RaveTor.comPyper’s style is just so aggressive here, displaying his weapons early and daring us not to be struck by them. That the gambit is largely successful owes much to Pyper’s craftsmanship. His horrors are well-constructed; they find ready anchors in the historical details he provides, and strong engines in the prose Pyper wields. Beautiful prose is the calling card of any Pyper novel, and it is on full display here ... Though the dramatic tension is tempered by our knowledge that the President and First Lady will survive their ordeal, The Residence has moments of real dread ... Strong characterization also fuels the narrative ... The Residence does good work in its study of grief ... Pyper gives us not only an effective and engaging historical horror novel; but a fable that does us the compliment of assigning some portion of the blame for the darker parts of American history to forces beyond our control.
