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Title: Derailed by James Siegel ISBN: 0-446-53158-8 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (89 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Believe the Buzz!
Comment: If there were a measurement for the addictive character of a book ' that subtle quality that hooks the reader early and makes the book virtually impossible to put down ' 'Derailed' would be the Gold Medallist. First time author James Siegel tells the story of Charles Schine, a New York advertising executive who, meeting a beautiful female executive while commuting on the Long Island Railroad, soon finds his typically mundane life spiraling ever more deeply out of control. Siegel's prose is fast, tight, and riveting, with just enough non-linearity to keep the reader on the edge. Yet despite the leanness, characters and settings are fully developed and wholly credible. Think of Tom Wolfe's 'Bonfire of the Vanities' on pure adrenalin, written with the economy of words and razor wit of a master advertising creative director (which Siegel is). Reviews have paralleled 'Derailed' with Hitchcock ' a valid comparison in the unexpected twists. But much of the allure is in the pure believability of the plot - the realization of how fragile the boundary between 'boring but comfortable' and sheer, unmitigated terror is. Bottom line: if you are only going to read one thriller this year, make it 'Derailed'. Just make sure you don't have any plans for the next several hours when you start.
Rating: 5
Summary: Buy it now!!!
Comment: James Seigel is the new "king of the pageturner"!!! With DERAILED he cast a spell on me that wasn't broken until hours after I'd finished the book. The novel's clean, smart prose introduces Charles Schine, a married middle-aged corporate everyman leading a comfortably dull life and tosses him into a set of circumstances that test his courage, imagination and humanity in ways that are as startling as they are compelling. Siegel has not written one of those cardboard cut-out crime novels featuring a larger than life detective or spy who's impossible to kill. He's done something much more challenging --and rewarding to the reader: he's taken a set of circumstances that could confront anyone and turned them into a narrative that's as credible and exciting as any you're likely to read this year. DERAILED is a "must" for every reader attracted to the best in suspense. It was a real joy to discover.
Rating: 2
Summary: Didn't like it for a different reason
Comment: Advertising attempts to create a phony moment and make it appear real. But it is only a moment: a print ad, a billboard, a thirty or sixty second slice of a life we are supposed to wish we had. They do not attempt to sustain the illusion. This book, written by an advertising executive, starts out with a intriguing, if not particularly well-written, bang. But it promptly spirals deliriously out of illusion into plain old stupidity.
I never felt anything other than grotesquely manipulated while reading this. Then, when the saving plot twist comes (no spoiler here, as the book is written in the first person, so I knew he wasn't going to die) I thought of the old National Lampoon response to writing yourself into a corner "Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck." That's what happened here, as the prestidigitator tried to pull a hippo out of his hat and flopped. "Oh, come on....." was my response, and I don't think you're supposed to feel that when reading a suspense novel.
Numerous technical problems, such as how do two authors writing separate versions of the same tale have such a uniform style, as well as cliches, stereotypes and cardboard characters all combine to leave one not just unfulfilled, but irritated. Less than nothing here, as the illusionist could not maintain his promising deception.
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Title: Shutter Island: A Novel by Dennis Lehane ISBN: 0688163173 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: No 2nd Chance by Harlan Coben ISBN: 0525947299 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 28 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Lost Light by Michael Connelly ISBN: 0316154601 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Persuader: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child ISBN: 0385336667 Publisher: Delacorte Press Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Naked Prey by John Sandford ISBN: 0399150439 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 12 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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