Helpful Score: 3
A horror story sans ghosts or goblins. Perly Dunsmore is an auctioneer recently moved to the small New England town of Harlowe. He sets up a schedule of auctions that begin innocently enough, until people begin to realize that he's not only auctioning off goods they didn't want to give up, but auctioning their courage, their self respect...indeed, their souls. The Auctioneer is a can't-put-downer of high order, worthy of 5 stars if the dialogue weren't written in a New England dialect that wears thin rather quickly. The human psychology underlying the story qualified the book, in its heyday, for use in a number of college courses. I highly recommend it.
Helpful Score: 2
This book really gets you going with harrowing tensions that explode in a series of events that could happen anywhere, to anyone just as they do to John Moore. Whose days of freedom run out, who is stripped of his possessions, his courage, and his hopes by the ominous presence of a stranger impossible to resist!
Helpful Score: 2
Joan Samson created an explosive, chilling book. I was hooked after reading the first few pages. Couldn't put it down.
Terrifying... but I couldn't put it down.
