P. Giorgio

First and foremost, I have to get the negatives out of the way. Two unappealing things stood out. The first concerned the portrayal of Liz/Elizabeth in the first section of the book. The robotic B.S. and the effects of Mommie Dearest on Elizabeth was overwrought and both highly unnecessary and highly ridiculous. I had one of those mothers, and before I actually did rebel, I had thought long and hard about the "what ifs" of taking a step out of line. Once I wandered, well... there was no turning back.. but that's another book. At any rate, Elizabeth was a very unlikable character in the beginning. Her mother was too overdrawn and ridiculuous and the author spent the rest of the book using the mother's bad ways to demonstrate how far Eliz/Liz/Abigail had come to get out from under her. The second ugly thing was the rendering of Elizabeth to be a counterpart to Lisbeth Salander from the Dragon Tattoo Series. It was so close, so mimetic, that I came close several times to not resuming. Even I could not figure out why I stuck with it when I was really angry with Nora Roberts for appearing to "steal" from the very popular book and its very quirky character.

Neither Liz/Elizabeth nor Abigail could hold a candle to Lisbeth. Lisbeth was so real, so alive, so believable, that The Witness became only the eye of a camera by comparison.

Enter Brooks Gleason. I did not like the use of man/romance as a manipulative device to get Abigail to loosen up. I think it's an easy-peasy method of bringing the female character to her senses -- that is to trust/love/have sex again. But I loked the character of Brooks and really liked his family.

So what is this book about? It is NOT about straying from mommy's intended discipline and getting people killed, it is not about the consequences and punishments of a child's bad behavior. It is not (entirely) about love and romance or about revenge and one-upsmanship.

In the Dragon Tattoo series, Lisbeth was dedicated to her work, and nothing, even her somewhat-one sided romance with Mikail, derailed her from her intention. She would reap havoc on her abuser(s), rob them and enjoy their money. We never for a moment forgot who Lisbeth was, what she came through and why she did the things she did. We never questioned what she would be doing after the capers (Russians btw) -- she would continue being Lisbeth.

In The Witness, Elizabeth/Liz were personas meant to be exterminated. There was never a question in the book that she would die or be tortured or identified by the Russians. We knew that good ol' Brooks would keep her safe.

But what Nora Roberts book IS about is the social outsider, the excluder, the invisible among us. Where Lisbeth was an outsider, she was so by choice. Elizabeth Fitch was an outsider by orders of her robotic mother, Dr. Susan Fitch. The writer of this book would have us believe that Elizabeth was so programmed that even in the few allotted hours of TV, Elizabeth did not ever imagine herself doing anything but that which her mother had programmed for her.

Yet, when left alone for a short time, and with the benefit of some thought, but not much, she transformed herself from goody-goody to worldly and sexy and bad things came as a result.

In the course of the book, during the romance with Brooks, during the parallel stories of blackmail and spousal abuses in Bickford, Abigail (alias for Elizabeth) comes to see the value of love, friendship and FAMILY.

The author gives Abigail stupid lines of dialogue to show us how wide-eyed she was about, for instance, how to properly attend a family picnic, but that was unnecessary and NOT cute.

The wrap up, the way ABigail was able to put Liz/Elizabeth to rest forever, was trite and without complications. I seldom say this; in fact I am usually complaining that a long book is too full of filler; but this book needed another hundred pages or so to play out the bringdown of the Russian mob -- (could have been Italians, Latinos, African-Americans, Middle Easterners, or Asians).

There was a lot of repetition of Abigail's travails. There were too many insertions of Abigail's unpolished demeanor (she's 28 and she's a computer genius and able to see the world from a distance. She would not have been that socially inept -- ever) -- all this leads me to think that the author wanted to infantilize Abigail, keep her at the age of 16 when her world went whacko.

Unforgivable: The absence of closure with the mother, Dr. Susan Fitch. Not that there should have been a reunion with violins and roses. In fact, Abigail replaced Susan with Sunny -- and that was appropraite -- but there should have been some final checkin that ABigail might have made to report the status of Susan, even with her donor father. Those things could have been nicely tied together into a package of parallel longings, forgetting and forgiveness. I think the exclusion of that closure with her biological family was a mistake.

So, really, this is about an outsider who finally wants in. She no longer is happy in her computer safe room. She is in love with a fine, sexy, powerful man (what other kind is there?) and she gets the nerve to open the door, so to speak.

I love the outsider theme, but I hate that the outsider makes peace ONLY after she is rescued by sex and love.

What about the dog? Bert is a highly trained security animal, and yet, she brings him to family parties, she takes him to a stranger's home. My very limited knowledge of security animals tells me that a working dog is at work at all times. I could be wrong, maybe the working dog is also tender and loving, (just like Brooks Gleason). Something about that rang "off" with me, but I won't press that point.

If you have not read the Stieg Larrson trilogy -- the book is likeable. There is no pulsing tension; this is no page turner, but it is a decent read out on a hammock or on the beach, even if it doesn't "feel" real.

This is the first Nora Roberts book for me. I will have a hard time trying another because I fear she writes those romance type books which depend on the love and attention of a handsome man to bring a heroine to wholeness. That is somewhat anachronistic in these times -- especially when the heroine is a crack computer hacker/geek/nerd whose worldliness would exceed the good ol' boy she craves.

I liked it. The twists, such as they were, were not outrageous, the final scenes about Jacob were a bit surprising because of their being so unconventional. It is very unconventional because we (Americans) do not believe parent-child relationships can go in this direction. Frankly, I don't know who was more outrageous -- the parent who couldn't accept a probable truth that was fairly convincing or the parent who accepted the truth and felt it necessary to do something in response.

The court room scenes were a little too long and tedious, and some of the conversations were stilted and unrealistic, but if you're writing a story about something.. in this case a man, his father and his child, you have to start with a premise: What if a child grows up and fulfills the fears a father has as relates to his own inherited psychology? Does the apparent outcome succeed in proving the existence of a "murder" gene? Did Jacob inherit it? Was Laurie affected by living with this "gene" in her midst?

The story brings up many avenues for critical thinking.

It is buried in a story that, if not riveting, was fairly well done.

Worth the credit, worth thinking and talking about it.

I hope I can say enough about this horrible book that will keep enthusiastic hopefuls from spending time and money to acquire it. I cannot compare it to anything else by Coban except for "Stay Close," which was marginally readable. But this one, it's so bad, so implausible, so repetitive, so convoluted that it seems to have been written by a first year Composition student. The cliches are rampant. The love story that drives the dumb plot is dumber than that student writer's first draft. This man, this protagonist, Jake Fisher, is such a mope, such a feminized character that his described big, handsome physique seems wrong. His "fight" scenes are successful because of luck and some tricks, not because he is so enraged and impassioned that he is aggressive or cunning. His best friend, (requisite "black guy") Benedict is not as he seems. There is a sweet waitress and a crotchety old secretary. Everyone lies. There are (non-Italian) mobsters and African drug cartels. There are funky FBI agents and fence-riding cops. There is a lot of shooting and running and disguising. There are two references (in case you missed the first one) to a Lesbian couple. So Coban hit all the right notes politically. But none of that can Bandaid a shoddy story and lousy, boring characters who generate no sympathy (from me).

The ending lines actually explain the whole thing, and once you know why Natalie has disappeared, it's pretty flaccid. I still couldn't have cared less. By the time we are told why Natalie disappeared, we have been exhausted by events that do NOTHING to advance the Natalie story.

Many reviewers described this as a wild ride, high-tension, edge-of-the seat thrill. Not even a little bit of this story was so compelling. If I had bought a hard copy, I would have demanded my money back; I couldn't have sat still in one place to complete it.

Narrator: I usually love Scott Brick, but his intonation of Jake was so tired, I wondered if he was told to read it like that by the author. I will always choose Scott Brick if I have an option, but Coban won't be on my favorite authors list.

The beauty of this series is AXP's interest in and contribution to the story; in this one he opened and he closed the story, but the plot was so fragmented that it was hard to decide if this book was about Constance or Pendergast. At the end, even though Constance's role is revealed as being as key, I found this episode weak and not believable.

But the story itself is what lacks the ability to hold interest. There is a monastery, there are monks. There are trusts made and broken. AXP takes off and leaves Constance at the monastery to question the most secluded monk... too easy, really. An important and dangerous artifact is stolen from the monastery and the monks ask Pendergast to retrieve it.

Then there is an ocean voyage and many red herring bad characters. There is an apparently prime story line about the ship's captains, but those also relate to the found/missing artifact. There are ghostly characters, cliched sea characters, a luxury liner about to go Titanic and a half dozen or so odd deaths -- all in service to the missing artifact.

So, the crime is solved, but not before AXP falls under its spell and "disappears" -- by becoming bad AXP ---- for way too long. Constance tries to guide him back to his good self and ultimately AXP's strong thoughts of home and a visit from his dead(?) brother bring him back around to sanity. The ship is not lost and the bedeviled characters regain their sea legs. There is a reappearance of a former nemesis, and the book closes with suggestion of greater devastation to come. Lots of people die.

It is disappointing on many levels. I think that when AXP disappears early on from his own book, you can expect it to be a poorer cousin of the better books. It's as if the star of a series dies mid-season and they have to absent him and make an explanation -- like it was all a dream or some such thing. Except for a rather enjoyable chapter where AXP plays blackjack to foil the card counters on board, it was mostly without Pendergast's usual charm.

I feel I wasted my credit. I would rather have paid $5-6 for this and saved a credit. It was not a "good purchase."

STill, if you follow the series, the story does offer information necessary to go forward to the next, hopefully realistic and harrowing adventure.

I agree with the other posters here that the "ick" factor was excessive and unnecessary. Not sure why it was necessary for the writer to include that particular aspect since the device did not result in any real assistance to solving the crime(s). The two weirdos were used like a red herring, maybe to divert the reader from discovering the true perpetrator.

For me, I sort of "knew" 2/3 thru who was heading up the myriad disappearances. You will too. It's okay, though since you won't be quite sure. The ending is a bit trite. All the explanations and justifications for lifetimes of disappointment, fear, revenge and uncertainty.

The text was good; deep and satisfying. The primary characters mostly believable -- especially Ray Levine. Megan was too dippy to have been who she used to be and her husband way too tolerant.

Left unfinished were the punishments meted out to the people who set the weirdos on the prowl, but other than that, mostly satisfying, understandable, and 75% believable. This won't deter me from another Coban story -- I have liked others of his before -- but I will pay close attention to reviewers who cite the stuff that (for no apparent reason) is included to make me squirm. I can take horror and gore, if it serves a purpose. Here, I don't feel it served anything but an appeal something I can't quite recall. It reminds me of something I've read -- like in Preston & Child, or another series. I am hoping this wasn't a copy-cat effort to compete with the likes of P&C.. there is no way to beat those two at their game.

Harlan Coban should stick to what he does best. If he needs torture and horror, I hope it is better justified in future books.

In all, I liked it. It kept me "turning the page," and I only laughed a few times at improbable scenarios.

The prologue and epilogue were great. The long middle was often tedious and a tad mundane... post-modern crap that wandered along, plotless but incident-rich. The characters were not standouts, but were normal, accurately described people we all know, love and hate.

The problem was not only the lack of a "point," but the lack of cohesion. Many, many things occurred in this long story, but all you really needed and wanted to know was given in the prologue. The resolution of the story questions did not come until the epilogue and then, the explanations were kind of shruggingly okay.

In the middle are several family members, several subsets of families, several buildings and locations whose past, present and future are all linked. We have several unlikable characters, and contrary to common practice, some of these are children, and they are believable. There is a climax crisis seen in a school, it is inevitable, I suppose, but the actions of one of the key child characters is indecisive and, frankly, not well explained. It was as if the author was the father of the child and couldn't commit to allow the child to act as a normal child might have. The father in the book, the key character, Miles, is an overweight softie who has no guidance except that of his gruff (caricature of a) father. He is manipulated by women living and dead and he really has no past to stand him out as a protagonist with something to lose or acquire or adapt to. Many other characters (brother David for one and ex-wife Janine for another) are multi-faceted and have depth. The author gives those characters depth of feeling and contemplation, reflection and acts that change after reflection. For Miles, the author has nothing but irritation.

At the end of the book, the reader is given the explanations to a number of odd events in a few of the characters' lives. Miles makes a decision -- finally -- but it is a decision to do nothing rather than to do something. I got the impression that in the "sequel" (God forbid) we would find the Robey family intact and picnicking on the Whiting land. I learned nothing, I felt little for any of these people and not for one moment do I think I could find this so-called Empire Falls anywhere on the planet. It was not sufficiently engaging. It was like a diary of a bored man.

I gave it three stars because the writing is exquisite. The language, the imagery, the 2nd hand, omniscient description of what characters said and felt were all astute and believable. What was lacking was the voice of the characters as they experienced it.

The narrator, as usual was fabulous and correctly distinguished voices. If I have one complaint about McClarty, it's his attempts at women's voices. But to his credit, they were all equally treated. The women sound like drag queens. Still I'd listen to Ron read anything over some of the other narrators I have endured.

*** for story

** for structure of the novel.

***** for the narrator.

From the first "discovery" of bones until the end of the book when that finding is explained, the story had very little substance. When the explanation of the blue box is given at the end, one wonders how and when Alex put it all together. But then, I may have nodded out during that part.

In fact, the story that surrounds the blue box is more interesting, realistic and emotional than the junk in the middle. There were some interesting "red herrings," some witty anti-stereotypes that did little to hide the fact that some of the fictional personalities were taken from today's tabloids.

The mystery that Milo and Alex investigate together was downright ridiculous, improbable and uninteresting. I wanted to squeeze this quick listen in between some required reading, knowing I could knock down a dozen hours in a day or so. I was wrong. It was so tedious, I couldn't stay with it. I found myself reading the paper and listening to it as background noise, having to rewind to catch up and try to get further with it.

It seemed like the large story that comprises the deaths of several people was contrived to showcase very rich Hollywood types. The anti-stereotype may have been an effort at defusing some clichés that surround that kind of lifestyle. In this mire of wealth are religious fanatics, entrepreneurs, pimps, drug addicts, perfect mothers and lousy fathers, castration, abortion, adoption, bad marriages, murder and taxidermy.

The woman who finds the blue box under the tree of her new home is an unfinished character. She appears 2-3 times throughout the story, has a heart-to-heart with Alex and is "cured." The mother of four whom Alex suspects is a certain type of spoiled and damaging superstar turns out to be June Cleaver. Alex literally stalks one character, and thinking he is *tricking* her into revealing herself, the character, who is on to him at once, tells him Milo everything, incriminating another person. Illogical, unbelievable.

Milo is true to form; if you loved him before, you will love him still. Robin is as bland as Blanche is white. A couple of love scenes between Robin and Alex are all we get about them and they are stilted. In fact, the only *love* in the whole damned thing is demonstrated in the final paragraphs of the whole book and those scenes relate to NOTHING else at all.

Guilt? Almost everyone in this cast of characters is guilty of something.

Mystery? Yes, but fairly easy to put together, because Alex and Milo discuss the possibilities and rate them as feasible or not. Toward the end of the book, Alex recognizes how wrong he had been about some of the elements of the story. So what?

Thriller? No.

Historical/Scientific/Criminal/Psychological content? Light at best.

Horror? Indirect horror when contemplating the nature of mankind -- historical and current.

Redemptions? None. No turnarounds, no recapitulations, no ah-ha moments, nothing.

Informative/Educational? At approximately the 5th grade level.

Love the narrator though. I have come to depend on that voice -- even the silly female voices -- in Kellerman's books. I hope he stays on until the next one.

Hoping for better sooner than later.

Only three stars because of the somewhat silly scenes. There is a ridiculous jail break, a ridiculous explanation for Diogenes' breakdown and an even more ridiculous across-the-globe chase by a very unlikely pursuer.

However: This is an AX Pendergast novel and that alone recommends it. The above borderline inanities would only be suffered by a true fan. For a first time reader of the series, there is little to no explanation of some of the characters, their histories or their roles in this current episode. Like another reviewer, I regret that the thin white duke makes a late appearance, and one that stretches credulity too far. In the end, there is the requisite chase seen, this one up and down a mountain. The settings bring us back to Italy. We ride trains, visit convents, and traipse the wine country.

There is a disturbing sequence, one that reaches a degree of discomfort I have not encountered in these books thus far. There is a letter left in the aftermath of a devilish seduction. The letter is so heartbreaking, so grievous and so daring (to have put such things in words), that this character's words on the final page of the book, are sadly inevitable. In fact, this final statement made by a normally marginal character, invites a foreshadowing of future prestidigitation and charade among the regular players.

As in all P&C books, there is are lessons to be taught to the reader. We learn some history, a lot of geography, a little neuroscience and a healthy dose of chemistry. The books are veritable fonts of trivia.

By far, in all the scenes in the book, the planning and execution of the two "escapes" are the centerpieces. One precedes the other by very little time, and both are choreographed to deliver the same kinds of messages: The police (except for D'Agosta) are stupid, city government is stupid, academics are passably intelligent but failures outside their area of brilliance. Only Pendergast and D'Agosta -- and some of the help AXP employs -- are able to save the world. That's a superhero for you, or a Christ figure, or maybe a myth.

My usual 4 star rating is reduced for being a little silly and a little too long getting AXP into the action and the crossing the line of good taste in the deception visited upon the most innocent of all the characters.

Do not skip this book if you are a fan and are reading the Diogenes trilogy, but do not start your journey into the world of P&C and AXP with this tome; it might drive you insane.

Only Still Life With Crows affected me more -- but on a personal and emotional level. Brimstone was good for many other reasons. Lots of terrific "what ifs," the always intelligent vocabulary, equal amounts of suspense and exclamations of "of course..." -- a little supernatural, but always human!

AXP and D'Agosta are not cut from any other cloth. Sure, there are the ridiculously convenient lucky breaks and Hand-of-God sort of things, but so what? The gracious nod to Wilkie Collins and Poe enlarged the other literary, musical, cultural and geography references making this an immersive experience.

This one differed (for the better) from some of the series for NOT including long, somewhat-boring chases in caves and tunnels. The chases occur above ground. Still there is enough going on beneath castles and mansions so that when you come up for air, the whole thing stays with you.

It's a feel good and a breath-holder. I read this out of order, so I knew the future effects and consequences this book would set up. But even knowing what was coming, the story and its pacing were so good, it did not matter.

Loved "Buck," and the authors' delicate handling of his well-intentioned but misled efforts. That character and his story border on political-religious "preaching." So subtly handled, the message and the warnings are kind and clear.

If there is a theme in all of this, that applies to every character, including AXPm it might be:

Get thee behind me, Ego!

Sorry.. it's horrid. The narrator did the best he could with such slow, uninteresting information. I took a class on this book and the instructor LOVED it and was so animated about its importance in the world, blah, blah, blah. The only good thing about the whole book was in chapters 7-10... The real relationships between Salim and Yvette... the sex scenes were sublime and gorgeous -- until they weren't... at any rate, except for historians and political science students, I can't see who would find this entertaining or worth spending time or money on.

Like any addiction, the original ecstasy never returns. That is to say honeymoons end. I came late to the series, starting only this year with Still Life with Crows, and I followed it with everything up and until the long wait for Two Graves. Each book subsequent to Still Life was slightly a let down -- none brought me back to the peak of nirvana of the first. This is not to say that the others were poor or unreadable or unrecommendable; only that I could not regain the effects of Still Life.

Awaiting (6 mos) for Two Graves, I was eager to start reading. The first half was stellar. The third quarter good; the final quarter long, tedious and unjustified.

At first I felt manipulated that three discrete story lines were being offered alternatively. but at the end, we were given pages and pages (hours) of Pendergast's show-down in South America. Frankly, I got bored.

The three story lines are treated inequitably. Corrie Swanson returns to this episode, and she has a lot of "stuff" to take care of. She, her problems and her conflict are introduced, her conflict is resolved... that's it.

Constance's story is examined again, a conflict intervenes and is resolved. But these two very interesting parallel story lines are abruptly abandoned so that we can follow AXP playing superhero. Each of the other two stories resolve independent of the main one, but AXP does not contribute to their resolution. This makes me feel cheated of my proper fix of AXP's masterful management of all that is wrong in the world.

For me, and I offered my limited P&C credentials above, AXP drives everything, and in this book, he was off on his own adventures, eschewing help from D'Agosto and Corrie, which would have made the solving much more "real" in the context of these books.

As for the story(ies):

1. The Constance story resolves in this book. The explanation is more than a little implausible, but it fits comfortably with the explanation of Helen's disappearance in the earlier books.

2. Corrie gets to play detective all by herself. She is successful and finds her long-sought happiness. Corrie bears a remarkable resemblance (in behavior, attitude, goals and gall) to Lisbeth Salandar from the Dragon Tattoo Series. P&G's Corrie was created in 2003, well before Larson's books (2011) which is telling!

3. The AXP/Helen/South America story could have been half as long and the above two expanded more deeply. Lots of traveling, planning, reconnoitering, faking and infiltrating taking up many, many pages, and in my opinion wasting good story time.

4. Thrown in for good measure is some progress in D'Agosto's life.

again... nothing interactive among all the beloved characters. It's like three different books (novellas) packaged as one big novel.

I wouldn't recommend this to a new P&C reader, but for a fan, Two Graves is a MUST read. Some of the early parts are classic P&C.

I have faith the next installments will be 100% wonderful again.