Helpful Score: 1
A truly unique mystery/thriller/ghost story. I couldn't put it down once I started.
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting psychological mystery/suspense. Still held my attention despite a nasty main character - Bart Crane, an attorney from Toronto who has to go to Murdoch to defend a difficult client accused of murdering 2 teenage girls. Bart is a lying, evidence stealing, cocaine addicted criminal defense lawyer who cares nothing about his client and only cares about winning. Wanting to finish the book was my desire to see Bart get his. Bart's encounter with his past and the supernatural in Murdoch, sets him spiraling downward. His carefully constructed facade of smooth, tough attorney starts unraveling. Bart get more than his comeuppance by the end - he reaches a sort of redemption. Writing is vague at times but interesting to read since it's quite different from most mystery, psych suspense books out there.
Great mystery story with a supernatural twist to it. High school girls have gone missing and their teacher is accused of their deaths... but no bodies or crime seen have been found and the teacher seems to not care about his own defense. Main character is not at all sympathetic, but story is good enough to make up for him.
I'm giving it a 2 1/2 because I finished it. Reviewers descibed this as "Brilliant", "Compelling", "Dazzling" and for me it was like looking at a Picasso and finding myself saying over and over what do they see that I don't? Is it possible that reviews for another book were posted to this one in error?
The main character is repulsive and, double that, a lawyer. He is representing a client accused of murdering two girls. Neither character has a whole lot of dimension or substance. There are a number of things skating on thin ice in this novel.
I'd be glad to hear someone tell me what I'm missing in this one though.
The main character is repulsive and, double that, a lawyer. He is representing a client accused of murdering two girls. Neither character has a whole lot of dimension or substance. There are a number of things skating on thin ice in this novel.
I'd be glad to hear someone tell me what I'm missing in this one though.
Fairly well written mystery
I absolutely, positively loved this book! It was a mystery/thriller with a bit of supernatural thrown in. The character development was awesome (at least for the main character). I highly recommend it!!!
A terrify thriller, once started you woun't want to put this one down.
Good but very odd at the same time. I found myself skimming thru the ending
Very interesting story; author gives enough detail so you can picture the people and places.
So strange that I actually read it again - and I never do that with a book
Canadian author, what I read of it had a lot of adolescent psychological trauma.
I just could not get into this book. Too much off the wall stuff in between. Guess not my kind of reading.
Attorney Bartholomew Crane doesn't belong in the small town of Murdoch. And the town of Murdock doesn't want him there. Even Crane's client, a teacher accursed of killing two girls, his own student, doesn't seem to care if Crane gets him off or not. But Bartholomew Crane has come to Murdock to try his first murder case-and he intends to win at all costs. That is, until the case takes an unexpected turn.
Synopsis
Bartholomew Christian Crane is a criminal defense attorney who wins. Thirty-three, silver-tongued, and driven by a moral code that preaches, "There are no such things as lies, only misperceptions," Barth is ripe for the first murder trial of his career. Two fourteen-year-old girls have gone missing and are presumed dead in a depressed northern Ontario town. The girls' teacher - now Barth's client - is the prime suspect. Booking himself into the seedy Empire Hotel, Barth begins work on a trial that quickly slides into a nightmarish tableau of psychological terror, where the distinction between dream and reality is as fine as the lines of coke he relies on for inspiration. He feels an uneasy connection to the victims, who presumably lie in the bottom of the lake just outside town . . . the same lake that is believed to be haunted.
Bartholomew Christian Crane is a criminal defense attorney who wins. Thirty-three, silver-tongued, and driven by a moral code that preaches, "There are no such things as lies, only misperceptions," Barth is ripe for the first murder trial of his career. Two fourteen-year-old girls have gone missing and are presumed dead in a depressed northern Ontario town. The girls' teacher - now Barth's client - is the prime suspect. Booking himself into the seedy Empire Hotel, Barth begins work on a trial that quickly slides into a nightmarish tableau of psychological terror, where the distinction between dream and reality is as fine as the lines of coke he relies on for inspiration. He feels an uneasy connection to the victims, who presumably lie in the bottom of the lake just outside town . . . the same lake that is believed to be haunted.
This book has a clipped corner on the cover.
