Mr. X

Straub's supernatural thriller chronicles Ned Dunstan's visit to his hometown of Edgerton, Ill. Drawn there by a premonition of his mother's death (which quickly proves accurate), Ned begins to discover his odd family's otherworldly secrets. His discoveries help explain the disquieting visions he's had since childhood, but also set the stage for a showdown with a dream figure called Mr. X, who shows up in Edgerton as a fully dimensional homicidal maniac determined to kill Ned and anyone else who gets in the way. Daniels delivers energetic and well-paced narration in this audio edition. He deftly renders the book's many characters, but his main success is in capturing the voices of the book's duel narrators: the alert, inquisitive, at times perplexed, and humane Ned and the much more dramatic, delusional murderous Mr. X. A Ballantine paperback. (Mar.)