The Day after Tomorrow

Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom
5 Stars

Day After Tomorrow begins in a Paris cafe where an American surgeon named Paul Osborn looks across the room and sees the man he thinks murdered his father thirty years before. Meanwhile, in London, a former Los Angeles homicide cop named McVey joins Scotland Yard to look into a series of decapitations involving a severed head and seven headless corpses. Osborn decides to hire a private detective to help him find the man he saw in the cafe. Eventually Osborn becomes a suspect in the decapitations. He and McVey also become involved with a powerful secret organization which seems to reach into every corner of Europe. The two plots (Osborn's father and the decapitated bodies) converge into a show more thrilling finale.

The action starts immediately and in many ways this book reminded me of a Robert Ludlum or Frederick Forsyth style of novel. The author weaves together a wide array of well-developed, interesting characters in an international murder mystery in a WWII/Nazi/modern-era setting.

I absolutely loved "The Day After Tomorrow". I was completely engrossed. It is action-packed for sure. The plot is carefully laid out so you find yourself guessing throughout the book as to who you want to trust and who you can't trust. The bad guys are truly evil.

On the down side, there is so much action and plot that sometimes it seems like there are too many characters and it can be a bit confusing. The plots are complicated but Folsom is able to connect them over the long run.

It was excellent story and had everything I look for in a suspense novel. It was well written with interesting characters. I had no problem with the length of the book and was sorry when I reached the end. show less

A great 600-page thriller. I didn't add much when I posted it because I was rushed, but I would like to add that this book has completely unrelated to the movie of the same name. The book involves a Nazi plot at the end of the war to perpetuate the cause into the future. An interesting aside is that all Folsoms are related, some closely and others quite distant, but it was shocking to see the photograph of Allan Folsom on the back of the book because he and my younger brother were dopplegangers. They could almost have passed as twins. Allan wrote five books before a premature death, all are thrillers, all are very very good, and I'm going to reread them all.

Stupid. That sums up, fairly succinctly, the entire theme of the story and this book. I'd be shocked if someone could provide an example of a literary cliche common to the thriller genre that wasn't included in this book. Every problem and mystery is conveniently solved by a friend in some random police force somewhere in the world. Every risk is resolved, no matter how dangerous, with barely a scratch (well, there was one broken leg). People are killed with hardly any consequences and the obligatory sex scenes are about as romantic as the average soft-core porn movie.
All that being said, the book is fairly compelling. It's a lot like your favorite bad movie, something that you intrinsically realize, by all objective measures, is a bad show more film, but you still enjoy watching (Mine is Point Break. I know it's a horrible movie, but come on, Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent?!). This is a bad book, it takes a decided turn for the stupid fairly early on and the ending (something you could predict before the halfway point of the book) is just damn silly. A dumb book, but didn't feel like it was a waste of my time. show less

This book was crazy! It was a fun, fast read, but it was crazy. The plot is pretty inane and there's so much gratuitous violence, it's not even funny. I've never read of so many murders in my life. But it was still enjoyable to read and I think it's worth a good four stars.

It starts out with Osborne, an American doctor in Europe for a conference. His father was murdered 30 years ago and he witnessed it. It was traumatic and he remembered the killer's face. Back to the present. He meets a female French doctor and they embark on a whirlwind romance that takes them to England and France. Meanwhile, a grizzled American detective from L.A., McVey, is in London helping to investigate a series of gruesome murders where they're finding detached show more heads, as well as a body. The remains are not all English, however. They come from various countries, including France, so he heads to Paris to investigate. At the same time, Osborne sees his father's killer in a cafe and attacks him, but the man gets away. And so begins a mysterious chase that leads to utter insanity. Think Nazi plot to regain world dominance, a secret organization with people who have infiltrated everywhere and everything, so no one is trustworthy. And everyone is trying to murder everyone else. Eventually, the plot takes you to Germany, where the top people in the country, and the richest, have gathered to hear a mysterious Swiss man who recently survived a stroke, give a rousing speech about who knows what. There are bad guys, of course, and maybe the worst is Von Holden, an Argentinian Nazi who was miraculously in both the Russian special forces and the East German special forces. Stretches believability, but then the whole plot, when unraveled at the end, is so damn silly as to make the book seem insane, or at least the author. Reviewers comment on the final sentence of the book and it is important, yes, and it explains all, but I thought it was somewhat predictable, so I wasn't really too shocked when I read it. Nonetheless, it was a good mystery/thriller and it was nuts, so I liked it. Not the best I've ever read, but definitely recommended for those who enjoy bizarre thrillers and who can stand a little bloodshed. show less

In "The Day After Tomorrow," Alan Folsom weaves together a wide array of well-developed, interesting characters in an international murder mystery. It begins when Paul Osborne accidentally spies the man who murdered his father more than a decade earlier. Obsessed, he initiates a man-hunt which propels him into a powerful political intrigue as well as setting himself up as the prime suspect for an international serial killer. Despite the promising beginning, Folsom fails to deliver the anticipated suspense. Folsom's attempts at tantalizing foreshadows belly-flop when, by page 300 of this 600 paged book, he feeds enough information that an experienced reader will easily guess the "shocking" end. The final 300 pages of the book tediously show more develop a new (scientifically and historically impossible) twist on a plot which has been regurgitated since the mid-1900's.

Although Folsom's writing style is generally fast-paced and entertaining, unfortunately the suspense is repeatedly interrupted by over-ambitious development of the characters' sexual identities. Some of this development is necessary, but most of it is superfluous.

I would recommend this book for people who read quickly and do not try to interpret foreshawdows. show less

This is the most thrilling book I have ever read. I just couldn't keep it down and I bet neither can you. From page one its full of surprises. Go for it during a weekend, otherwise you would be losing your sleep over this one. The author succeeds in keeping you intrigued till the very end. So go for this madcap roller-coaster ride and I promise that it would be more satisfying than a fast paced action movie. Fantastic book with an equally awesome ending.

As I was cruising through book choices from my library, this book was listed as a mystery thriller, and while I hate to admit it, when I first downloaded it, i thought it was the book that the movie that came out a few years ago was--how wrong I was (and happily so)!

This story is the story of how being in the wrought place at the right time can drastically change your life. For Paul, an American doctor from LA who is visiting Paris for a conference, it is the right time and place. However, for the contract killer who killed Paul's father years ago, who is having a cup of coffee after work in the same cafe as Paul, it is definitely the wrong time. Paul recognizes this man who killed his father in front of him and immediately attacks show more him. The waiters obviously don't know what provoked this attack, and stop him long enough for the killer to escape.

This is merely the beginning for Paul, however.

He hires a detective to find out who this man is and vows to kill him. What he doesn't know, however, is that there is way more to the story than just this man. There is a conspiracy afoot--that will cause Paul, his newly found love interest, international police, a lot of heart pounding excitement. This was a book I didn't want to put down. A very good read! show less