Home :: Books :: Mystery & Thrillers  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers

Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Tell No One

Tell No One

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 .. 31 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A psychological thriller that packs a punch.
Review: Dr. David Beck lost the love of his life eight years ago. The story of her death is so gruesome he can't bear to think about it. Elizabeth was the love of his life; they were two halves of a whole. So how can he explain the e-mail that appears so mysteriously on their anniversary, mentioning things that only they would know?

This is only the beginning of a novel that reads like the twists and turns of a mountain highway. When I became ensconced comfortably in a plausible scenario, honestly believing I had finally figured things out, the author ripped the rug out from under my feet and hit me with the finale. I still shake my head at the outcome.

This books reads so fast you hardly have time to hold the pages as they breeze by. When I was away from it I couldn't wait to get back to it. I had been in a reading slump until I picked up this unexpected pleasure. Coben slams the story home with believable characters and a plot that speaks to everyone who enjoys a good thriller. An Excellent book. Kelsana 4/16/02

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Reads fast, lucky for its sake
Review: A very fast paced novel, and thankfully because as you think about the crimes that were supposedly committed and subsequently investigated by police and then closed - you laugh outloud at the unreality of it. These Keystone Kops couldn't find a matzoh in Brooklyn. It was reduced to comic book "take it on face value" logic, more for Hollywood then for serious writers who should have the time and space to develop realistic plots and situations. One example is the bad guy's invincible omniscience handed to him by literally bugging every house, phone line and computer in Christendom, for years on end no less. Maybe if the victim cleaned his house once in 8 years he could find these bugs in every pore of his living space. I was laughing too hard or I would have helped him.

The story gets too ponderous to believe, by the time you realize the plot is as leaky as an Enron tax return, you're sucked in and you owe it to yourself to finish. Don't expect to be enchanted and mystified with the ending, it's not Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in climax but more like Archie and Edith Bunker.

So if you can check your intellect at the door, sit down with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Spiderman, you'll have a fast pace read, that even is so bold as to pit a black drug dealer against a billionaire businessmen's own personal Odd Job. Maybe Hollywood will make it more believable?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 4 1/2 stars for great suspense!
Review: David Beck's wife was killed eight years ago and he never really recovered, never moved on. All of the sudden on their wedding anniversary, eight years after her death, new clues begin to surface and Beck receives some mysterious emails. Is she still alive? Did David Beck kill his own wife and cover it up? Who knows the truth about that night? Now everyone gets involved: the police, the FBI, David Beck, his father in law, a local millionaire with hired hitmen, a downtown drug dealer and more. Everyone seems to have something to hide and everyone tries to uncover exactly what happened the night of her death. This book will keep you guessing until the very end. Superb suspense from Coben!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Its a book for goodness sakes
Review: Mr. Coben's work is both witty and enjoyable. Although I miss Myron, Win and the gang, I enjoyed this work simply because it was fun. No political diatribes, no senseless whining about policitcal correctness, and no intellectual snobbery. You read it, you laugh, you anticipate, you hope your guesses about the plot are correct and then you wait for the author's next work.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: PAGE TURNER SUPERSTAR
Review: So it isn't great literature, but it grabs you and holds you until you're done, period. I mean, I skipped TWO MEALS because the next chapter was more important than nutrition. What a wonderful, exciting, fun read!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not bad
Review: I liked this book well enough, but I can't say it is one of my favorites. This story has a lot of action and it is not a boring book, but for some reason, I just didn't really care about these characters as much as I have in other books. If you can, pick this one up at a used bookstore.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Conspiracies and cover-ups abound in this complex thriller.
Review: Harlan Coben's "Tell No One" is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. This book is so convoluted that when I reached the end, I had to double back and reread certain passages to clarify how all the pieces fit together. For the most part, however, "Tell No One" is a satisfying, fast-paced and exciting thriller.

Dr. David Beck is a widower who is still grieving after having lost his wife, Elizabeth, eight years ago. She was apparently abducted and murdered by a serial killer, who is now on death row. Suddenly, some mysterious events occur which call into question everything that David thought was true about the past. He starts investigating on his own, hoping to unearth the truth about the events surrounding his wife's death. Suddenly, David finds himself on the run from the police who suspect him of murder, and from some bad guys who have their own reasons for wanting him silenced.

Although this plot sounds trite and is reminiscent of many similar thrillers, Coben pulls it off. One way that he does this is by creating some colorful characters such as David's lawyer, Hester Crimstein, a ruthless barracuda who takes no prisoners in defense of her clients, David's friend Shauna, a lesbian/model whose loyalty is exceeded only by her aggressiveness, and Eric Wu, one of the most menacing and deadly villains that you will ever come across. The most entertaining character is Tyrese Barton, a street smart drug dealer whose friendship for Dr. Beck proves to be a life-saver.

The book's dialogue is fresh and witty and the action scenes are thrilling. My biggest reservation about "Tell No One" is that some of the explanations at the conclusion of the novel were extremely far-fetched. However, if you enjoy a lively thriller that will keep you on your toes from the first page to the last, you will probably be entertained by "Tell No One."

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: not a COMPLETE waste of time
Review: After reading the first few chapters of this book it was pretty easy to see what the outcome of the book was going to be. However it was not easy at all to see how the author was going to get there. There are many twists and turns to the story and while I enjoyed the "connections" that the main character uses to get out of trouble, I was not entirely satisfied when I finished the book. Coben does a decent job of grabbing your hand and pulling you along Beck's life, and I REALLY wanted to see how we got to the end. The final pages were a bit far-fetched and involving characters that were not fully developed (re:Beck's father-in-law and Scope,Sr.). Final note: I'll pass the book on to someone instead of donating it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Worthy of Edgar
Review: A fine stand on it's own novel by Harlan Coben which is worthy of the Edgar. Enough twists to satisfy hardcore J. Deaver readers, and the suspense it so thick you can cut it with a knife. Tell No One proves that Coben does not need Bolitar to write a quality novel. I am looking forard to Gone For Good.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tell Everyone To Skip This Book
Review: I'm sure I've read worse books than Harlan Coben's "Tell No One", but at the moment, I'm hard-pressed to think of one. James Patterson's "When the Wind Blows" is certainly in the running. "Tell No One" is about a thirty-ish New York pediatrician whose wife had ostensibly been murdered,eight years before, by a serial killer while the childhood sweethearts were frolicking at his grandfather's abandoned summer camp. Suddenly the good doctor begins receiving e-mails from his presumably dead wife containing information only the two of them could have known. So far, so good.Coben has us genuinely intrigued and engrossed in this "Diabolique"-like scenario. From this exposition the book goes downhill, as a convoluted, far-fetched plot shot through with holes confusingly weaves through enough layers of ruling class corruption, cover-ups, deceptions and "surprises" to suffice for a dozen potboilers of this ilk. Unfortunately, Coben's writing "style"-to use the word advisably- is all too well-suited to this at time laughably implausible yarn. Aside from his confusing switching from first to third person, to say Coben's prose is as spare as it is pedestrian is like observing that Al Roker could stand to lose a pound or two. Now, there's nothing wrong with bare-bones prose when utilized by a master such as Hemingway, for whom less was more. Sadly,in Coben's case less is even lesser. This third-rate prose style is further sabotaged by the author's relentless penchant for shopworn cliches and similes and metaphors so egregious that even the likes of Mickey Spillane wouldn't think twice about blue-penciling them.Thus, we are treated for lines like "His pounding heart was like a bird desperately trying to escape from a cage.", or "the shocking realization hit him like a falling piano." Plot contrivances abound, along with the de rigeur stock characters infesting this genre: the politically correct creation of characters such as the lesbian couple raising a child(the doctor's sister is gay), and our hero's tough, felonious, yet supportive and protective Afro-American drug dealer allies -really a patronizing, modern update on the "noble savage". As "Tell No One" tripped, stumbled and fell toward its predictable climax,I was already envisioning the mediocre, yet unreasonably profitable film that will no doubt ensue from this dismal fare. Don't fail to miss it!


<< 1 .. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 .. 31 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates