BILL PRONZINI – Games. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1976. Crest, paperback, 1977. Stark House Press, trade paperback, 2007, published in tandem with Snowbound.

   A Senator from Maine, burdened by a marriage in name only, takes his mistress to his isolated island retreat for a quiet Memorial Day weekend. He intends that they should be alone, but on the first night, they discover that the house has been broken into. Guns have been stolen. A squirrel is found bloody and disemboweled near what looks like an altar. The crash of a broken window, a jagged piece of bone.

   A senator’s games are of politics, as well as he games everyone plays, games of love, of life itself. Senator Jackman finds himself in a chilling, then mind-exploding game of cat-and-mouse – the most dangerous game. The horror of something unpleasant of something happening to someone else is compounded when you’re forced to realize how each of us is to becoming the object of the crazed torment of persons unknown. You won’t escape this book without being shocked at least once.

   This is a suspense story with a kick, some twists, and an impact that’s as real as anyone’s worse nightmares. Yet what’s also remarkable is seeing a person’s philosophy change before your eyes. Jackman is forced to understand himself for the first time, as few of us do.

Rating: A

–Very slightly revised from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 1, No. 2, March 1977.