Rating: 
Summary: Twisted Ride
Review: Dennis you may continue to stay at the head of the class. What a twisted ride. Loved every minute. May I suggest that it be read in the daytime. Different from Mystic River but well worth the wait. You have an unique ability to keep one on the edge of their seats. Looking forward to future works from you. Whomever the master of your mind, keep up the great work. Twisted ....
Rating:
Summary: Thinking man's page turner!
Review: Fear, obsession, paranoia...Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" is the stuff nightmares are made of. It is noir psychological suspense at its finest.An isolated island, a raging hurricane, a locked room, secret codes, a mental hospital, rumors of mysterious medical experiments frame the story. It is a scary, deceptive, disorienting, complex story grounded in the reality of the times...cold war USA in 1954 ("I like Ike"). Mr. Lehane weaves many threads throughout the unpredictable plot. The set up is thorough and the characters are fully developed. The twists and turns play havoc with your mind. The unexpected is the norm...a couple of times I was able to figure something out a page and a half before it was revealed, but that was rare. The ending is unguessable. Immediately upon finishing, I reread the prolog and final chapter...and will read this book again. I have not been so dumbfounded by an ending since William Diehl's "Primal Fear." "Shutter Island" is etched in my memory.
Rating:
Summary: GRABS YOU BY THE THROAT AND WON'T LET GO!
Review: Shutter Island is the kind of book that hooks you on the first page and doesn't let you go until the last page.
It starts out with to U.S. Marshalls going to a mental instituition to locate a patient that escaped. The mental instituition is on and isolated island, and there is a hurricane headed toward the island. Once on the island it is revealed that one of the cops has an ulterior motive for wanting the assignment. As the story progresses he begins to think that someone is trying to drive him insane.
The book does have the same plot hook of several recent movies, I had a feeling I knew where it was heading after about 150 pages, but Lehane's writing style keeps it fresh and interesting.
I'm a big fan of Dennis Lehane. He never fails to write great thrillers, although Shutter Island and his last book Mystic River are great books, I hope he hasn't retired the Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro series. Those characters are still my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best novel of 2003, so far.
Review: All the reviews I've read are talking about the huge surprise ending. Forget about that. I figured it out pretty early on in the novel. What makes this novel so right are the characters and the emotion. Teddy's journey is one of the most wrenching journeys I've ever read. I read the final two chapters with a knot in my stomach. And I've never done that. Hugely suspenseful, hugely exciting. A great, great novel. Too bad we'll probably have to wait two years until the next one. -Dave
Rating:
Summary: Great Lehane once again
Review: After having been exposed for the first time to Dennis Lehane last year with his terrific mystery Mystic River, I've read all that he has written. Since that point he has yet to disappoint me. "Shutter Island" is no different. Lehane's novel is set in 1954 and told from the point of view of Teddy Daniels, a federal marshal sent to investigate the escape of a patient from the mental hospital on Shutter Island. As Teddy gets deeper into his investigation, the list of people the reader can trust gradually diminishes. Lehane keeps you guessing throughout the book and may even fool you at the end. My only disappointments came at the length of the book (325 pages), simply because I was really enjoying it, and that it *screams* for an eventual movie adaptation. At some points it seems to read more like a script. I was entertained from page one, however, and definitely think that any mystery fan would enjoy this novel. Highly recommended, especially to fans of Lehane's earlier work.
Rating: 
Summary: Rated X for........................
Review: We bought the audio version based on the ratings found here on Amazon. This was also our first exposure to Dennis LaHane's novels. Are they all filled with the F word? When you say psychological thriller does that mean bizarre sexual fantasies are described? Who needs this?
Yes, there was a twist at the end, but we were basically disappointed and found the book offensive to listen to. I would NEVER, for example, loan this audio cassette to my parents or to my children or to my friends.
Rating:
Summary: TEN STARS!!!
Review: Lehane, long a favorite author of mine, has completely outdone himself with "Shutter Island." This was one of those rare books that avid readers pine for...the ones where the last page comes far too soon.
Taking a dark and surprising twist on the standard mystery/thriller, "Shutter Island" lures you into its story, making you believe you're in for a pleasant and well-written mystery. Somewhere around 2/3's of the way through, you begin to realize that you've been taken to a place you never expected, like the middle of a creepy, dark woods, and left to fend for yourself. To say what this book is about would be to spoil it for anyone brave enough to venture in....so I'll leave it at: READ THIS NOW! You won't be sorry!
Rating:
Summary: Dennis "Hollywood" Lehane
Review: Just finished reading Shutter Island, the latest Dennis Lehane novel for which I've waited two years and scooped up in hardcover -- I won't be doing that again! His latest novel has a terrific pretense...two federal marshals are summoned to an insane asylum on a fortress island during a hurricane -- what could be better for chills and thrills, right? Wrong. The fact that I waited two years for a novel which could be finished in three hours (325 pages with lots of dialogue) seems more like a novella than an actual novel. BUT that aside, the story was okay at best. I know that the author is spending much of his time working on the movie adaptation of Mystic River, as well as trying to buy back the movie rights to the first Kenzie/Gennaro novel, so perhaps that explains why so little effort (apparently) went into this latest story. While it had unlimited potential, the story came across as farfetched -- extremely farfetched -- with holes you could drive Sean Penn's trailer through. The ending was the best part of the book, but still it had a cliched ring to it. It just didn't jibe. The story meanders along for the first half and then the reader is taken along for a twisting ride which culminates in a dead end -- with a handful of implausible scenarios thrown in for good measure. I won't ruin the ending, but when you get there, you'll know what I mean. Dennis Lehane should go back to the characters that made him great -- Kenzie & Gennaro -- and concentrate on his "art," not his Hollywood hype.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and Haunting
Review: I could not put this book down! Lehane's descriptions are hard edged and biting. He doesnt let you go for a second. The last chapters were a surprise but DUH! what did I read it for! You wont sleep soundly for a night or two just thinking this one over, but its worth every second. Good on ya, Dennis
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Devastating
Review: The historian Joyce Appleby said: "Our sense of worth, of well-being, even our sanity depends upon our remembering. But, alas, our sense of worth, our well-being, our sanity also depend upon our forgetting." Shutter Island is simply devastating. Dennis Lehane again demonstrates a real depth of understanding to the true costs of catastrophic loss. He is one of our finest writers. I anxiously await his next masterpiece.
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