The Knife

Fear Street #14

by R.L. Stine

Welcome to Fear Street.

Don’t listen to the stories they tell you about Fear Street. Wouldn’t you rather explore it yourself…and see if its dark terrors and unexplained mysteries are true? You’re not afraid, are you?

Quiet—hospital!

Sshh. There are a lot of things they want to keep quiet at Shadyside Hospital. In fact, just about every private room holds a private secret of its own.

Poor Laurie Masters. The student volunteer innocently happened to stumble onto the hospital’s sickest secret of all.

Laurie has seen too much—and now the doctors and nurses are taking a close look at Laurie.

What they come up with is a deadly diagnosis. Laurie may not be sick, but she’s getting a prescription anyway—a prescription for horror!

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Childrens, Teen

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Bobby Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Laurie, I’m warning you. Stay away from Fear Street. You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble.” — Rick

While it might not win any awards for innovative plotting and character depth, this is terrific fun and has to be one of Stine’s best Fear Street books. If teenagers during the ’80s and ’90s wanted something a bit grittier, where the young adults were more worldly, they had Christopher Pike to turn to, and a lot of his stuff was marvelous. But R.L. Stine was also extremely popular (perhaps more so), writing more for the mainstream young adults. The Knife is a splendid example of his soapy but fun kind of thriller featuring a very likable protagonist this time in Laurie Masters. It also has the Fear Street connection.

Laurie Masters is a very nice high school girl from Shadyside. She’s doing volunteer work at the hospital along with her friend Skye. A fun prolog indicates that something terrible will happen and Laurie will be in great danger before we reach the end, and Stine sends the reader swiftly on their way. Laurie wants to break up with Andy Price, the hospital administrator’s son, but is struggling with it. Meanwhile she meets a young child in the hospital named Toby Keane, who tells Lauire the woman picking him up is not his mother at all. Laurie is even more unnerved when she sees a handsome young volunteer named Rick stash some surgical knives in his pocket. Her apprehension escalates when she finds herself in the new, under-construction Fear wing of the hospital.

Well, it isn’t long before Laurie finds a certain nurse’s body in the dark and creepy Fear wing — murdered with a surgical knife, of course — but by the time she brings someone back, the body is gone! You can probably guess that a nice girl like Laurie is going to try to help Toby too, but he lives on Fear Street. Are the two things connected? And if so, will going to Andy’s father, Dr. Price, help? Some of what’s happening you’ll guess, but Stine does a terrific job of keeping us interested. Laurie’s a nice protagonist, and Stine does a good job of putting us in that world of late-teens — on the verge of adulthood, but not quite there yet. He also does a good job of showing the world of student volunteers at a hospital, who have little if any sway in the hospital pecking order.

Stine finishes in an exciting flourish, with Laurie trapped and bound in the Fear wing, not knowing who to trust when her rescuer(s) finally arrive. Don’t forget the knife, or that dark elevator shaft! The Knife may not be deep but it is great fun. I’d liken it to an above-average Harlequin Intrigue written for a slightly younger audience. Stine was very prolific, and not all of his stuff was on the same level, but I’ve been lucky with the two I’ve re-visited so far, enjoying Sunburn and now The Knife. Highly recommended for a fun retro blast!

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los libros de la calle del terror son mi colección predilecta del autor, el aura en el que se desarrollan es muy oscura y tiene una característica que todos comparten y es genial:
Los personajes asisten a la misma escuela y son amigos y los libros tratan de la historia de cada uno, eso los hace muy intrigantes, porque vamos conociendo a cada chico que se atraviesa por el pasillo y eso al menos para mi es fantástico.
Este en particular me gustó bastante, los hospitales son lugares un tanto siniestros y descubrir algo grande y peligroso que personas que viven muy cerca de ti se atreven a hacer en tales sitios, a cualquiera le pondría los pelos de punta.

[Catastrophe Queen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay so this is a pretty old book. But R.L. Stine never fails to entertain me with his thrillers. I really liked this book because it wasn't about ghosts or monsters but was instead a mystery-suspense novel.

Laurie Masters and her best friend Skye are student volunteers at the local hospital. They visit sick patients, deliver balloons and candy, and assist the nurses. They're basically candy stripers. Laurie doesn't like the grumpy nurse, Edith Wilton and she thinks something is very wrong with the way they treat Toby, a three-year-old patient who always cries. In a turn of events, Laurie learns that the woman who took Toby away wasn't his mom and the one person she wanted to confront about it has been murdered. She doesn't know who to talk to because she has no evidence to back her claim. All she knows is she wants to help Toby and maybe find out how the new guy Rick is involved in the equation.

It was very exciting, I just couldn't put it down. Stine is a master of horror and suspense.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I know this stuff is so cheesy, but I really loved this book! It's been a while since I have read any R.L. Stine Fear Streets and this one was great. I was literally on the edge of my seat trying to figure out who did what. This was definitely hard to figure out until the last minute and those are the best ones!

[Cameron Chaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sad to say I just didn't care for this one. It didn't feel like a Fear Street book to me, and was rather dull in my opinion.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is definitely mis-titled. The Knife is not super significant to this plot. This was always a staple for Fear Street and after reading it, I'm not sure why. It was intriguing, but really short on the fear/horror aspect. Laurie volunteers at a hospital in Shadyside and makes a connection with a small, frightened boy. But something mysterious is happening in the new Simon Fear Wing. She sees the dead body of a nurse, and then Toby claims the woman taking him home isn't his mother. It's a race to solve the mystery and save Toby. Laurie finds herself in hot water quick though and it seems she may be the next victim. Overall, a decent mystery but certainly not a strong entry in the series.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the book. It's got a great turn at the end. The story took the place in a hospital but many of the nurses are dying. The main character is Laurie and she meets a kid named Todd. I loved this book because it has a great twist at the end and that put the whole story together. I gave it four stars because I love horror storiess and books that have a great twist at the end

[Frankenoise · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Spoilers*
OK, so the story was wickedly paced and of course written well but my main issue was with the climax. Baby kidnappers? Come on! They had this twin idea going too and didn't push it further so it was almost pointless. I'd rather they go with some simple good twin/ evil twin idea then the lame baby snatcher one. Very disappointing ending.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Personajul principal este stupid precum cele din filmele horror mediocre. Putea termina cu toată tărășenia destul de repede dacă mai avea timp și să discute în pauzele dintre crizele ei de paranoia majoră.

[Mindy G.]

MM $6.33 Ebay 7/3/25

[Liliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed on Lili Lost in a Book

Weird things are going on at the hospital where Laurie is volunteering. There, Laurie meets a sick little boy who is acting strange. Laurie thinks there might be something seriously off about his home life. Also, people keep sneaking into the hospital wing that is still under construction. And then Laurie stumbled upon a murder. Could it be the new volunteer Rick, who is acting strange and is being very suspicious?

“It’s all connected, I know it! The nurse and little Toby—everything! Something terrible is going on at Shadyside Hospital, and I got caught in the middle of it.”

The reveal I did NOT see coming! Not the killer/person behind all this, or even what was actually going on! I will tell you though that Laurie definitely stumbled upon a dark, dark secret that has been going on who knows how long in this hospital! This book wasn’t the typical kind of scary you would expect from a Fear Street book. But the reveal was certainly horrifying in that it shows you how awful humans can be.



One thing I love about this series is the Easter eggs. In this one, Mayra Barnes is mentioned as one of Laurie’s friends. Mayra is the protagonist of book 6 in the Fear Street series, The Sleepwalker. Another character that was mentioned was Franklin Fear, who donated money for the new hospital wing.

Overall, I really liked this book! As a nurse, I really liked the setting, but also as a nurse, I just saw so many discrepancies with what actually happens in a real life hospital. Lol. But I really loved the mystery and the awesome descriptions. It was a fun, fast read!

The Fear Street connection: As previously stated, Franklin Fear donated money for the new hospital wing that is being built. It’s gonna be called The Fear Wing... seriously. Who’s gonna want to stay there? Lol. Also, the little boy Toby lives on Fear Street and Laurie visits it a couple of times.

So many frightening stories had been told about this street that wound past the cemetery and the the thick Fear Street woods. Stories that most often turned out to be true...

[Weathervane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with having an active protagonist who drives the story is that without proper set-up and external provocation, they can present as a demented or paranoid troublemaker. Such is Laurie Master's fate. From the first ten pages, she seems almost to know she lives in a thriller: she directs suspicion towards things a stable person might shrug off or perceive as innocuous. Her concern about the boy with pneumonia is understandable, but she completely overreacts and goes unhinged. Since she does indeed live in a thriller her moves ultimately resolve in her favour, but in a saner story, or the real world, she would face a juvenile rap sheet for burglary and stalking. Why would you choose to break into a house instead of calling the police? It's an age-old thriller question, and one R.L. Stine likes to ignore.

I liked the different setting of the hospital, though reflecting now I'm bitter we never found out who won that gorgeous red Mercedes in the lobby. I guess it was a red herring, but I wanted to know the outcome, even if it didn't tie into the central mystery.

This is one of the very few Fear Streets whose murderer's identity I was able to guess, though the grand scheme is tough to unravel until the end. I suspected something like a trafficking ring; I just didn't think a series like Fear Street would use such a subject. I was wrong, and this is maybe the most sinister of all the evil plots hatched by the villains of Shadyside.

Decent, just held back by a main character who acts unrealistically.

[Jojo Holm · Rating 2 out of 5]

The knife suffers from the same problem that perfect date had and that was that the ending in my opinion messed up the rest of the book. The knife does have an amazing main character. The kills in this book are great, and you really get a feel for the main character

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I was interested in what was going on with Tobey but like what happened with Terry?? And the plot was all over the place and redundant every time Laurie reiterated the events

[Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know it's the 90s but WHY are the surgeons wearing their caps and booties in the CAFETERIA??

Also the "She's not my mother" line gave me CHILLS - I'm really happy with how creepy this book was! Also also, Laurie needs to call CPS.

So I started reading Stine and Pike at the same time, and overall I definitely gravitate more towards Pike due to his weirdness and how far he goes. But Stine sticks more true to the "teen horror" vibe that I originally started reading them both for, so it's really fun to circle back to him. This was a super solid installment!

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very reminiscent of Joan Lowery Nixon.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a neat little mystery with a cool reveal at the end. Classic R.L. Stine!

[Peleg Katzir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primera vez leyendo el autor, sinceramente me parecio una historia muy predecible con un final tosco, aunque admito que si manejo bien el suspenso y la empatia en la trama

[Coral · Rating 2 out of 5]

This FS novel felt half cooked to me. Where were the thrills? Where were the chills? Not here!

[Sabrina Borra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one had everythinggggggg. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A donation is made by a descendent of the Fear family to build the Fear wing at the hospital. Surely, nothing bad will follow that scenario when a hospital volunteer starts investigating a former patient's situation. This book definitely could've used a better title.

[Nick Krenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently, if you happen to find yourself harmed while strolling through that dangerous Fear Street, you better hope you don't receive care at the local Shadyside Hospital. The nurses are overworked and cranky, construction is ongoing on the Franklin Fear Wing, doctors are pranking each other in suspect ways, and severed heads are just lying out in the open. Our protagonist, Laurie Masters, finds this out the hard way as a student volunteer. That's right! No hazard pay. Or pay of any kind. But it's okay; she drives a BMW.

While Laurie has aspirations to one day be a doctor, it turns out she might be a better detective. Or at least a criminal as she steals information from patient records and eventually breaks into a house! But it's all for a good cause as she discovers something sinister going on in Shadyville Hospital, and I'm not talking about the blue meat in the cafeteria stew.

Let's run down those YA Thriller totals:

2 dead bodies (not counting the anatomy lab)

Kill Rating: 💀💀 out of 5. One decent kill involving the titular knife.

Knife fu 🔪(though not enough considering the book's title)
Corpse fu
Skeleton fu

Gratuitous severed head
Gratuitous gaping hole
Gratuitous tunics
Gratuitous bad t-shirts
Gratuitous pizza toppings
Gratuitous breaking and entering
Gratuitous arm yanking
Gratuitous kidnapping

Hanky Panky: Just a kiss. Laurie's got too much going on to be worried about fellas.

Awful 90s dialogue: A character refers to his bloody knife shirt as "cutting edge."

Best line out of context: "He's just mad because I put a cadaver in his locker."

Prior Book Cameos: We get a reference to Mayra Barnes from The Sleepwalker.

Book Cover: Laurie (presumably) in her hospital tunic is smiling at a male colleague, who happens to be hiding a scalpel behind his back. Not bad, and I love the green for the back and binding.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5. Fear Nerd says, "Check it out!"

[J.M. Giovine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started to understand the R.L. Stine formula, not that it is something uniquely complex or heavy in its context, but at least it hits me how effective and simple it is; he uses a particular series of cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, doesn’t matter if they’re genuinely inside the story’s purpose of moving forward with the plot, or if they are fake, but the use of them feed upon the need of keep going. There is a simplicity in Stine’s narrative that is pretty much welcome, although, I love complex styles in both, narration and dialogue, I understand these books are meant to the younglings, specially his book series such as Goosebumps and Fear Street (which this is a part of), and The Knife uses all the classic elements to create a certain lighthearted atmosphere and simple-yet-interesting enough characters to move inside its premise until the very end. Yes, the clichés are there, but that doesn’t mean Stine can’t make them fun enough to enjoy, especially considering how realistic his regular series are. I do believe Goosebumps are his only “supernatural series”, but the gut knows how to handle thrillers and suspense in a more realistic background; he manages to introduce the fun inside both backgrounds, and that’s something I’d always like from authors that doesn’t take themselves too seriously with their work. The story is set in a hospital, the main characters are teenagers, there is the typical “the adults don’t believe that something wrong is happening” story-plot, and the ending is charged with tons of suspense and the already expected twist in the last pages, all in all, like I said, to fulfill a formulaic-yet-funny and entertaining enough story that benefits from its simplicity and addictive pop-corn feeling, that only Stine can offer.

[Riya Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

/4 stars

This read more like a Nancy drew mystery. Of course the main character is blond big shock. Laurie Masters discovers suspicious activity surrounding a 3 year old hospital patient Toby Deane who insists that his “mother” is not his mother. Laurie immediately starts investigating finding his address on fear street and spying through the window where she sees Toby is severely mistreated. Not to mention she found the dead body of Nurse Wilton stabbed in the throat in the creepy Fear Wing of the hospital. Naturally, no one believes her. Skye is a terrible friend, thinking Laurie made the whole thing up as a joke and constantly thirsting after her boyfriend (who she is very tired of). Laurie is a decent character with a good moral compass although she makes some rash decisions like breaking into houses and looking through confidential hospital records. At least she had the guts to break up with her annoying boyfriend.

[Drucilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Fear Street entry is unique in that it is one of the few books to have an actual 'reason' behind the murder. I liked that it was centered on an actual crime and not just a crazy teenager killing people. This was also one of the few books in the series where I actually liked the characters. The only thing that bothered me was the main character's relationship with her boyfriend. If you don't like the guy, break up with him. Don't string him along. I also think that there should have been some discussion about her boyfriend at the end considering his dad was the murderer. I mean she just goes off with Rick at the end without a second thought to her boyfriend.

[Jack Reacts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review at: https://www.jackreacts.com.au/fear-st...

Snippet: This was so different to the usual Fear Streets, which helped keep things interesting. I never got bored and that’s always a plus, but it also wasn’t as exciting as a lot of other ones. It’s not really what I was expecting from the blurb, and Stine could have done more with the hospital setting, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Laurie was frustrating at times, but overall I liked her as a protagonist...

Check out my full review linked up top for an in-depth recap :)

[Strawberri Mystery · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the only Stine book I NEVER understood. The book was sad but confusing all around. Why was it called The Knife? I just remember reading this and the book making my head hurt because it was so confusing.

[Christina Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love stories based on a hospital. The hospital where I live is always scary at night. So imagine volunteering and get stuck in a murder mystery? No thanks. LoL. Great read. Read this as a teenager and it's still exciting to go through this one at a later age. 🙂

[Lazar Lazarov · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was suspenseful but confusing :/

[Lori Stevenson · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was wrong with me as a pre-teen? Why did I enjoy these? So cliche and borderline offensive with female stereotypes.