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- John Lescroart never disappoints...
- In fiction, genius lies in great characters
- Excellent Story with a Little Psycopathology Thrown In
- Two reviews in one
- Excellent Read
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The 13th Juror (Dismas Hardy)
John Lescroart
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The Mercy Rule
ASIN: 0451215931 |
Book Description
Jennifer Witt stands accused of triple murder. Her husband, Dr. Larry Witt, and their eight-year-old son, Matt, were shot to death in their San Francisco home, and Jennifer is the only suspect. A victim of domestic abuse,the prosecution charges th after years of being victimized at the hands of her husband. Jennifer finally snapped, and pulled the trigger on a life by which she felt strapped. The big surprise is when the Prosecution charges with the murder of her first husband, who died nine years earlier of a suspected drug overdose.
The 13th Juror
When Dismas Hardy undertakes Jennifer's defense, he learns that, in fact, both of Jennifer's husbands had physically abused her, and that she had something to gain from their deaths other than her freedom -- insurance money, and lots of it. But Jennifer refuses to allow iris "battered wife" defense -- a defense that presumes her guilt, and continues to proclaim her innocence of the crimes.
Hardy is driven to seek an alternative truth credible to a jury. As the trial progresses, the complex truth, as it slowly unravels, changes, bends, and fades in and out of focus. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking on Jennifer's fate, until there's only one person left to convince of her innocence -- The 13th Juror.
In a stunningly suspenseful performance by Christopher Noth, The 13th Juror is an alarming portrayal of good intentions gone bad, moral ambiguity and the often tortuous path of ultimate justice.
Customer Reviews:
John Lescroart never disappoints..........2007-01-20
Not his best book but way above so many authors. Worth your time to read.
In fiction, genius lies in great characters.......2006-11-06
In fiction, genius lies in great characters. John Lescroart's characters are three dimensional. They laugh, they cry, they fail, they triumph; and they move the story along through complicated twists and turns of the plot. I read this the first of my John Lescroart's (pronounced Less-kwah)books in one sitting. I began on a Monday around 6:00 a.m. Nothing got done in my house. No cooking, no cleaning, no answering the telephone. When I finished THE 13TH JUROR around 12 midnight, I finally went to sleep only to awaken early to call my friend of 55 years, Rheta; made a beeline for her house, made a gift of THE 13TH JUROR; returned home, and ordered all the rest of Lescroart's books still in print along with another copy of THE 13TH JUROR for my private library.
The story line is carried by the characters. There is a tender and romantic love story between Dismas Hardy and his wife. There is a surpise ending, but I can guarantee JUSTICE. Rheta loved it too.
Excellent Story with a Little Psycopathology Thrown In.......2006-03-20
Lescroart is one of the best popular writers out there -- certainly equal to if not better than my those in my short pantheon of writing wizards: Michael Connelly, Crais, Griffen, and a few others. Not only is this a gripping legal procedural, it gives sharp insight into the mind of domestic abusers and abusees. His courtroom dialogs especially are unsurpassed and reek of realism. Lescroart's plots are usually fairly predictible -- he always pulls something out of his sleeve at the end of the story -- and this is no exception. But that does not take away one iota from the enjoyment and excitement of his work. This is one of his best, and I've read them all.
Two reviews in one.......2005-09-16
I really feel this book should be reviewed in two parts. The first half of the book (before the trial opens) is rather slow and I was left wondering if the story would ever get off the ground. However, the second half of the book is everything a great legal thriller should be and I found myself unable to tear myself away from it. The ending comes as a surprise and yet pulls all the loose ends together beautifully. The suspense does not let up and proceeds at an every-quickening pace. Re-edit the first half of the book and I would give it 5 stars.
Excellent Read.......2005-08-12
Just started reading the Dismas Hardy character books. I have a hard time putting these books down. They keep you on the edge of your seat, but with a little home/personal life issues involved with Dismas and his family. I plan to read them all.
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The 13th Juror
Manufacturer: Fine
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GLUJEK |
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The 13th Juror
Ken McClane
Manufacturer: Ecco Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0880012994 |
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5 Titles By John Lescroart Dismas Hardy Series : The 13th Juror The Mercy Rule Nothing But the Truth The First Law The Second Chair. Five mmpb books.
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THE 13TH JUROR
Manufacturer: Dell Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GR4UPS |
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THE 13TH JUROR
John Lescroart
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WQP82M |
Amazon.com
Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse has become a favorite of mystery fans in both hemispheres. In each book, Dexter shows a new facet of the complex Morse. In this latest work, Morse must solve two related murders -- a problem complicated by a plethora of suspects and by his attraction to one of the possible killers.
Book Description
"AUDACIOUS AND AMUSING. . . MAY BE THE BEST BOOK YET IN THIS DESERVEDLY CELEBRATED SERIES."
--The Wall Street Journal
It was only the second time Inspector Morse had ever taken over a murder enquiry after the preliminary--invariably dramatic--discovery and sweep of the crime scene. Secretly pleased to have missed the blood and gore, Morse and the faithful Lewis go about finding the killer who stabbed Dr. Felix McClure, late of Wolsey College. In another part of Oxford, three women--a housecleaner, a schoolteacher, and a prostitute--are playing out a drama that has long been unfolding. It will take much brain work, many pints, and not a little anguish before Morse sees the startling connections between McClure's death and the daughters of Cain. . . .
"VERY CLEVERLY CONSTRUCTED. . . Dexter writes with an urbanity and range of reference that is all his own."
--Los Angeles Times
"YOU DON'T REALLY KNOW MORSE UNTIL YOU'VE READ
HIM. . . . Viewers who have enjoyed British actor John Thaw as Morse in the PBS'Mystery!' anthology series should welcome the deeper character development in Dexter's novels."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"A MASTERFUL CRIME WRITER WHOM FEW OTHERS MATCH."
--Publishers Weekly
Customer Reviews:
Read and enjoy the writing and characters more than the plot.......2006-05-10
Colin Dexter's 'Morse' series is an acquired taste, and to be honest, I think I've acquired more of a taste for his characters rather than the stories. The plot of this one didn't quite sustain itself through to the end, but the interaction of Morse, Lewis, and the rest of the inhabitants of Dexter's 'universe' are so well-written that the plots are almost secondary.
"Set apart from the rest of their kind by the sign of the murderer...the mark of Cain.".......2006-04-02
In one of the best of the Inspector Morse series, author Colin Dexter juggles several intricate plot lines, keeping the reader totally absorbed in each subplot and, especially, in the lives of the characters before he deftly brings them all together in a satisfying ending. Assigned to take over the investigation of the stabbing death of Oxford professor Felix McClure in his campus quarters, Inspector Morse learns that a student neighbor of McClure committed suicide--and was a drug user. Morse, assisted by Sgt. Lewis, his less articulate but clever assistant, begins the murder investigation by exploring whether McClure may have discovered the drug supplier.
At the same time, other plot threads are unfolding: Mrs. Julia Stevens, a well-liked high school teacher of "reluctant learners," celebrates her birthday with a cake made by her housekeeper, a severely abused wife. Ted Brooks, formerly a "scout" (custodian) at McClure's Oxford housing and now a museum guard/guide, has recovered from the heart attack he suffered the night McClure was murdered and has an airtight alibi. Elly Smith, who uses the professional name of "Kay" or "K," a young prostitute, is connected to at least five of the characters (and unites the plot lines). When Ted Brooks is found stabbed to death, and further investigation turns up numerous connections among the various characters, the mystery is off and running. As is always the case in this series, a new woman figures in Morse's life.
Dexter excels here in creating female characters with whom the reader identifies, and as the lives of these women unfold, their attempts to overcome the hardships life has dealt them elicit sympathy and understanding, not only in the reader but in Inspector Morse, too. The mystery is fast paced and filled with unexpected twists and turns, but as it develops and moves to its conclusion, it is the female characters who generate the movement and keep the reader's interest. The satisfying conclusion is surprising, since it does not tie up all loose ends, leaving some uncertainties which are, themselves, highly satisfying. n Mary Whipple
An extraordinary book in an extraordinary series!.......2005-08-10
The Morse series is an extremely intelligent and wonderfully written series. This book is one of the stronger ones in a series of very strong books. Nothing prepares you for the denouement in this book - not even if you've seen the serialized version from BBC. It is powerfully written and hits with an explosive power. In the book Dexter explores the female psyche and does a very good job of depicting the power of female friendships. He also does not hold back any punches when it comes to revenge for past wrongdoings and the effects that evil people have on the people that they are in contact with and live with. It starts with the murder of a College Don, but the case leads Morse down a winding and tortuous path that exposes the power of hate and retribution. On the way he even finds love, and the way that Dexter depicts this fresh blooming love is memorable in the simplicity in which he describes it. It's like watching an unfolding flower. This is a great novel, and I highly recommend this entire series.
The first novel i ever read.......2002-07-21
This book was the first proper novel that i ever read. Several years ago now. And it has brought me so far...It instilled in me my passion for the mystery/detective/thriller genre, and reading itself. It brought me to treasure, above many other things, the importance of a novel's characters, and to consider least of all the actual quality of the prose. This book is undoubtedly written brilliantly, but i enjoyed it so much that i didnt notice. And that told me an important lesson: It does not matter how well a book is written, as long as you enjoy it. (For even if this was written badly, i would still have enjoyed it.)
Morse himself is a puzzle wrapped in so many enigmas and conundrums that his character at times resembles and onion. Even by the final novel, we have not really found out what makes him tick. He remains a puzzle to the last.
Lewis is a very likeable man, an impressive Watson to Morse's Holmes. He is a simple man, but at times can be just as puzzling as Morse.
The plot with this one is simple but incredibly effective. It tells the tale of harmed women, and the revenges that they take. There is one woman in particular who stands out, and that is the teacher, Julia. She is an incredibly strong character, and a rather moving one in how devoted she is to her friend, and her motives for it.
This is a very strong novel, with a truly fitting title. It is an exemplary book of detection, with very strong characters and a very powerful plot. Until he retired, it is truly so that Dexter was probably the best living male crime writer we in Britain had. We lament his departure.
An extraordinary detective novel.......2000-07-31
I was a bit wary about starting this novel--I didn't care for THE WENCH IS DEAD or THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS (found them horribly dull, actually)--but I decided to give it a try. It was well worth the effort; of all the Dexter mysteries I've read, THE DAUGHTERS OF CAIN is easily the best.
A former Oxford professor, Dr. Felix McClure, is found stabbed to death in his flat, and as usual, Inspector Morse and his faithful Watson, Sergeant Lewis, are assigned the case. The two discover a suspicious connection between McClure and a ne'er-do-well named Ted Brooks, who himself vanishes suddenly. As you'd expect from the title, the cast of suspects is almost exclusively female, and Dexter does a fantastic job of probing the passions--both love and hatred--that drive women to murder.
Interestingly enough, the most perplexing question is not so much whodunit as howdunit, and the solution that Dexter provides is very tricky, and very clever. You'd be hard-pressed, though, to find a writer plays more fairly with clues; all the information necessary to deduce the solution is there, albeit hidden in plain sight.
But this novel entertains on many levels, plot being the least of them. With Morse at his grumpy, endearingly brilliant best, and Lewis acting once again as the perfect comic foil, the journey is as much fun as the destination. The story is well-paced, and all the characters are so thoroughly engaging that even the less action-packed segments (which basically means the whole book--this is a British mystery, after all) are fascinating. Finally, no other writer in the English language writes quite like Colin Dexter, whose impeccably idiosyncratic prose is a joy to read. The dialogue is frequently hilarious, the social observations are sharp but subtle, and the use of language (words like "dolichocephalic" pop up more than once) is marvelously quirky. In all, a delightfully sophisticated, immensely satisfying piece of writing.
Average customer rating:
- Mother Courage and her ungrateful daughter
- Masterpiece Combines Crime Genre with Desperate Characters
- THIS BOOK WAS AHEAD OF ITS TIME
- Thoroughly engaging.
- A noir without crime?
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Mildred Pierce
James M. Cain
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0679723218
Release Date: 1989-05-14 |
Book Description
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.
Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.
Customer Reviews:
Mother Courage and her ungrateful daughter.......2006-08-30
A man tends to his lawn, showers, gets dressed, tells his wife that he's going for a walk. She knows better --- he's going to see his mistress "and then unbutton that red dress she's always wearing without any brassieres under it." But it's not the mistress that annoys her most. It's the way, in 1931, he's without work and not exactly looking for any.
So far, so ordinary.
Then the author steps in: "They spoke quickly, as though they were saying things that scalded their mouths, and had to cooled with spit. "
That's James M. Cain, folks, the master of the quick, dark truth.
When Cain wrote "Mildred Pierce," his fame and fortune were assured. In the 1930s, he had published "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity." These two short, brutal novels had scandalized the bluenoses and become bestsellers. He'd found a formula that, in a repressed culture, never fails --- serving up hot, illicit sex and then punishing the lovers.
In "Mildred Pierce," he adapted the formula and, in the process, wrote what I believe is his best novel. Here the shapely, sexy woman is a wife and mother who wants to stay married. She throws her husband out as a statement of self-respect. It's a costly gesture. As a friend says, "You've joined the biggest army on earth. You're the great American institution that never gets mentioned on Fourth of July --- a grass widow with two small children to support. The dirty bastards."
Mildred's assets are few. She can bake. And she's got a bod for sin. "Her brassiere ballooned a little, with an extremely seductive burden." Although she's got great gams, she feels she's slightly bow-legged, so she takes short steps when she walks. To great effect --- "her bottom twitched in a wholly provocative way."
It's not long before two realities collide. She has no trouble finding a lover (and discovering that she enjoys sex) --- but it's impossible to get a job. For one thing, she is without qualifications. For another, she fears that her eldest daughter, the beautiful and haughty Veda, will scorn her if she wears a waitress's uniform or becomes a clerk in a store.
But a waitress she becomes. And money flows in. Veda is, as expected, horrified. She says Mildred has "degraded" the family. Mildred's response: She spanks Veda silly. To no point. Veda crawls to a couch, laughs and whispers: "A waitress."
It is then that Mildred realizes that she fears her daughter's judgment, "her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit." She resolves to open a restaurant, to be a waitress no more. And she thanks her daughter for prodding her to aim higher: "We'll have something. And it'll all be on account of you. Every good thing that happens is on account of you, if Mother only had the good sense to know it."
On the eve of the opening of Mildred's restaurant, she spends the weekend with a society swell and becomes his lover. Back home, her younger daughter has spiked a fever and is in the hospital. The death scene is terrible. Even worse is Mildred's reaction: Thank God it wasn't Veda.
Death and birth collide: As she buries her child, Mildred opens her restaurant. It's a great success. But we have half a book to go, and this half is a slow-mo train wreck --- the story of Veda's evil ways, her schemes to escape her mother and Mildred's shameless effort to win her love.
You think your kids have foul, disrespectful mouths? Listen to Veda: "With this money I can get away from you. From you and your chickens and your pies and your kitchens and everything that smells of grease. I can get away from this shack with its cheap furniture. And this town and its dollar days, and its women that wear uniforms and its men that wear overalls."
Through it all, Mildred is Mother Courage. Her will and her work ethic dazzle. But can Veda be redeemed?
In the movie --- directed by Michael ("Casablanca") Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, her shoulders so padded she could be a linebacker --- the story is changed for greater dramatic effect. In the book, there's no need; this time, the female is punished and punished and punished, though she's done nothing to deserve it.
"Mildred Pierce" is twice as long as "Postman" and "Double Indemnity" --- and, say I, twice as satisfying. Face it, you're not likely to take a married lover and then kill his/her spouse. But most parents have, at one time or another, a child whose ingratitude is sharper than a serpent's tooth. Well, here's the worst case --- read it and weep for Mildred, then count your blessings.
Masterpiece Combines Crime Genre with Desperate Characters.......2006-07-16
I was inspired to read Mildred Pierce after hearing Wesltey Strick, screenwriter and novelists, discuss his new novel on Elvis Mitchell's NPR radio show "The Treatment." Strick said to get in the mood for his own writing, he reread Mildred Pierce and I was intrigued. I had read some other Cain novels and knew he was a master of terse crime fiction but I wasn't prepared for the psychological insight and complexity evident here. His descriptions of American gaucherie and philistinism are unparalleled. His complexity between the mother and daughter is unforced.
The plot, about a Billy Goat husband who leaves his pretty wife for a trashy woman in Southern California circa the Depression, begins simply enough, but spins into penetrating psychological pathology.
His ability to capture America's sense of the American Dream and bad taste reminds me of Paula Fox's novella Desperate Characters and a masterful essay by William E. Blundell's "My Florida," published in the 2005 edition of The Best American Travel Writing.
THIS BOOK WAS AHEAD OF ITS TIME.......2006-04-18
The book and the movie are both great. The content of this book was a little unusual for the 1940s. I was surprised that the book has a totally different ending than the movie. I have seen the movie several times, and decided to read the book. I am so glad I did, and my husband really enjoyed this book too. Mildred is a great character. She was a woman before her time. Stepping out to have her own business. Not too many women in those times would have had the courage to do such a thing. Her daughter, Veda, is a BRAT. Mildred is a "disney land" parent. She thinks the more she gives the more her daughter will love her. This is a good example for divorced parents today. They feel compelled to give their kids too many "material" things and they really just need to spend more time with their children and learn to say "No". If you haven't read or seen the movie, I would suggest you do both.
Thoroughly engaging........2005-08-09
There are only two words to describe this book: wow and bravo. Each of its 17 chapters is a compelling mini masterpiece of storytelling.
The title character is a young financially challenged mother who is forced to fend for herself in the decidedly unfriendly milieu of Depression era Los Angeles. After considerable struggle and plenty of hard work, Mildred eventually becomes a successful business woman.
But while Mildred is achieving economic independence, her daughter Veda, a precocious 11 year old at the novel's onset, matures into a hateful, greedy young adult who makes her mother's life a living hell.
Author James Cain has offered up a virtuoso performance in the writing of this wonderful novel. Chapter 1 is pure genius. It starts off with images of perfect domesticity; a husband doing yardwork and a wife decorating a cake. Then it suddenly spirals downward into the abyss of irretrievable family break-up. Each subsequent chapter is masterfully built on the one before to paint a vivid picture of Mildred's world as she wends her way through the obstacle course that is her life.
Mildred Pierce is a gripping, page turner of a novel. An enthusiastic 5 stars.
A noir without crime?.......2004-10-07
James M. Cain is one of the fathers of the noir novel (along with Hammet and Chandler) with novels as "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity" that were soon turned into films and became cornerstones of the noir cinema, as it did the cinematographic version of Mildred Pierce.
Mildred Pierce is not, however, a noir novel strictu senso. There is no detective, and if there is any crime it is not particularly remarkable, the characters don't take a walk in the wild side or through the asphalt jungle. The plot tells the story of Mildred, a still young woman trying to make ends meet after divorcing his former middle class husband, now unemployed due to the Depression. In her quest for a future (from proud wife to diner waitress to fast-food entrepreneur) she has to deal with her pride, her pretentious and viperous daughter, her decadent playboy lover and the close social categories of the 30's.
For some it could be an elaborated melodrama, but Mildred Pierce reads like a noir. The wisecrack-saturated dialogues are those of a hardboiled crime novels, as are the social schemas. Finally, Cain discovers settings that latter became classics of the Californian and American noir imaginary: the diners, the first fast food chains, and the posh restaurants by the sea.
Mildred Pierce is a great book and a portrait of a time. Go for it. I have it in a very nice edition by Everyman's Library featuring also "The Postman Always Rings Twice", "Double Indemnity" and a few short stories and the lot is definitely worth the (quite low) price.
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Cains Daughter
Doris Shannon
Manufacturer: Fawcett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0449239616
Release Date: 1979-05-12 |
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The Legacy of Cain (Pocket Classics)
Wilkie Collins
Manufacturer: Sutton Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0750904534 |
Book Description
When a condemned woman asks the local Minister to take her daughter home, the childless man is touched and finds himself unable to refuse. Yet the prisoner is unrepentant of the murder of her husband. Will her vices be passed on to this seemingly sweet child?
Customer Reviews:
The sins of the mothers.......2000-08-31
This is one of Collins' slightly less atrocious pot-boilers (compared to, say, "Jezebel's Daughter", "Heart and Science", or "The New Magdalen"). Fans of the Victorian sensation-novel with a bit of Collins' late work already tucked under their belts will know what to expect and can dig in without flinching, but most other readers would feel better rewarded by the fine novels Collins published before 1872. His last book but one, "Legacy of Cain" is readable today only because competently written and well paced, enough so at least to sustain interest in what-happens-next. The text is studded with failed attempts at pithy irony, often out of character since various narrators are fronting for the hovering author, but the lapses in tone can be ignored. The plot is erected on a shaky scaffolding of incredible coincidences and a hodge-podge of memoirs, journals, and extremely private letters which people keep showing one another beyond all bounds of plausibility and common sense; the characters are cardboard prop-ups prone to gratuitous malice, meddling, or maudlin muddling; and the whole is artifically contrived to explore the question of whether criminal tendencies are transmitted by heredity and are susceptible to the counter-influence of sound moral upbringing. Don't wait breathlessly for a convincing analysis.
A Congregational minister, the Rev. Gracedieu, performs an impulsive act of charity, adopting the soon-to-be-orphaned infant daughter of a condemned murderess on the eve of execution, although warned that the mother's taint might manifest someday in the child. Shortly afterwards, his previously childless wife gives birth to a daughter of their own and, without his knowledge, conceives the cold-hearted plan of ousting the cuckoo from her nest. Only the Governor of the prison is aware of the lady's perfidy, but when she dies before gaining her ends he holds his peace and allows her doting husband to continue idolizing the wife's sainted memory. Gracedieu retires to a town where his circumstances are unknown and even-handedly brings up both girls, Eunice and Helena, as his own. Both are imbued with the highest principles and a strict education eschewing such corrupting influences as French novels, newspapers, and the theater. To ensure that the adopted child's dubious history is never disclosed, the minister refuses to reveal even to his daughters who is the eldest and where they were born. Through this stratagem, Collins introduces the grown-up young women to the reader without letting on which is which. Although he could easily keep up the mystification until almost the end of the novel, with a decided gain in the suspense factor, the author discards that opportunity less than halfway through when he decides to drag the Governor back on stage to take another turn as narrator.
Eunice, sweet and ingenuous, has fallen in love with a young man she met on a visit to London, the rich and handsome Philip Dunboyne, but when Philip visits the provincial town where she lives to ask Gracedieu for her hand in marriage he is ensnared by the physical charms of the other sister, Helena, who proceeds to rob Eunice of her fiancé. Gracedieu refuses to countenance a marriage with Eunice, while Philip's father threatens to disinherit him if he marries Helena. Philip dithers between the two until Helena has seduced him and Eunice has rejected him, upon which his wandering eye returns to his first choice. Gracedieu's clumsy, but well-meaning cousin Selina, her mysterious friend Mrs Tenbruggen, and the nameless Governor interfere in the interests of one party or the other. Meanwhile, since no Collins novel can do without a crime, one of the rival sisters attempts to poison Philip, but is foiled by the vigilance of the Doctor called in to treat Gracedieu's typical Victorian complaint (a "nervous disorder" requiring rest and foreign travel, followed by "brain disease" because he wouldn't go). Collins recklessly tosses in a supernatural visitation to muddy the waters still more: the dead murderess' spirit seems to haunt her daughter in a dream, tempting her to commit murder herself, and in another scene briefly "possesses" her. Nothing approaching a rational explanation is offered.
"Legacy of Cain" finally shakes the dirt off its skirts and metes out joy to nearly all concerned. Even the wicked sister eventually lands on her feet. In the merry mood of the last chapter, it's a pity that Collins sees fit to jerk some tears by consigning poor Rev. Gracedieu to senile dementia and the elder Dunboyne to the grave just to spare them the shock of revelations everyone else takes in stride and squelch all possible objections to the happy-end wedding.
Customer Reviews:
Review of The Enchanter's Daughter.......2002-03-06
This is a story about the young girl who is called daughter by her father. This father of hers is an enchantor and can create anything that his daughter wants. He creates a tropical island for her to live on, then a vast forest filled with animals but when she got tired of this he created a jungle. All of this was ok with the enchanter's daughter for a while but she soon became bored with each. When her father granted her wish of wanting many books she began to gain knowledge about a world that her father had never shown her. She realized she had a past and a real name other than daughter. Because her father would not tell her her true past she figured out a way to find it on her own. Using courage she found the life her father had sheltored her from. I enjoyed this book, it makes you use your imagination. I pictured a castle with jungle vines and monkeys in which the enchantor and his daughter lived. The picture that goes with each page is very detailed, colorful and interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about magic and fantasy.
Product Description
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6 Titles By Colin Dexter Inspector Morse Series : Last Bus to Woodstock Last Seen Wearing Service of All the Dead The Way Through the Woods The Daughters of Cain Death Is Now My Neighbour. six mmpb books.
Average customer rating:
- Hard, stark story
- incest in rural West Virginia - not handled well by Cain
- Cain's Second Best Book
- A man who falls in love with his own daughter.
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The butterfly
James M Cain
Manufacturer: New American Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | Classics | Comic | Contemporary | Literary
ASIN: B0007EL0US |
Customer Reviews:
Hard, stark story.......2006-12-05
Cain portrays the dark sides of his characters so vividly that you come away with the queasy feeling that such people might actually exist. You might also come away feeling grateful that you are who you are, and not them.
Jess Tyler lives alone, up at the edge of a worked-out coal mine. He has a farm plot and a few animals, but that's about it. He had another life once, or maybe more than one, but that's behind him. Then, one day, a part of that past stands in front of him. It's a young woman that he's drawn to so strongly that he has no choice in the matter. He doesn't know who she is, just that she feels right in his arms and in his bed. The problem is, it's the daughter he never saw grow up. With her, his quiet, upright life begins to topple. More of the past arrives, and not just his past. The tensions that tore his old life away from him arrive too, as taut as ever or more. Cain's story unfolds with the lethal inevitability of an end game in chess. As the strategy of each piece emerges, the need to attack or defend increases in urgency. The heat of flaring hatreds creates a pressure that builds, down to the last page.
Cain wrote his own introduction to this story. It's written in the same way as his fiction, so that every word matters and every thought is so sharp you could cut yourself on it. Maybe Cain isn't as well known as Hammet or Chandler, but he ranks right with them as a founder of noir as we know it.
//wiredweird, reviewing the 1979 Ace edition
incest in rural West Virginia - not handled well by Cain.......2003-12-23
'Butterfly' is the latest of several James M. Cain novels I've read. Unfortunately it seems that beyond his best known works ('The Postman Always Rings Twice', 'Mildred Pierce', 'Double Indemnity') he has pumped out a number of mediocre novels, including 'Butterfly'.
'Butterfly' is a novel on incest in a coal mining community in rural West Virginia during the 1930s. No doubt the story was shocking when first written (in 1946) but now the material seems fairly lame. The essence of older man/teenaged girl lust is captured much better in the infamous 'Lolita'. In 'Butterfly' we don't get to really feel smoldering passion or the intense shame associated with incest. While the prose is very readable the characterizations are fairly weak, as one would expect in a novel of little more than 100 pages.
Bottom line: James M. Cain on a bad day is still pretty okay, but he has done much better (especially in 'Mildred Pierce').
Cain's Second Best Book.......1998-08-12
You must read this book for the last sentence. It is the best ever written. Don't skip ahead, just take the time, read it and get to that beautiful, perfect sentence. You won't be diasapointed.
A man who falls in love with his own daughter........1997-10-24
This story is vey interesting and unbelievable. It's about a man name Jess who was separated from his own daughter when she was just a baby. After many years have past, they both met each other by his house having a conversation. Jess fell in love with her without knowing that she's his own daughter, and goes for her. I rate this boo an "8" because of it's uncommon story that can never be accepted in our society.
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