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Title: The 37th Hour by Jodi Compton ISBN: 0-385-33713-2 Publisher: Delacorte Press Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.32 (19 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A novella sized plot stretched into a 320 page novel
Comment: Minnesota Detective Sarah Pribek is faced with a very real problem. Her new husband, a fellow officer on his way for training to become an FBI agent, has disappeared. There is simply no logical reason for this that Sarah could imagine. She must, therefore, look into her husband's past to get the answers. At the same time, she is trying to coax a former partner to return to work following the violent death of a daughter while shouldering the feelings of guilt and responsibility for the killer's release on a technicality.
Jodi Compton has a definite talent for writing compelling stories and peopling them with above average characterizations. However, there are some definite problems with this debut effort. One could almost see the attempt to pad the plot of the story to book length form. Daily minutiae become important in this endeavor and under the guise of character development. This is one technique I do not appreciate. In actuality, this is a novella sized plot stretched into a 320 page novel. Much has been written about the ending which many have professed as being disappointing. I would concur and add the words unrealistic and manipulative. On the other hand, the book as a whole remains entertaining with a plot compelling enough to keep the pages steadily turning.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Minnesota detective seeks her missing husband.
Comment: Sarah Pribek, the heroine of Jodi Compton's new thriller, "The 37th Hour," is a detective in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Sarah loves her job, but she has suffered through some rough times in the past. She saw the only child of her mentor and best friend, Genevieve Brown, die after being raped and beaten. Sarah testified against the rapist who murdered Kamareia Brown, but the perpetrator was freed on a technicality. Neither Sarah nor Genevieve has recovered from the trauma.
Sarah's life is about to take another nightmarish turn. Her husband of two months, Michael Shiloh, is missing. He was supposed to have reported to the FBI Training Center at Quantico, Virginia, but he never arrived at his destination. Since Sarah has done missing persons work in the past, she takes personal leave to track her husband's movements just before he disappeared.
"The 37th Hour" is a strong first novel for Compton. It is crisply written and very fast-paced, with interesting details about how missing persons investigations are conducted. Sarah is a smart and dedicated cop and she is a sympathetic protagonist. The author vividly describes Sarah's efforts to remain objective while she is inwardly terrified that her husband may be injured or dead. As her investigation deepens, Sarah must face the fact that her husband may have been keeping a large part of his life secret from her.
The weakest element of the book is the ending, which suffers from the "startling revelations" syndrome. Too many authors write engrossing books in which the tension slowly builds, only to end their books with a series of far-out and melodramatic revelations and events. I was looking forward to the denouement of "The 37th Hour," and I was disappointed with the contrived and unsatisfying conclusion. A less sensational and more credible outcome would have worked better. Nonetheless, I loved Sarah Pribek and I think that Jodi Compton has a real feel for writing thrillers.
Rating: 1
Summary: "Who cares?"
Comment: First of all, I really wanted to read this book after reading the editorial "book jacket" description. But just 25 pages into the book, something wasn't right. The author is an amateur writer who states the obvious again and again, incorporates inane dialogue and never fully gets the reader to give a damn about what happens to any of the characters. I can honestly say that there is not one character in the book that I liked. The main character, Sarah, is one dimensional and downright cold. Her conversations with her husband, Shiloh (the cop who "goes missing" and is the focus of the book) read like two distant relatives. Her cop partner, Genevieve, is equally as cold and unfeeling with zero dimension. Why these two would be "friends" is beyond me except that "like attracts like" I suppose. While I read a great deal of thriller/mystery fiction, I guessed the big "twist" midway in the book. However, without giving anything away, the author seems to be leading the reader to the conclusion that Shiloh committed an even bigger crime than he did (i.e., the murder of another younger character in the book). Why else would the author continue to tell us about his "penetrating glances" at the young girl during their Christmas Eve dinner? But this is just one of MANY false stops the author throws into the book. We are forced to read endless tidbits of other missing persons cases that Sarah dealt with but only ONE of them is mentioned as having meaning toward the end of the book and even that one is a kind of "Who cares?" In fact, "Who cares?" basically describes this entire book. When I wasn't cringing at the dialogue or rolling my eyes and groaning at the awkward plot points, I was counting the pages until the misery would be over. How this book EVER received such stellar editorial reviews is beyond me! Did they read it???????
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Title: Retribution by Jilliane Hoffman ISBN: 0399151273 Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons Pub. Date: 05 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Kills by Linda Fairstein ISBN: 0743223551 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Narrows: A Novel by Michael Connelly ISBN: 0316155306 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: 03 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Paranoia by Joseph Finder ISBN: 0312319142 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 14 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0345452577 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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