Skillfully done, a page-turner
347507
Another exciting entry in Odells popular Blackthorne, Inc., action and adventure series. This one is set in the Colorado Rockies  in an impenetrable fortress allegedly for private R&R. Glenn and Olivias mission is to infiltrate the celebrity retreat and extract the woman whos the granddaughter-by-proxy of Blackthornes founder.

No pressure.

Except medic Glenn Hotshot McCade feels like this op is chump change for him. He hasn't been assigned any high action missions since his injury and hes rearing to go, despite the nightmares. But hell take one for the team and pose as a rich guy needing a reprieve from the pressures of life.

Olivia Fairbanks works part-time for Blackthorne in Security and part-time as a Physicians Assistant in a medical practice. Covert Ops aren't her normal assignment, but shes willing to rise to the challenge, even if it means she has to swallow her pride and play second fiddle to a male.

Things aren't what they seem at Windswept Heights. The only way to get to the bottom of it is for Hotshot and Olivia to team up, but they quickly find that trust isn't so easily won, especially when baggage from their pasts become issues.

Odell did a skillful job of drawing me into the story and her characters. This ones a page-turner, folks.
1414916
This book has a fair number of ingredients that I find irresistible in a thriller: a tough, resourceful female lead (with heart); shady soldiers of fortune; even shadier organizations pulling strings; and international intrigue. It's all mixed together by two of my favorite writers in a fast-moving, cleanly written, thoroughly engrossing book you'll want to devour in one sitting. Well done, gentlemen. Well done.
2699830
WOW. The Husband's Secret may not be a masterpiece of fine writing, but it defines the term "page-turner." I defy anyone not to be intrigued by the central conflict, which unfolds slowly and absolutely defies clever guessing. Put aside a few hours for this novel, because you're not going to want to be interrupted once you become engrossed in the story.

The Husband's Secret actually tells three interwoven stories, about three women in Sydney. The central plot involves Cecilia, a happily married mother of three who is a bit of a perfectionist about housework and organization, and justly proud of her abilities. I found Cecilia likeable because of her flaws, and because she has a wry sense of humor. The only other Liane Moriarty novel I've read is What Alice Forgot, and I have to say that I detested Alice and was deeply dissatisfied with the resolution of the conflict. In Cecilia, Moriarty has achieved a much better balance. She's simply a nicer and more sympathetic character, and she sees more than one side of most issues.

The other two, secondary, plots involve Rachel, the mother of a teenager who was murdered nearly 30 years earlier; and Tess, a young mum whose husband and cousin/best friend have fallen in love and announced their desire to be together. Both of these plots are interesting enough to provide a break from Cecilia's story. In other words, The Husband's Secret isn't one of those novels that, when it begins going back and forth among different plots, you decide to skip one or more of the secondary plots! They all intertwine a bit, which is amusing too -- you see different characters' different reactions to the same event.

One of Moriarty's gifts in this novel is detail. There is a running plot joke about the Berlin Wall, which one of the children in the novel has become obsessed with, and another about Tupperware, which is Cecilia's business and passion. Moriarty is becoming more confident as a writer: she has realized in this novel, in a way that she absolutely did not in What Alice Forgot, that a topic can be both serious and comic, a metaphor for a major theme as well as just a nice little realistic detail on its own. This is a big advance, or so I think, because it makes her writing richer and more true to life. The plot is definitely the star of this novel -- the secret is entirely worthy of all its build-up, believe me -- but the characters and the atmosphere and the details are all coming through very well, too.

Definitely, definitely read this book. If the exploding flower embarrasses you, remove the dust jacket and then read the book anyway. It will repay you richly!
3766047
My expectation was this was a title/description suited for a quick-pass-the-time-distraction.  I was wrong...it was mesmerizing, but in a very methodical way.  Little details, well-drawn characters, evocative settings all served to pull me into the tale and the twisting thick plot that was strongly compelling.  In a way, the cover art is a disservice -- this is no baby thriller, but a well thought out adult novel.  There is a weight to the writing (and I imagine in the hardcover edition -- very glad I was reading this on a Kindle and not trying to prop this up for night reading!) that is palpable and perhaps made more so by its very Danish worldview.  Rather than recount it, would urge you to read it -- it's that good, and was sorry to bid farewell to the characters.
4385888
If you want to read a flawlessly written, intricately plotted page-turner, read Valerie Wilcox's Concierge Confessions.  From its mesmerizing get go to the satisfying conclusion, this book had me hooked.  In addition, the reader will get a good look behind the scenes of a Ritzy Seattle condominium...and (possibly) how the other half lives.  An uncommon structure--using the title's Confessions as chapter headings--adds to the intrigue.  The author deftly takes the protagonist (or is it the other way around?), Kate, on the ride of her life when Kate is forced to accept a job a few rungs below her pride.  Pride also can't keep Kate from getting involved up to her raised eyebrows, as a murder (or two) is afoot.  I challenge anyone to discover 'who-dun-it' before Kate has a chance to wipe the blood from her hands and provides a confession of her own to her former husband, Jack, the lead detective on the case.  My confession: I always enjoy a good mystery.  I enjoyed Concierge Confessions.  It's a very smart summer read that won't disappoint.  Enjoy it as much as I have.

Bob Schumacher
1942057
This is a fantastic edge-of-your-seat thriller, that vaulted me upright from the first page, and kept me enthralled to the end.  The carefully researched subject matter: both genetic engineering and what one can and can not do with a computer, are skillfully woven into the story in a way that is compelling and believable.  The effective "roadie" of New Zealand makes a delightful backdrop for Kiwis and provides others with a beautifully sketched descriptions of back woods New Zealand.  I can't recommend this highly enough.  I don't re-read books, but I would happily go back to this to enjoy again the complexity of the story, nicely drawn characters, and fabulous scenery.
907714
If you want a book that is the true definition of a page-turner, this is the book for you. Fantastic character development, intriguing plot, and relevant to the events happening in the world today.  The story has great pace and some pretty incredible twists you won't expect; some made me laugh and others made me gasp out loud.  Once I picked it up I almost literally couldn't put it down.  I can't say enough good things about this book!
447593
From the streets and neighborhoods of Manhattan to the cobbled pathways of Prague, the author skillfully leads the reader--sometimes along circuitous routes--until finally, as the story comes to a close, the pieces fall into place.

Alternating between the third-person narrative of several key characters, as they are spotlighted, and the first-person voice of Isabel Raine, the tale is woven together in a back-and-forth fashion, beginning at the end of the story with a brief prologue.  We meet Isabel and Marcus Raine--she is a best-selling author, he is an entrepreneur--who live in an upscale apartment and seemingly have the world at their feet.

Then Marcus disappears.  At first, Isabel thinks he is just preoccupied at work; but when he has not come home by the second day, she goes to his office building.  And there all hell breaks loose, as the office is stormed by people who identify themselves as FBI.  But nothing is ever as it seems in this tale, and of course, the intruders--who also ransack the apartment later on--have a much more sordid agenda.

And then, as Isabel scrambles to make sense of what has happened to her husband, she must also face the truth that he is not who he appears to be either.

Will Isabel find the answers she seeks, and if she does, will she be able to pinpoint the unique vulnerability that made her a target?  Will she be able to heal and finally trust again?

A page turner that kept me up at night,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Die-for-You-A-Novel/dp/0307393976/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Die for You: A Novel</a>&nbsp;yields a captivating story--one that delivers completely, just as Unger's other novels have done.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Web-of-Tyranny/dp/1419656864/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Web of Tyranny</a>, etc.
4035206
Great story,a page turner,could not put it down
3836921
Engaging all the way through to the last chapter!
2928034
This was the third book of Agatha Christie's that I read, and the one that cemented my opinion of her as an utterly ingenious storyteller. "A Murder is Announced" is a book that I can come back to again and again, noticing something different each time, and marveling at the amount of foreshadowing and carefully-placed clues that have been strewn throughout the narrative, so obvious in hindsight, yet so carefully woven into the story that it takes a keen eye to pick up on them.

The residents of Chipping Cleghorn are astonished at an advertisement placed in their local paper, claiming that a murder is to take place in the home of Miss Letitia Blacklock that night. Even more strangely, Miss Blacklock is as baffled at the appearance of the announcement as the rest of them. The other residents of the house (a childhood friend, two distant relatives, a refugee and a somewhat mysterious boarder) all claim innocence, and so it is a rather bemused gathered in the drawing room once her neighbours converge on Little Paddocks for what they assume is a murder-mystery party. As the clock chimes the half-hour, the lights go out, and gun-shots are fired. When the confusion passes, someone is dead.

Luckily the elderly Miss Marple is staying with a friend in the village, and offers her services to the police to help gather some more information about the people involved. What with the authorities having come to the shaky conclusion that the events of the night in question were some kind of botched burglary, the spinster-sleuth decides to do some of her specialized snooping. That is, she socializes with those involved, and draws parallels between the impression she has of them with the residents in her own village in an attempt to understand character, background and possible motivation.

The amount of detail used in building the mystery is wonderfully complex, particularly in the dialogue: the second time around, I could pick up on the fact that several characters are saying completely different things to what we assume they are the first time. In hindsight, there are several early details that practically scream the solution at you, and even what first appears to be a typo is a clue! If you're sharp enough, you can certainly deduce who the killer is; as Christie lays out all the information...but then proceeds to baffle you with it.

The general time-period of the story is informative without being obtrusive. Set in the years directly after WWII, we get the sense of a society still trying to find its footing after great turmoil, and coping with drastic changes in the world. Along with mention of ration books and identity cards, displaced refugees from Eastern Europe, the decrease in hired servants, illegal bartering system among neighbours, housing development and distrust of foreigners, there is a prevailing sense of uncertainty and hardship as communities try to rebuild their understanding of the world. One feature of the postwar world in particular has an important bearing on the mystery: the upheavals in population settlement, in which old families died out or moved on, resulting in previously close-knit village residents suddenly becoming strangers to one another.

There was one thing though that seemed to go unresolved; when the police are discussing the case, one of them opens a file and says: "Here's a little something we've dug up on Mrs Easterbrook." We never do find out what this something is, unless I missed something obvious. Can anyone enlighten me?

At the time of its publication, "A Murder is Announced" was heavily advertised as her fiftieth story; a somewhat dubious claim, but one that gives this particular mystery an added bit of renown. As one of Christie's best and rewarding mysteries (yeah, I know I probably say that about all of them) my advice is to read carefully, as everything means something.
2796535
A taut mystery/suspense novel by an author adept with characterization and plotting- and throwing out the red herrings along the twisting turning road he leads you along. I got off to a bit of a slow start with this novel, but once I got into it, I found myself staying up late last night to finish the page-turner ending! No spoilers, but it was not the person I suspected it was going to be, and unusual for one stand out reason I can't mention here because it would ruin the reading experience for those who haven't read it...but I liked what the author did here!
3124028
A very cleverly plotted and compellingly entertaining noir mystery.  An absolute page turner.  Not without a few flaws; sometimes a little overwritten and with an ending that is more pedestrian than one expects.  But the chapters fly by and it's hard to put down and generally satisfying.
1998979
What a book:  this is a real page-turner with the added advantage that there are relatively few words on each of its 536 pages so that they slip rapidly by - though one then reaches the end more quickly than may be desired!
A thread running through the book is the characteristics that motivate people in different walks of life and one might think that the author is a psychologist or a neuro-scientist , so  professionally up-to-date are these aspects.  The modest hero of the book, if such there be, is an advanced practitioner of such arts and this gives him access to people at the top of business, where he is called in to counsel.  So, one sees into the mind-sets of this varied bunch, all with diverse motivations for what they do.
I wondered whether readers might get lost in some of the technicalities of neuro-science - the intricacies of the amygdala and the limbic system.  But the story hangs together well, even if some of those bits are rather obscure.
And there are also great political insights into, for example, the development/growth of the Chinese economy and the stimuli for the elite operators of that nation.  Again, this rang so true that one must assume that the author has personal experience there.  And how about Azerbaijan?  And their airline?  So realistically persuasive was General Thalie Heydro that I looked him up on Google, which said to me 'Do you mean general thai heydro azerbaijan?' and I thought that I had struck gold.  But no, Google had to admit that they could only deliver against 'General Thai Hydro', an electricity company.
He, like all of the characters, has a solid ring of the real about him.  But the proportion of baddies to goodies saddened me:  almost all of the people at the top turn out to be rogues - real crooks and villains or pathetic hangers-on.  None of them really people with whom one would want to make friends, I think.  And why did some of the really nice people work with such a nasty bunch?
The plot is intricate with many branches, but it is possible to follow them all through to the conclusion, and there are some lovely little subplots  - like inducing the busybody Nancy, in charge of Department of Ethics and Compliance at the fertilizer company, to come back from Beijing at the drop of a princely hat, and then having her go off into a job that sounds like it was made in paradise specially for her when, in fact, it's the worst job she could ever have.  Marvelous!  We don't wish Nancy well, even though she is in perpetual battle with the arch-villains:  their sins are heinous, but hers are banal and that earns our contempt.
At the end, there was a lot that I wanted to ask the author - strange occurrences and turns, and I guess that that is one of the ways in which we can be drawn into the sequel.  Perhaps there are just no explanations:  when I was very young, my sister wrote to Arthur Ransome on issues to do with Swallows and Amazons - he lived at the bottom end of Coniston Water, about 15 miles from our home in the Lake District.  She wrote because there were things about the book that somehow didn't stack up for one who was well-informed on the geography of the action setting.  He wrote back: 'Dear Simone, Thank you for writing to me.  Secrets are secrets and, if we tell them to other people, then they are no longer secrets.  With best wishes, Arthur Ransome.'
4950339
This book was very moving and engaging at the same time, full of action and emotion, amidst a well-done hard science fiction setting. Every character had depth, even the secondary ones, and they were faced with complex issues which usually had more than one answer. I commend the author for being able to convey all this in the form of a true page-turner, a book you would keep thinking about long after you are finished with it.
390988
This is definitely a page-turner - the staccato writing style, the short chapters and the relative brevity of the book will probably mean that you won't put this down until you have read it in one sitting!  There is some beautiful and evocative language to enjoy, which is perhaps somewhat unusual for a thriller like this. Two examples: "She needed to tweak her expectations. Erase her preconceptions" or how about " this moment of moments was like a million pinpricks on her soul."  Every word is used to good effect and none is wasted.  In a crowded genre, I think the author has the talent to rise above the crowd and make a real mark.  Overall - very impressive.
2439069
People who call this book anti-climatic aren't over-exaggerating in the slightest. "The Club Dumas" -- while it can be appreciated for it's nuances and fine imagery (not to mention the meticulous detail the author *painstakingly* researched to have such a complete history and knowledge of bookmaking and binding) makes it a bit of a treasure. True, it has a lot of "common" crime-novel cliches, and even goes so far as to illuminate someone who may or may not be the devil (it's a tricky thing to decide) as a main character.
Despite it being rather musty to the eye of some readers, this book hold in it's pages something remarkable; true writer's talent. Arturo Perez-Reverte is a fantastically wonderful writer, who's wit manages to more than survive the English translation (by Sonia Soto). I have more than once put down this book and blinked a few times, trying to digest an odd bit of dialog here, or some vague but fascinating imagery there.
The manuscript reflects how much of a book enthusiast Perez-Reverte really must be. His attention to detail (I can't stress this enough, how amazing it is and how subtly it can slip by you, unless you pay attention) and his careful construction of the nearly-hidden plot is brilliantly done.
Would I recommend this book? Of course, but only to people who truly like to *read*.