Helpful Score: 3
I was about halfway through this fast-reading novel when I thought about the plot's premise. How, I wondered, could such a simple line of action keep the reader so interested? The answer is DeMille and his way of writing--character development is important to him, so as we follow the three main protagonists through the story, we are caught up in the thoughts of each and racing toward the conclusion.
It's a simple story about a former intelligence guy who was let go after the Cold War ended. He returned to his very small hometown where the girl he'd always loved lived. She had married the [now] Chief of Police and is locked in a loveless, controlling relationship. Spencerville, Ohio, is a better place to be at the end of this book!
It's a simple story about a former intelligence guy who was let go after the Cold War ended. He returned to his very small hometown where the girl he'd always loved lived. She had married the [now] Chief of Police and is locked in a loveless, controlling relationship. Spencerville, Ohio, is a better place to be at the end of this book!
Helpful Score: 2
Once I got into the story I become personally involved with the characters and found myself feeling nervous when starting a new chapter, as I just knew major trouble was coming and I really wanted Keith and Annie to make their escape. When I was ready to stop reading for the evening, I had to be careful not to even glance at the next page otherwise I would keep ending up reading just 'one more chapter'. Once the real trouble started, I had no choice but to read straight on through to the end, even though it took me into the early hours of the next morning.
FROM THE DUST JACKET:
From the bestselling author of The General's Daughter and The Gold Coast comes what may be Nelson DeMille's best novel yet, a bittersweet story of recaptured youth and reclaimed love, with all the honed-steel suspense that signifies the trademark of this author.
Keith Landry has lived long enough to have seen the end of the cold war; a war fought without uniforms or rules, a war that has claimed his career and his soul. Now, he has come home to Spencerville, a town in the American heartland that is both familiar and strange, a town as tarnished as Landry himself.
But for Landry, Spencerville has one attraction that time has not corrupted. Her name is Annie Prentis, and she had been the one pure love of his youth. Then came Vietnam, and a world gone crazy separated them. Annie had long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police and its most powerful man, an unfaithful, yet brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle, a battle that will be both his deadliest and his most personal. Confronted with his last chance at redemption, he must violate his oath--calling on all of his skills learned from a lifetime in military and intelligence service to rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death.
Landry knows he's got to act rationally and with deadly cunning. Faced with a simple, stark choice--a new life, or no life at all--Landry takes the one critical step in the only direction he can: into the inevitable, explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
FROM THE DUST JACKET:
From the bestselling author of The General's Daughter and The Gold Coast comes what may be Nelson DeMille's best novel yet, a bittersweet story of recaptured youth and reclaimed love, with all the honed-steel suspense that signifies the trademark of this author.
Keith Landry has lived long enough to have seen the end of the cold war; a war fought without uniforms or rules, a war that has claimed his career and his soul. Now, he has come home to Spencerville, a town in the American heartland that is both familiar and strange, a town as tarnished as Landry himself.
But for Landry, Spencerville has one attraction that time has not corrupted. Her name is Annie Prentis, and she had been the one pure love of his youth. Then came Vietnam, and a world gone crazy separated them. Annie had long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police and its most powerful man, an unfaithful, yet brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle, a battle that will be both his deadliest and his most personal. Confronted with his last chance at redemption, he must violate his oath--calling on all of his skills learned from a lifetime in military and intelligence service to rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death.
Landry knows he's got to act rationally and with deadly cunning. Faced with a simple, stark choice--a new life, or no life at all--Landry takes the one critical step in the only direction he can: into the inevitable, explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent Nelson Demille book. You will have a very hard time putting it down. It is a story about betrayal, love, war, honor and redemption. Takes place in a small town called Spencerville - a town in America's heartland.
Helpful Score: 1
The first Demille book I've read. The cover looked great! (How's the saying go, you can't tell a book by its cover.)
Demille writes with details that pull you right into the story. Many times I expected it to move a certain way, and then, bam! what a surprise.
The only reason I didn't give it **** is becuase I thought it was a bit slow in parts.
The ending is quite climatic, and a real page turner. You won't be able to put the book down.
Demille writes with details that pull you right into the story. Many times I expected it to move a certain way, and then, bam! what a surprise.
The only reason I didn't give it **** is becuase I thought it was a bit slow in parts.
The ending is quite climatic, and a real page turner. You won't be able to put the book down.
Helpful Score: 1
This was a good book - a little racey - but couldn't wait to see what would happen.
Helpful Score: 1
Far from his best but still a good read
A pretty good read! Lots of twists, characters were great and interesting. Story lagged abit in places but picked back up.
The Cold War is over, and Keith Landry, one of the nation's top intelligence officers, is forcedinto early and unwanted retirement.
Restless, Landry returns to Spencerville, the small Midwestern town where he grew up. The place has changed in the quarter century since Landry stepped off his front porch into the world, but two important people from his past are still there: Annie Prentis, his first love, and Cliff Baxter, the high school bully who became the police chef of Spencerville and Annie's possessive husband. The're all about to come together again-and rip Spencerville apart with violence, vengance, and renewed passion.
Restless, Landry returns to Spencerville, the small Midwestern town where he grew up. The place has changed in the quarter century since Landry stepped off his front porch into the world, but two important people from his past are still there: Annie Prentis, his first love, and Cliff Baxter, the high school bully who became the police chef of Spencerville and Annie's possessive husband. The're all about to come together again-and rip Spencerville apart with violence, vengance, and renewed passion.
The action and storyline keep you guessing. Nelson DeMille is a consistent writer--always top notch.
This was my first Nelson DeMille novel and I loved it!! Keith Landry, ex intelligence officer, has left Washington and all it's intrigues, to come back to his small Mid-western hometown to re-group and start over. But he's drawn into a situation involving his first love [and his only love], her possessive and mean husband, who happens to be the sheriff of Spencerville and the former high school bully. This one will keep you up late into the night, turning page after page.
An epic saga of one of the nation,s top intelligence officers and his return to civilan life, only to incur even greater challenges. Excellent read. Violence, vengeance and renewed passion abound.
"Explosive and suspenseful...one of DeMille's Best." - Associated Press
From Publishers Weekly
Cannily combining some of the emotional appeal of Bridges of Madison County with a riveting cat-and-mouse game between a retired CIA man and a psychotic rural police chief, DeMille's latest novel (after The General's Daughter) has bestseller written all over it. Keith Landry, his Cold War intelligence job a victim of the Soviet collapse, returns to the little Ohio town where he grew up and begins to tinker with thoughts of reviving the family farm. A former sweetheart, Annie, despondent after Keith went off to Vietnam, had married aggressive, good-looking Cliff Baxter on the rebound, but Keith and Annie had never ceased to correspond. Now that he's back, the old interest is rekindled in both, but Baxter, now police chief and a womanizing petty tyrant, is fiercely jealous-and the novel takes off as a deadly struggle between a man trained in the arts of deception and one with all the built-in advantages of police power in a remote spot. In the process, DeMille works in some poignant reflections on the diminishing role of the American heartland and some acute satire at the expense of the Washington power elite; he also manages a nice combination of wryness and passion in his middle-aged lovers. The pacing is expert: there is plenty of time for leisurely scenes, but the narrative tension never flags, and the final third keeps up a crackling drive. There are a few pat and unconvincing moments, and the inclination of DeMille's characters to think aloud is an odd quirk, but no readers, once hooked, are going to complain-or do much else-until they have finished the book.
Cannily combining some of the emotional appeal of Bridges of Madison County with a riveting cat-and-mouse game between a retired CIA man and a psychotic rural police chief, DeMille's latest novel (after The General's Daughter) has bestseller written all over it. Keith Landry, his Cold War intelligence job a victim of the Soviet collapse, returns to the little Ohio town where he grew up and begins to tinker with thoughts of reviving the family farm. A former sweetheart, Annie, despondent after Keith went off to Vietnam, had married aggressive, good-looking Cliff Baxter on the rebound, but Keith and Annie had never ceased to correspond. Now that he's back, the old interest is rekindled in both, but Baxter, now police chief and a womanizing petty tyrant, is fiercely jealous-and the novel takes off as a deadly struggle between a man trained in the arts of deception and one with all the built-in advantages of police power in a remote spot. In the process, DeMille works in some poignant reflections on the diminishing role of the American heartland and some acute satire at the expense of the Washington power elite; he also manages a nice combination of wryness and passion in his middle-aged lovers. The pacing is expert: there is plenty of time for leisurely scenes, but the narrative tension never flags, and the final third keeps up a crackling drive. There are a few pat and unconvincing moments, and the inclination of DeMille's characters to think aloud is an odd quirk, but no readers, once hooked, are going to complain-or do much else-until they have finished the book.
This was one of Nelson Demille's best. A truly good read. It is a thriller, intense and suspenseful. Towards the end you won't want to put it down, you have to see how it ends. A great book.
The cold war is over, and Keith Landry, one of the nation's top intelligence officers, is forced into early and unwanted retirement. Restless, Landry returns to Spencerville, the small Midwestern town where he grew up. The place has changed in the quarter century since Landry stepped off his front porch into the world, but two important people from his past are still there: Annie Prentis, his first love, and Cliff Baxter, the high school bully who became the police chief of Spencerville and Annie's possessive husband.
They're all about to come together again-and rip Spencerville apart with violence, vengeance, and renewed passion.
They're all about to come together again-and rip Spencerville apart with violence, vengeance, and renewed passion.
Intense - absorbing - suspenseful - all of this with a moving, real-seeming love. I could not stop till it was done.
#1 Bestselling author of The General's Daughter
"Rich... moving...inspired...DeMIlle fans arise, and head to your bookstores." Philadelphia Inquirer
The Cold War is over, and Keith Landry, one of the nation's top intelligence officers, is forced into early and unwanted retirement. Restless, Landry returns to Spencerville, the small midwestern town where he grew up. The place has changed in the quarter century since Landry stepped off his front porch into the world, but two important people from his past are still there. The first..."
"Rich... moving...inspired...DeMIlle fans arise, and head to your bookstores." Philadelphia Inquirer
The Cold War is over, and Keith Landry, one of the nation's top intelligence officers, is forced into early and unwanted retirement. Restless, Landry returns to Spencerville, the small midwestern town where he grew up. The place has changed in the quarter century since Landry stepped off his front porch into the world, but two important people from his past are still there. The first..."
Once I got into the story I become personally involved with the characters and found myself feeling nervous when starting a new chapter, as I just knew major trouble was coming and I really wanted Keith and Annie to make their escape. When I was ready to stop reading for the evening, I had to be careful not to even glance at the next page otherwise I would keep ending up reading just 'one more chapter'. Once the real trouble started, I had no choice but to read straight on through to the end, even though it took me into the early hours of the next morning.
FROM THE DUST JACKET:
From the bestselling author of The General's Daughter and The Gold Coast comes what may be Nelson DeMille's best novel yet, a bittersweet story of recaptured youth and reclaimed love, with all the honed-steel suspense that signifies the trademark of this author.
Keith Landry has lived long enough to have seen the end of the cold war; a war fought without uniforms or rules, a war that has claimed his career and his soul. Now, he has come home to Spencerville, a town in the American heartland that is both familiar and strange, a town as tarnished as Landry himself.
But for Landry, Spencerville has one attraction that time has not corrupted. Her name is Annie Prentis, and she had been the one pure love of his youth. Then came Vietnam, and a world gone crazy separated them. Annie had long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police and its most powerful man, an unfaithful, yet brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle, a battle that will be both his deadliest and his most personal. Confronted with his last chance at redemption, he must violate his oath--calling on all of his skills learned from a lifetime in military and intelligence service to rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death.
Landry knows he's got to act rationally and with deadly cunning. Faced with a simple, stark choice--a new life, or no life at all--Landry takes the one critical step in the only direction he can: into the inevitable, explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
FROM THE DUST JACKET:
From the bestselling author of The General's Daughter and The Gold Coast comes what may be Nelson DeMille's best novel yet, a bittersweet story of recaptured youth and reclaimed love, with all the honed-steel suspense that signifies the trademark of this author.
Keith Landry has lived long enough to have seen the end of the cold war; a war fought without uniforms or rules, a war that has claimed his career and his soul. Now, he has come home to Spencerville, a town in the American heartland that is both familiar and strange, a town as tarnished as Landry himself.
But for Landry, Spencerville has one attraction that time has not corrupted. Her name is Annie Prentis, and she had been the one pure love of his youth. Then came Vietnam, and a world gone crazy separated them. Annie had long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police and its most powerful man, an unfaithful, yet brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle, a battle that will be both his deadliest and his most personal. Confronted with his last chance at redemption, he must violate his oath--calling on all of his skills learned from a lifetime in military and intelligence service to rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death.
Landry knows he's got to act rationally and with deadly cunning. Faced with a simple, stark choice--a new life, or no life at all--Landry takes the one critical step in the only direction he can: into the inevitable, explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
Exciting reading and wonderful love story, all in one!
Very tense and suspense filled story. A story of domestic abuse and love.
The book finds a man who leaves/retires from his secretive government job and returns to the boyhood farm, in the town where the girl he dated in high school and college, and had hardly seen since he left her to go to Vietnam many years ago.
She has since married the town jerk who they grew up with, only now he's the town sheriff. Old flames rekindle and Revenge runs HIGH when this plot takes off. The abused wife finding her lost love back in town leads to a great hide and seek escape in which it's surprising who wins, only to have it climatically end with a showdown by a cabin in the woods.
Demille describes his characters so vividly we feel as if we are right there with them. A good old fashioned American tale that shows how you can be TRAPPED in a small town despite it's boundaries being so close...I strongly recommend you read this book if you have not read any of his others. A great page turner!
She has since married the town jerk who they grew up with, only now he's the town sheriff. Old flames rekindle and Revenge runs HIGH when this plot takes off. The abused wife finding her lost love back in town leads to a great hide and seek escape in which it's surprising who wins, only to have it climatically end with a showdown by a cabin in the woods.
Demille describes his characters so vividly we feel as if we are right there with them. A good old fashioned American tale that shows how you can be TRAPPED in a small town despite it's boundaries being so close...I strongly recommend you read this book if you have not read any of his others. A great page turner!
I liked it a lot. A little different for Demille, but still good.
Good action keeps you reading.
Good read; rather predictable plot, but very realistic.
Typical DeMille...
From the bestselling author of the General's Daughter and The Gold Coast comes his best novel yet. Keith Landry has seen the end of the cold war, a war that claimed his military career and his soul. Now he has come to Spencerville, a town in America's heartland--a town as tarnished as Landry himself.
Spencerville's main attraction for Landry is Annie Prentis, the love of his youth. Vietnam and a world gone crazy seperated them. Annie has long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police--a powerful, unfaithful, brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle that will violate his oath and calling upon all of his skills learned from a lifetime of military and intelligence service. He must rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death. He has two choices: a new life, or no life at all. An explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
Spencerville's main attraction for Landry is Annie Prentis, the love of his youth. Vietnam and a world gone crazy seperated them. Annie has long since married Cliff Baxter, the town's chief of police--a powerful, unfaithful, brutally possessive husband, a force more dangerous than any Landry has met on the fields of battle.
Landry has vowed: No more violence. No more killing. But now he has to fight one final, unavoidable battle that will violate his oath and calling upon all of his skills learned from a lifetime of military and intelligence service. He must rescue Annie from her sadistic husband, a man equally skilled in the tactics and techniques of death. He has two choices: a new life, or no life at all. An explosive confrontation that will decide the fate of three people gripped in a fatal triangle.
Demille at his best- a thriller.
Demille is one of the best
Wow! Another exciting thriller by DeMille. Keith Landry, and ex-CIA agent tries to go home to the family farm in Ohio, but life there is much more exciting than he expects. Complications arise when he discovers his old girlfriend is married to the corrupt police chief. He has to break out his old bag of tricks to solve a whole new boatload of problems before he and his old flame can get back together.
An earlier book from DeMille, it is not his best. The plot keeps moving but does not have the complexity or intrigue of his later novels.
Not my FAVORITE DeMille, but still a good read!
great book read in one setting
There are some pages in back of book that are as little wavy, not sure what this is from, but text is clear and easy to read, Thanks,
Jeanette
Jeanette
