|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
The gist of the book is this: Driving home one night, Jake allows his teenage son Ryan to drive. When Ryan hits someone with the car, Jake goes into protection mode and covers up his son's involvement. The incident gnaws at their family and drives an already dysfunctional family to the brink of collapse. Jake finds himself playing cat and mouse with the local sheriff while worrying that Ryan will crack from the pressure and tell all.
While this seems like a possibly over-used plot, Scottoline has added some surprising twists along the way to make this story fresh. How well she accomplishes this depends on the mindset of the reader. The novel is set up rather like peeling an onion, one layer at a time. With each passing page, more of the family's secrets are revealed and more twists to the plot happen. That part of the book builds suspense and really kept the pages turning for me. However, the author seems to want readers to ponder the question of how far would/should a parent go to protect his child. But while most parents would want to protect their children's future, most readers will see quickly how the effort to save his son's future threatens to ruin them all. That angle just didn't quite work for me.
As a whole the book suffers from two flaws. None of the characters are likeable. Ryan's mother, oddly enough a judge, comes across as a controlling, lying bitch and the father as a lying, depressed wimp. Ryan is a confused, depressed teen. Nothing about these people made me care what happened to them. The other flaw is that the writing is a little rough. The book doesn't seem to flow very well. I kept imaging scenes being linked together as they might be on television rather than on the page. In fact, that might be where this book would be most successful - as a made for television movie.
Readers who are fans of the author's legal thrillers may well be disappointed in this book. If readers come to this title having read other standalone novels by Scottoline, they will probably like KEEP QUIET. While I had some issues with the book, I think it would make fine beach reading.
§ Caryn St.Clair resides in University City, Missouri and is a former elementary school media specialist, President of the Parks Commission and a docent at the St.Louis Zoo.
Reviewed by Caryn St Clair, April 2014
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
