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Peretti and Dekker: what could be better?
This book jumps right into the action first chapter, and it does so without feeling rushed. It takes place at a very spooky house run by three different individuals. As if things weren't strange enough, a psycho named "White" or "Tin Man" crashes their party by sealing them in the house. With the ultimatum that either one must die, or all will die, White begins to work on their minds. The four captives must first fight off against the three inbreds inhabiting the house.
After this, it almost seems like Dekker and Peretti start an entire book. After the four go into the basement, things go from being spooky, to downright evil. Things start to make less and less sense to the four, and more and more inviting to the reader.
The first night I started reading this, I literally could not put it down. I read the first 120 pages, until I almost fell asleep. Even then, I was a bit spooked out by Dekker and Peretti's amazing fear-striking characters.
This book is very well written; probably my favorite of Dekker's so far, at least in how things are expressed. It is a tad long, though; though I didn't grow bored, it is a high possibility that after door, upon door, upon door, that some readers might just say "Get on with it". Still, the first 2/3 of the book are worth a read.
The addition of the Susan character is probably about where it takes a dramatic change. It morphs into one of Dekker's classic novels: a man running around with a second character (Susan) who ends out to play a larger role that first believed. It somewhat begins to become trite, and predictable.
The very ending of the book absolutely ruined it for me. The sheer way that the final confrontation annoys me to no end. I had read the review above me when I was halfway through it, and thought "I don't know....how can they ruin the book at the end? It's going so well". But it's true. After hours (both in the book, and probably you reading it) of struggling, and fighting, and confusion, and evil, I was expecting some kind of amazing fight scene, or for them to discover something that changed everything, or SOMEthing. But really, it was my guess of how the book would end the entire time, and I was sad to read that I was correct in my guess. I love to be surprised. My mind is STILL whirring from the ending of "Thr3e"; I don't think that it ever crossed my mind. But the whole thing of "light" and "dark" was sooooooooo overdone. To be honest, for once, I would like to read a good novel by Dekker that wasn't so much on the large scale, the ultimate fight of good verses evil. It would suffice for 4 simple people to fight a maniac and a haunted house, and kept the whole thing of "good vs evil" and "light vs dark" out of it. Completely trite, if you asked me.
So as I said before, the first 2/3 or so had me HOOKED. I could almost play it as a movie in my mind. But unfortunately, the most important part of the book is its ending, where this book ultimately fails to deliver. If you could only read the first part and forget the last part, it would be a wonderful book, but then you would be left hanging. I give it a 5/10
~DOK
5/10
