Book Review - Keeper of the Keys by Perri O'Shaughnessy

Keeper of the Keys is the book I chose for this months book club because it had a great title and the summary of the book sounded interesting. Not to mention the back cover had many glowing words of praise from various reputable sources. In hindsight, some of that praise may have a very different context that what it implies.

Keeper of the Keys is the story of Ray and Leigh Jackson. Ray is a successful, if vapid architect, who has trouble thinking about anyone other than his neurosis. Leigh is his neglected wife, who has an affair with his best friend and business partner. One night after Ray and Leigh have a confrontation over her affair, she disappears. No phone calls, no notes, no body.... what happened to Leigh? Did she run away or did Ray kill her in a fit of jealous rage? Add in Leigh's former best friend-whom she hasn't seen or spoken to in years, the sleazy business partner, a strange Greek restaurant tycoon, Leigh's father- a retired sheriff, and Ray's mother- a somewhat mousy elderly woman. Along with this stereotypical assortment of characters add into the plot, Ray's obsession with breaking into the houses he lived in as a child and random storylines going no where that seem to arc away from the main story the author is trying to tell.

Sounds interesting, and one might believe USA Today's quote on the back cover "will keep you turning pages into the night." Or the New York Times Book Review, "a real puzzler, with twists diabolical enough to take to court." Personally I like the Boston Sunday Globe's take, "an ambitious, sprawling novel with a switcheroo ending." While the Boston Globe appears to be giving praise, having read the book.... I think maybe the context had a different meaning. It is a very ambitious novel, maybe too ambitious for these writers. They simply thew too many different elements and angles into this with no follow through. And it is sprawling, again the problem is it's too sprawling. The book is all over the place, and you never get a good connection with any of the characters, so you don't really care what the outcome is. The other problem I had with this book was the dialogue. It is very academic. For me, this read like a first time writing project in a college literacy course. I was very underwhelmed by the predictable and uninspired plot turns. Two out of five keys.

My group hasn't met yet to discuss this book and I will be interested in hearing what the others have to say.

Book Review - Silent Treatment by Michael Palmer

I moderate a mystery/thriller book club that meets the last Tuesday of each month. For May, we were all a little busy so we ended up meeting this past Tuesday. Our book this month was Silent Treatment by Michael Palmer. We choose it because the month before we had read his book The 5th Vial which was excellent and we all enjoyed it so much we decided to read another one of his books. This is a first for us as we try to read different authors.

Since this is my virgin post, so to speak, I'm going to back track a little and briefly tell you about The 5th Vial. The book jumps a little between the story lines of three different characters. Many times this can get confusing and an author doesn't bring them together well in the end. That was not the case here. Palmer beautifully kept you going with the three story arcs and then brought them together in the end seamlessly. We follow a medical intern who although over-coming some obstacles in her past seems to be on the track of a brilliant future....... A doctor in Africa is making a breakthrough in his third world country.... a down on his look PI is taking work just to pay the bills..... the thing that brings all of them together is a secret society that is harvesting organs for transplants..... Sounds sinister, oh it definitely is. I don't want to give too much away, so I will leave you with the fact that each of the three main characters will impact not only this corrupt society but will change each others lives. Definitely a must read!

Which brings us to Silent Treatment. . . . ultimately it is about corruption in managed care and insurance companies. The story follows an aging general practitioner. He has a dis-interested wife with a brain aneurysm, who is secretly having an affair; the hospital he practices at is trying to ban general practitioners and he's started having chest pains that he thinks are part of a family curse. Meanwhile, there is a group of unscrupulous insurance bigwigs that want to line their and their companies pockets with money by killing off patients whose treatments would cost them too much. Sound complicated? The premise is great, however in this book there are so many extraneous story arcs that it lacks consistency. It starts off unbelievably slow and I was forcing myself to continue reading ( I read about 4-5 novels a week, It took me a week to get to chapter 7) then it finally starts picking up and is so full of action you can zip through the rest of it. But....you knew that was coming..... so many completely whacky things happen that it really was impossible for any of us to suspend our disbelief and truly enjoy the book. It really felt to us like this was a first time novel and unfortunately it wasn't. Overall, it wasn't the worst I've read and I do have two more of his books which I will be reading in the near future. Anyone interested in more details can check out his website, michaelpalmerbooks.com . He has a great website and is a very personable author.

I would love to hear what others think of the books or suggestions for future mystery/thriller readings.