05-23
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
A new curse has come upon Blackstone. Jules Hartwick finds a locket in his wifes car. He becomes very jealous and nervous thinking everyone is after him. Could the locket have something to do with the way he is acting or did he just have a nervous breakdown. Is Jules so insane he might kill? To find out you should read this book. It is one part of a great mystery unfolding in Blackstone. Who will be the next vivtim to this insanity that has befallen Blackstone.
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This one was *even* better than the first (also good!).
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-06-20
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I read this in a couple of days, and I must say that the schmuck who wrote the review below ("Not Again!" was the title) was full of it. This book is only similar to the first because it has another gift being sent out to someone. Otherwise, it is *totally* different than the first, and is even pretty *scary* at times. I eagerly await #3, which I take will be even better. I can tell newcomers to this serial book this much: DO NOT LISTEN TO THE BAD REVIEWS OF BOOKS!
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Refreshing, yet repetitive
Rating (4)
Date: 2000-06-19
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Judging from the Chronicle that preceded "The Locket," I was prepared for another "unscary" tale. I was pleasantly suprised. Unlike the first tale, this one built the intriguing plot beautifully, and I was very often in suspense. The idea of jealously driving a person to murder is terrifyingly worth reading about. However, this story is almost identical in nature to the first one, and I found some of the characters being a little too ignorant of their surroundings, and that made the story a bit unrealistic. But all in all, "The Locket" is a very refreshing tale.
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