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Mitchell Smith Reprisal
Signet 20000401 0451184769 / 9780451184764 MM Very Good
0451184769 Amazon Review Mitchell Smith writes deceptively quiet, outwardly civilized thrillers about people we can identify with--people whose lives are suddenly ripped apart. He's fascinated by the way his characters react to stress, by how much pressure they can absorb before they either break or change into another kind of person. In Reprisal, Joanna Reed, a poet and professor, is sorely tested by various demons. She battles breast cancer, and then her husband Frank, an experienced sailor, drowns in the Atlantic Ocean. Joanna tries to work out her grief and pain as she has always done, by spelunking in dangerous caves. Meanwhile, her elderly father is burned to death in his cabin in the woods--another "accident." We quickly find out that a strange young girl named Charis--the college roommate of Joanna's daughter--is connected to the deaths. Tough and endlessly resourceful, Charis wants to destroy Joanna's life as reprisal for a past grievance. It takes the equally smart but grief-slowed Joanna some time to realize what's happening, but Smith is so good at getting into her mind and soul that we can easily forgive this small lapse. He also rewards our patience with an ending that is both terrifying and sadly inevitable. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly Quaint New England beaches and disorientingly vast, scary caves are among the effective settings used by Smith (Sacrifice) in this absorbing tale of memory, murder and long-postponed revenge. Smith's sixth novel offers much suspense but little mystery, since the villain is known from the outset: she's Charis Langenberg, sexually abused at age six, who has grown up to be, at 20-something, a full-time graduate student and sociopath. Charis has staged, only days apart, the "accidental" deaths on Asconsett Island of the father and grandfather of Rebecca Reed, her teenage summer-school roommate. Joanna Reed, the novel's heroine, is Rebecca's mom and also a poet. When she arrives at Asconsett Island to grieve, she has a hard time believing the deaths were accidents. How could her husband, a skilled seaman, have drowned? Could her elderly, obsessively cautious father have died accidentally in a cabin fire? After much suspicion and several flashbacks, Rebecca herself "falls" off a dormitory roof. When her death is ruled a suicide, Joanna suffers a minor breakdown and Charis returns to Asconsett to help her recover. Will Joanna figure out who is behind the deaths, and why? Smith's prose prowess and skill with psychology and landscape offset his sometimes jerky plotting. His credibly flawed, offbeat characters and vivid descriptionsAparticularly of the underground caverns that Joanna, an avid spelunker, exploresAwill keep readers deeply involved. But Joanna's incessant introspection can be wearying. Her understanding of what's really going on, when it finally arrives, seems forced and sudden, marring what would otherwise be the gripping underground climax to a novel that, while not Mitchell's best (that's probably Stone City), is a reliable page-turner. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability.
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1.69 USD
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Mitchell Smith Reprisal
Signet 0451184769 / 9780451184764 PAPERBACK Good
0451184769 Mass Market Paperback. Good. Lite wear, creases otherwise a solid copy. General Used condition.
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0.69 USD
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Mitchell Smith Sacrifice
Onyx 1997 0451184750 / 9780451184757 Mass Market Paperback Very Good
0451184750 From Publishers Weekly There's little to surprise veteran thriller readers in Smith's new crime novel (after Karma, 1994), and not much to please them either. The villain is a familiar sort?a serial killer?as are her pursuers, aging robber Tyler Pierce, who's an ex-con, and Naomi Cohen, an erstwhile prostitute with a heart of gold. Despite rich detailing, these two heroes in fact seem chipped from any number of Elmore Leonard novels, as does the Florida setting. The set-up is strong: after ripping off an armored van shipment, Pierce learns that his daughter has been slain in Florida by the maniac known as the Sweetwater killer. Heading south to find the murderer and extract revenge, he hires Naomi as his local guide and sorts out clues, running up against a bent cop, drug runners and other oddballs. There's no mystery, since readers are told the killer's identity early on, and there's scant suspense as Smith devotes too much space to interplay, sometimes cute, sometimes maudlin, between his leads. Fierce action too rarely punctuates the narrative. The most extended action sequence?of Pierce struggling naked through lethal swamps as a hurricane sweeps by?is powerful but seems arbitrarily inserted for effect. Even the killer's motivation?rage against abortions?appears more calculated than realistic, and leads to some intrusive pro-choice soapboxing. A pat ending laced with symbolism only confirms that Smith is straining here, etching a novel that, despite some crisp lines, winds up feeling as bogus as a three-dollar bill. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Highly praised for earlier novels depicting independent-minded characters in difficult situations, both female (Due North, LJ 9/92) and male (Stone City, LJ 4/1/90), Smith here develops another striking antihero who certainly follows a different drummer. Tyler Pierce, recently released from prison for bank robbery and settled in small-town Missouri as a roofer, learns that his 22-year-old daughter is the latest victim of a serial killer in Florida. With the aid of money stashed from one last bank job and the help of contacts outside the law, including a prostitute, a drug dealer, a crooked cop, a retired pimp turned female, and numerous other vivid characters, he tracks the killer. Like Carl Hiaasen, Smith knows the dark side of Florida with its bizarre characters, and his atypical protagonist might well be compared to some of Elmore Leonard's. We know the killer early on, but the plot is still cinematically fast, the dialog fine, and the suspense, mixed with humor, builds to a real twist. Highly recommended.?Roland C. Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability.
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