Lisa Moore is a very good writer and this story was well told. However, I'm kind of left, in the end, with a feeling of so what. Good character study but I think I would have appreciated more introspection from some of the characters. The action was good but not as billed on the book jacket. ( )

The central character in this book has escaped from prison and is trying to stay on the run long enough to repeat his original drug-related crime and get it right this time. How would the author make us sympathise with him, given that he's a criminal, and on the face of it recklessly stupid? Oddly enough it works, and I was on the edge of my seat as he narrowly avoided recapture again and again. The reason for his astonishing good luck is revealed a little way in (clever!) and a central unfairness about the whole case, which runs through the whole book, helps to gain the reader's sympathy too. But I thought the best thing about the book was the writing - magical and lyrical, it works at a subconscious level. Never was it more beautifully deployed than when describing the couple on the beach. Rare for me to read and understand a book with drugs in it, but in this case I managed it. Bravo! ( )

I have a different cover. (Movie Tie-In)

Caught begins with a prison break. Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, has escaped his cell and sprinted to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When finally he reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction.

Moore’s most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review. I received the television series’ cover in paperback format, which is very different from the one shown above.

Lisa Moore has a very definitive style of writing. She is meticulous to details and maintains tension throughout her book despite what the reader has leaned. Fast-paced, great characters and plenty of action, “Caught” is sure to please with a page-turning compulsive readability.

With “Caught,” Moore is writing a crime fiction with lucid precision and a quality, that readers will have a difficult time trying to put this book down. “Caught” promises to lift Lisa Moore to a new writing level noted for intricate crime mysteries offering one hell of a thrilling ride. ( )

Why is the conclusion given away in the title???
Perhaps because of this give-away, perhaps because of the time period or the style of writing, I felt like I was removed from the action. Not just a fly on the wall -- farther away than that. I felt like emotion was removed from the story. It was eventful, perhaps even adventurous, but detached. I suppose this is some of the genious of the narrative? Or it's just a quirk. I was compelled to continue reading, but I never felt like I enjoyed the story, never connected with any character. That sounds like a poor rating, but it's a confused endorsement, I think. I liked [b:February|6486765|February|Lisa Moore|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328027313s/6486765.jpg|6678127] better. ( )

"Chussled". It's a lovely word.
As in, , "The leaves of the lupins chussled like the turning pages of a glossy magazine."
Descriptions are precise, unexpectedly shining light on small details, illuminating the reality. The reality is mundane and unforgiving, but Moore portrays her characters with sympathetic understanding.

Slaney is a man helplessly caught in his own stupidity. He got caught trying to smuggle marijuana into Newfoundland. Very little in the book actually took place in Newfoundland, but fog and boats still got squeezed in there. He gets out of jail in 4 years, and promptly embarks on renewed plans to smuggle in an even bigger haul of weed. Slaney never really seems to get that he is his own architect of folly. He was caught once, and swore they -- the system -- wouldn't break him. "He would not betray the innermost thing. He didn’t know exactly what the innermost thing was, except it hadn’t been touched in the four years of incarceration. Come and get me. They couldn’t get him. It fluttered in and out of view, the innermost thing, consequential and delicate." He is determined not to get caught again, but simultaneously believes getting caught again is inevitable.

Lisa Moore's writing is such a pleasure to read. She has an easy and friendly relationship with words. They get along well.


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