This is undoubtedly his worst work. It is unnecessarily violent and cruel. I would miss this one./ ( )

This is not the kind of book Nelson DeMille usually writes, so I wasn't expecting to read what amounts to a fairy tale with explicit sex and violence.

Keith Landry has spent his adult life working for the government fighting the cold war. When that part of history ends, he is released from his job into an early retirement. He decides to go back to Spencerville, Ohio, the small agricultural town where he was born and grew up. This is also the place where the love of his life, Annie Prentis, still lives, although now she's married to the town's Chief Of Police who is a sadistic bully. Annie and Keith have maintained a platonic correspondence over the years, but both of them have thoughts of being together some day if and when they meet again. With Keith's return to Spencerville, the stage is set for the couple to reunite. Annie is ready to leave her husband, and Keith would like nothing more than to assist her so she'll be with him.

While the situations faced by the people in this story are very adult, the whole mood of the developing situations is adolescent. The one part that rings true is the sense of nostalgia DeMille infuses into the story. Anyone who has grown up in a small town will recognize the sense of unity; of people looking out for one another, and of the notion that everyone knows who you are and who you belong to. Whether DeMille is writing about the bar in the center of town or the general store visited by most of the towns' people, that feeling of pleasant past memories comes through to the reader.

While I wouldn't recommend this book as one of DeMille's best, it is an interesting story and a worthwhile read. ( )

There are two parts of the story that I have a hard time with. First, why hadn’t Annie gotten out of town and filed for divorce long ago? And how does a police chief really recruit officers that will be willing to flout the law any time he asks. It's obvious that he is using them to watch his wife, why don't they object? But if you just accept those areas and get on with the story, Spencerville is a good read. By the second half, it is hard to put down.

My complete review is on my Blog, Nate's Library, specifically at: http://nates-library.blogspot.com/200... ( )

Weird, perverse book, unusual for author

I'd delayed reading this for a long time because it was such a weighty tome, and I've not had much reading time lately to devote to getting through such a book in a relatively short space of time. I was also not really in the mood for a spy/terrorist/war type thriller: I didn't read the blurb on the back. Well, I could finally put it off no longer, and started it with the intention of reading in my accustomed style.

The first surprise was that the main protagonist had left whatever murky world he had inhabited, and headed back home to the American sticks. The second was, that this looked as if it was heading to have an element of romance in it. The third was, that if the romance was going to happen, why did it take almost half the book for the couple to actually meet each other. The fourth was that the murky past of the character was never explored.

Of course, the first part of the book was spent in establishing the characters, and the feel of the environment around Spencerville, the main character's hometown. Doesn't sound like a lot happened, then, and yet I was setting more and more time aside to carry on reading.

Finally, the head of steam was released, and events started piling on top of one another: some well telegraphed, but enough were out of the blue. And I ended up reading through the night to polish it off ...

Overall, pleasantly surprised, and the violence at the end was what I'd expected all along (in ferocity, if not in its nature). ( )