Red Leaves

Red Leaves by Paullina Simons starts out seemingly as the story of four university students who are very close friends with each other but you quickly realize that in actual fact, this is more than a story about friendships going awry, and more than a story about couples whose relationships are going steadily downhill. Something is off about these four, and when a murder occurs, the story changes to the detective’s point of view and his focus on the murder and the secrets behind it.

I was so looking forward to this book, and indeed, the story did capture me and I found it hard to put down as I had to know what actually was going on with these people. The downside of the book was that I thought that the characters’ actions didn’t show more ring true. The detective, who was the main character for the last half of the book, particularly drove me crazy with his ways. And I found the four students didn’t act very much like university students living in dorms.

So, mixed feelings about this book. It could have been so much more than just the average mystery story that it turned out to be. show less

LibraryThing Early Reviewer:
This was a hard-to-put-down book about four Dartmouth College students named Kristina, Albert, Jim and Conni who were very close friends. When Kristina is found frozen in the snow after nine days, it sparks a murder investigation filled with secrets, lies and betrayal. This book is a haunting and intriguing story of friends who knew Kristina was missing but were filled with denial, cowardice, and chilling indifference. Detective Spencer O'Malley is bound and determined to find out how these close friends can react this way to Kristina's murder. With many twists and turns, the reader is on a roller coaster ride as O'Malley gets the answers to many riveting questions.
This book was first published in 1996 and show more will be republished in 2017. I found this book to be very intense with dark overtones but the suspense kept the pages turning. I look forward to reading more from this author and highly recommend this book to those who love mystery thrillers with lots of shocking secrets. show less

Again, a great book. Paullina Simons is one of my favourite authors anyway; I originally picked up ‘Tully’ by chance in a bookshop and fell in love. It’s one of the few books I can read again and again. Later I got a copy of one of her other books, ‘Eleven Hours,’ which again, was amazing. This book did not disappoint me in the slightest.

‘Red Leaves’ is in two parts; it first follows a college student, Kristina, and her life. Her three best friends, Jim, Albert and Conni, her basketball and her visits to a house for pregnant teenagers called Red Leaves, as well as her college and marriage. She seems to have it all, but there are things answered. She randomly bumps into Spencer Patrick O’Malley, a detective, and they get show more a coffee and later arrange dinner. The second part then switches to Spencer… as he investigates her murder. The three friends all seem to know something but won’t tell what it is, and Spencer struggles to figure it out.

I found it a little difficult to get into at first, I felt like I’d missed a few things – but this is deliberate, as you soon find out that lots of her life is like that; no one seems to know that much about her (for example, her supposed best friends didn’t even know she was married). It’s full of twists that kept me interested and I loved all the characters. It all felt very real, and Paullina Simons is an amazing writer; she really makes you feel as though you are there. I could imagine it all very clearly. Writers this good don’t come along often! I couldn’t put it down. show less

A college girl has been found dead in snow near a New England college campus.

Why have none of her friends reported her missing? What are they holding back from Detective Spencer O’Malley who is assigned to the case? He delves into their secrets, their lies and the mystery of the complex relationships between them all, Jim, Conni, Albert and Kristina.

I couldn’t wait to start this book as my reading hasn’t been very ‘on the edge’ lately and needed something to sink my teeth into and this book didn’t disappoint. A rapid start to the book but the pace slowed down until the dialogue between certain characters got a bit tedious, however it wasn’t until later in the book I could see that character communication was essential to show more the story. I thought the story was slightly predictable in places in a ‘whodunnit’ kind of way. There’s always a character who’s not quite telling the truth or some evidence has been overlooked. It didn’t deflect from the story though, it was interesting how the story unfolded with a few surprises along the way.

The characters Jim, Kristina, Connie and Albert all had traits which annoyed me slightly, I loved Spencer O’Malley though, a tough guy who’s been through tradegy himself, a character who I found intruiging and who I felt comfortable reading about.

Highly recommended. show less

I was intrigued by the description of Red Leaves by Paullina Simons...

"In the tradition of Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History comes a suspenseful thriller from the international bestselling author of The Bronze Horseman—an utterly captivating story about four Ivy League students whose bizarre friendship leads to a twisted maze of secrets, lies, betrayal, and murder."

Sounds good right? Kristina is a star basketball player for Dartmouth. We meet her and her four friends playing a pick up game. There's an odd dynamic between the four from the opening chapters - not what you would expect of friends. Kristina leaves as the game is over to make an appointment with a Howard. Again, a very odd dynamic and show more a reveal. (I'm not going to spoil it in case you plan to read this book.) More oddness - Kristina happens to catch the eye of a police detective as she flounces around without a coat in the cold. (Much is made of her going without warm clothing throughout the book.) The cop's behaviour is not believable at all. Or is Kristina's or anyone else's for that matter.

So, part one is a (repetitive) rehash of the relationship between the four, both past and present that seems to go on and on. I grew tired of the enigmatic, evasive and mysterious circumstances of their friendships, the philosophical wordplay and bantering. (Stop here if you are going to read Red Leaves - spoiler ahead. I can't help it) Part two finds Kristina dead. And guess who's in charge. Yes, that detective. His police work is slipshod and so far removed from actual police procedure that it's laughable. (More spoiling....at one point he has about a dozen Saturday night specials (guns) in his trunk that he hasn't turned in yet from a bust two or three weeks ago.)

Okay, so the murder is (poorly) investigated. But along with that, every character cannot remember or later (two years in one case) admits they lied. This felt like a very convenient plot device much of the time. And the book continued on long after it should have ended. (The whodunit is not surprising)

I found the writing choppy, stilted and clumsy. That comparison made to Secret History the publisher made? Nope, not even close.

What I subsequently discovered was that Red Leaves was originally published in 1996. I'm sure that Simons' work has become more polished as she has since written thirteen more bookS since Red Leaves and garnered much praise. Sorry to say, but this book was a (big) miss for me. show less

I really had a difficult time getting through this book. The reason I chose it was that it was compared to Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History”. There is no comparison other than the fact that the book involves a group of college friends. There were several times when I wished I could just DNR this book but since I received a free copy from the publisher, I felt obligated to read the whole book in order to review it. Apparently, this book was published by St. Martin’s in 1996 but has been out of print for many years and now William Morrow is re-publishing five of the author’s books over the next three years. The author has received awards for her work so maybe it’s just me.

This story involves a young woman, Kristina Kim, and show more her very convoluted relationships with Connie, Jim and Albert. You know from the media’s blurbs that Kristina is going to be murdered. She’s the narrator in the first section of the book, which consists mostly of repetitive conversations between the four “friends” about this one loves that one and that one loves this one and that one is cheating and that one wants the relationship to end, over and over and over again. At one point, Kristina meets a policeman, Spencer O’Malley, with whom she has a flirtation. It’s O’Malley who is assigned her murder investigation and he’s determined to find her killer.

There were so many times throughout this book when I thought “What??” Conversations were consistently a bit off, contradictory, stilted and unrealistic. Events just didn’t fit together for me. I didn’t find the end big reveal that shocking. I did enjoy a few small sections of the book but then it would fall apart for me again. I feel the story wasn’t a bad one but it was very poorly written. My apologies to the publisher and author but truly, this book isn’t on par with “The Secret History” and shouldn’t be compared to it as it’s misleading.

This book was given to me by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review. show less

The book didn't really get going until page 150. This is too long to set the plot and characters. After that, however, the book got better with an interesting twist to a murder mystery.
A friend who loaned me this book highly recommended Tully by the same author.