Fear Itself

By Barret Schumacher

Devrie Haler has always believed that she can sense things that nobody else can. Whether it is the secret adventures of her third-grade students or warnings of a near-fatal car crash, Devrie gets signals from a place she cannot identify that tell her things that she has no way of knowing. Her bizarre powers are charming, even amusing to her adoring husband, Reed. Until one of her premonitions comes true.The premonition about her own violent death.Overcome by grief, Reed stumbles upon Devrie's journal, in which she wrote her visions down. Amazed by the accuracy of her predictions about her own death, Reed becomes obsessed with nine cryptic phrases that seem to hint at another death - this time of a little girl. Accompanied by an orphan dog present at the site of his wife's murder, Reed heads out on a roller-coaster ride that will rip apart his beliefs on good, evil, scientific progress, and the various forces that our lives onEarth. He may have a shot at saving the next victim - if he can only come to understand what Devrie's writings are telling him.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076530130X
• ISBN13: 9780765301307
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Forge Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.3" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

From science-based mystery to real-to-life romance...

Couldn't put this one down. It kept my interest on so many dimensions -- I must say, I was sad to reach the last page. If only there were more books like this one!If you typcially have a hard time staying interested in a book, this is the read for you.

Best book read in a long time

20 pages into the book, I said to myself "I got to read his other books"... Hard to believe that this was his first book.Best book I've read in a long time!

In the tradition of Dean Koontz

This book was great! I wish there were a way for me to contact Mr. Schumacher to tell him how much I enjoyed it. I could not put it down, and was up until 1am because I could not go to bed until I knew how it turned out. If you like the newer Dean Koontz such as "From the Corner of His Eye", you will like "Fear Itself". I am looking forward to another tale from Mr. Schumacher.

Don't walk, run to buy this book!

FEAR ITSELF has a fantastic & intuitive style of writing. With each chapter, there's a little bit more to pull us deeper into the novel. The characters, the locations, & the suspense (which is extraordinary) all come together for a journey that leaves the reader feeling perfectly satisfied. Bravo to Barret Schumacher for writing a debut that already deserves a standing ovation.

A taut psychic thriller

Though San Francisco University research geneticist Reed Haler adores his wife Devrie, he thinks her ability to foresee the future is a charming parlor trick. Still he loves his spouse and looks forward to the birth of their child already named Alana. However, on a camping trip, a thug kills Devrie and their unborn child. Reed deeply mourns his loss and struggles to regain some normalcy. Reed reads Devrie's journal filled with cryptic notes to include her own death and hints of future murders. Accompanied by a dog Hoover they found on that fatal camping trip, Reed travels to Cowhollow, Tennessee to talk with a psychic Maysie Fabrioso who has helped police. Following Maysie's advice and Devrie's journal, Reed stops in Alamosa, Colorado where he expects the killer to seek new victims. He meets Jessica Morraine, a divorced pediatrician with a seven-year-old daughter. Due to the eerie not so coincidental first name of Alana, Reed investigates the murder of a doctor in town, but remains unaware that the killer is already waiting for him. FEAR ITSELF is a taut psychic thriller that grabs the audience's attention from the start of the book until the tale finishes. Reed is a strong character bound to gain reader sympathy, as he poorly copes with his spouse's violent death and a para-world he never believed existed. Though the dream sequences slow down a dramatic plot, the audience will relish Barret Schumacher's debut tale and want more novels just like this exciting one.Harriet Klausner