New Hampshire Books

I read this book for a second time after Richard Russo's "Empire Falls" brought it to mind. Although it lacks the epic sweep of Russo's novel, "Whisper My Names" shares a similar setting (small town New England), eccentric and often comical characters, and a narrative informed by American realist traditions.

Hebert perfectly conveys the small-town rivalries, petty grievances, and endearing foibles that afflict the fictional town of Darby, New Hampshire, where two of his previous novels were set. The source of the town's current problems is a proposed shopping mall that (to some) promises new jobs and revenue and (to others) threatens the area's rustic way of life. The novel's characters are motivated by greed, principles, politics, and pretensions--and some of them just don't care. All in all, Darby is a microcosm of American life.

At the center of it all is Chance, a journalist covering the story while seeking the identity of his real father and pursuing Soapy, a young girl whose parentage is equally unclear. But the most memorable character is perhaps Ike Jordan, a churlish fraud and petty criminal from the wrong side of the tracks who has pretensions of becoming one of the town's leaders.

It's a shame this book is out of print. I can only hope that the University Press of New England, which has reprinted Hebert's first two Darby novels, will see its way to adding this book to its list.

This is not the first account i've read about someone leaving busy city life to live in a bucolic farm. The thing that really sets this book apart is that Kumin skips the sappy parts and goes straight to the realities of harsh life in the countryside. It is hard to tend horses! However, you can tell how much she enjoys her life there. Thank you for saving us the fluff. Her short stories (the second half of the book) are all fantastic.

The title of Mary Emma Allen's little reference, "Writing In Maine, New Hamshire & Vermont" indicates a very narrow focus. It would be a mistake to assume that this book is not useful for any freelance writer or writer living outside these states.

Although it is true that many entries are useful and/or available only for residents of this tri-state area, the percentage of these restricted entries is not large.

For those of us who live in the other 47 states there is plenty of information that we can use. The really amazing thing is that much of this information is not found in periodicals that most of us use. like Writers' Markets.

This little volume makes an excellent addendum to any book an author might presently be using as a resource. There are lists of bookstores and contests and publishers and grants and markets, and colleges and...you get the idea. I'd be willing to bet that most of these sources are not in the average writer's Rolodex.

Sooo...what are you waiting for?

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

I was well pleased with the product I ordered and received. It met my expectations and timeline I requested. I would definitely order from this site again.

My daughter needed this book asap for school. She received it in 4 days....and in good shape too!

When I first read this book back in High School, I can remember how some in my class said they'd rather read something else while I actually enjoyed the work. This book is Knowles's masterpiece. Yes there are times when you'd rather put the book down and watch TV but those moments are few and far between. The characters are well developed, the plot is strenuously executed but in the end you feel better for reading it because you came through this journey into adulthood and friendship with the narrator.

Knowles crafts his story as a flashback to 1942 when War was declared and the boys of Devon School were making the tough choices that would define their lives. And in 1942 this meant either going to College or going into the military and fighting in WWII. This coming of age story is ideal for High School students which is the reason why it is widely required in most School Districts and Parochial School systems because it speaks of the end of innocence and realism of adulthood.

If you are an adult and wish to read or re-read this classic I recommend coming to it not as a schmaltzy read but as a serious work or fiction you'll find yourself connecting with the characters and the situations.

I do not completely recommend this novel but do think it is a good read.

This book is one of several that is most memorable from my youth. The main character is one that you easily like, his spirit is pure. Like Siddhartha he has his Govinda who follows him around. The spirit that the main character embodies is what makes this book special to me, that and the fact that it is set at Andover or Exeter, which ever one, during a more innocent time. This book to me is about innocence. Innocence is wonderful, people like that exist in the world. I think it is OK to fall in love with fictional characters to some extent. Maybe you will too. I highly recommend this book.

You can see this title on the required summer reading tables in bookstores, and I guess schools have been assigning it for almost fifty years. It is easy to see why. Its characters are all adolescents, engaged in the usual struggle for self-definition, subject to sudden mood-swings between intense affection and crippling self-doubt. And being set in 1942-43, the years following America's entry into the War, it offers a new and valuable perspective on this important period in the nation's history. It is, in short, a teachable text.

But it is a text that requires teaching. For one thing, I am not sure how easily most young people can relate to the hermetic world of a single-sex boarding school, let alone an elite New England prep school (the Dover School of the book is surely modeled after Philips Exeter, which the author attended). Although there is no hint of the homoerotic attractions that were a significant issue at the similar English school I attended a decade later, the book demands some understanding of the emotional impact of a closed world, where one's friends are everything, and every feeling is intensified. The central character, Gene Forrester, though physically no slouch, is primarily a scholar; he is drawn into the magnetic ambience of his roommate Phineas (Finny), a natural athlete for whom no feat is impossible and no scheme too audacious. The plot turns on Gene's inability to discern his own motives, or even to work out whether Finny is his best friend or most jealous rival. A moment of ambiguity early in the novel triggers an event which, though apparently soon laid to rest, will resonate throughout the book, leading to much more serious consequences. A good teacher might profitably discuss questions of truth and perception, motive and blame, on a chapter-by-chapter basis, but Knowles is a subtle and balanced writer who avoids primary colors. The lone reader who does not stop to question the text might well be left with the impression that this is merely an elegant memoir in which little of consequence happens.

The title phrase occurs about two-thirds of the way through the book during an unofficial Winter Carnival that Finny has organized in the snowy fields: "It wasn't the cider that made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace." The peace really is momentary; the very next paragraph introduces the first Devon casualty of the war, not fatal but nearly as devastating. Indeed, the war has been almost imperceptibly in the background for some time, but it now moves to the foreground, as the members of the graduating class move to enlist in one of the services. In the epilogue, Knowles has Gene take the war as a metaphor for the psychological battles fought at school over the past year. I am not certain that this works. But the brief moment when the two worlds, school and war, are temporarily balanced against one another is very poignant indeed.

A story of struggle and friendships grown out of hardships. A good, kind read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters are well developed and the story builds to an interesting climax. This is only the second book that I've read by Anita Shreve, but it will definitely not be my last. She has a wonderful way of grabbing your attention at the start and keeping you interested throughout. Can't wait to read another.

Set in the early depression era on the East Coast, the novel follows Honora and Sexton Beecher from the beginning of their marriage. They moved into a large deserted old house on the beach and threw themselves into making it habitable with mostly sweat equity and little money. Sexton is away every week because of his job as travelling salesman and Honora lives a quiet but very structured life. She walks frequently on the lonely beach and collects colorful bits of sea glass.

When the owner decides to sell the home, Sexton manages to scrape together enough for the down payment and takes a mortgage at the local bank. Unfortunately, it's at the worst possible time as banks are starting to collapse and many are losing their jobs.

The story follows the arc of their relationship from good times to bad and explores the discoveries they make about each other as a result of their travails. Part of the subtext of the story is revealed through homey letters from Honora's mother. Sexton becomes involved with a group of men fomenting a strike at the local textile mills. Their home becomes the headquarters of the organizers, bringing them into the center of a dangerous and controversial movement.

The historical context of the novel was interesting, but what was most compelling was Anita Shreve's ability to create a fully imagined, complex, sympathetic character - Honora Sexton. I could imagine myself living in her time and faced with the same challenges. It's not always possible to "associate" yourself so completely with a fictional character, but Anita Shreve's skill make it possible.

The thing I liked most about this book was the overall atmosphere that the author created. It was extremely evocative of a time and place in US history (early labor strikes in New England textile industry). The characters and actual physical setting of the story are so well drawn that you feel like you have actually been there and know them.

In my opinion, Anita Shreve has a unique talent for melding interesting and unique events, places and personalities together to form a memorable and highly moving story that makes you come back for more.

The IDEA of Honora and Sexton's story gripped me. Two people who don't know each other very well fall for each other, get married very quickly, and then their marriage suffers from the blows life throws at them. The issue I had with their characters was that Honora seemed too perfect--good cook, great housekeeper, cares for her husband--and Sexton seemed too flawed--greasy salesman type, keeps important secrets from his wife, eventually even cheats on her. In my opinion, Ms. Shreve's characters aren't usually so perfectly defined as "good" and "evil"--and that's what I've always liked about her novels.

The novel itself, set on the cusp of the Great Depression and focusing on three completely different classes--Vivian as the upper class, Honora and Sexton as the middle class, and McDermott and Alphonse as the mill-worker lower class--seemed as if it was just trying to cover too much too fast, leaving it disjointed, and leaving me feeling as if the plot as a whole never came together.

The only thing that seemed steady in this novel as compared to Ms. Shreve's other endeavors was her style of writing, which, as always, gripped me. The fact that I am a huge fan of how she writes is, however, the only reason I could give this novel 3 stars.

I don't think you could set out to write something this dull and boring with more unlikeable characters. Enough said.

I'm halfway through the book and came here to read reviews. Amazon displays the Publishers Weekly review at the top of the page, which tells of what I assume is a most critical scene in the book (Clara and Phillip). Shame on amazon for revealing this key part of the story by allowing this review to be listed here. I'm very disappointed to have seen that spoiler.

So it was a total passionate read, that's good enough for me. I like the idea of a book written from the perspective of a man who, for all intents and purposes, is the villain. It's a fascinating view point, though the section of letters between wife and almost-lover were incredible and revealing. It's exciting, sexy, and properly depressing. Definitely worth a read.

Professor Nicholas Van Tassel, now in his later years is traveling on a train heading from New England to Florida to attend his sister's funeral. On the trip, he writes his memoirs, beginning in 1899, when he rescued Etna Bliss and her niece in a hotel fire. Through his writings, you'll discover how his love for her turned into an obsession and the price he was willing to pay to be with her.

With all the books I need to read, I opted for the audio download of this book. The narrator, Dennis Boutsikaris, was as asset to the story. He sounded just as I'd imagine Nicholas Van Tassel would.

In this story of a passable but ultimatly doomed marriage, the narrator-husband reflects on his years of obsession with Etna Bliss, a woman who never fully loved him. Their two children and comfortable lifestyle in a New England academic community are not able to replace for her the devotion she once felt to a lost love. The pedantic, self-involved professor never seems to understand his wife's need for distance, and we watch in horror as he loses his way, his morality, the respect of their daughter, and ultimately, his wife. Shreve gets the vanity and insular quality of an academic community just right. What's more, she raises and teases the question of personal freedom within marriage, and leaves the matter tantalizingly unresolved.

Joan Hapgood has a pretty good life - a handsome, successful husband, a beautiful east coast home in a picturesque town, and a high school golden boy in their teenage son Matt. Things are good until Joan's crabby old mother, Emily, burns down her own house and has to move in with Joan and her family. From the first, the idea is a disaster. Emily is foul-tempered and seems to despise her own daughter, making it clear instead how much she adores and misses Joan's elder sister, Cynthia, who died years before, and wishes it were Joan who had died instead. Joan's happy life begins to quickly slide downhill as living once again with her mother brings back painful memories and turns her into a timid, fearful girl again.

Even more affected than Joan is her son Matt, whom the grandmother seems to loathe even more than she loathes her daughter. She calls him "the bastard" when she pays him any attention at all, and while he feels he can ignore her rudeness, what he can't deal with are the strange, erotic dreams he begins to have of his Aunt Cynthia. Matt's and Joan's lives are both spiraling downwards for reasons they don't understand, and when several murders and the disappearance of the old woman begin to shake things up even more, many forces seem to converge at once to one nightmarish end.

One review here said it like this: " ...gobs of gore, melodramatic (and occasionally bumbling) prose, and a deviant, twisted ending -- John Saul's famous recipe for family disaster and reader delight." That's pretty apt. It's classic John Saul, for better or worse!

A macabre tale of nightmares that delivers on all levels. Poor Matt Hapgood's life takes a turn for the worse when his ailing grandmother moves in with them. Soon, he is having erotic dreams, and hearing things in his bedroom. His mother is slowly going insane and after his stepfather is killed in a hunting mishap Matt himself thinks he is going mad as well.
I found the book to be rather riveting although I cheated a little and read the Amazon reviews half way through the book so the ending wasn't entirely surprising. Yes its been done before but the story was good and gripped me which is the highest praise one can give a book of this type. Still I have a few minor quibbles. The first being the sexual abuse taking place. I'm not sure if we are meant to believe that all the sexual activity taking place in Matt's room was spiritual in nature or more of the physical variety. If the ladder is true then I just find it hard to believe someone could be fondling him and he would simply not wake up and realize who it was. Sleep or no sleep he would know for a fact who was in the room with him. After all, he was brought to the height of sexual pleasure and there was evidence of that in the morning; I've herd of sleep walking but never of sleep fornicating. Another minor point is the amount of verbal abuse Joan received from her mother. It was all too clear that Joan was ill equip to take care of her mother and that it was surprising that she kept insisting she could. Apart from those two points the book was good with a satisfying ending and if Saul so chose could write a sequel to it. I listened to the MP3 CD version which was read well though at times the reader held back a little in articulating emotions. B+

When I read the epilogue I was hooked, but then about 1/2 way through the book it started to get repetitive. I just did not care for Matt's character. Still an alright book, but not that "spooky." However, it is a quick fast-paced psychological horror w/ a surprise ending. I'd say this book is geared more toward teens/young adults & has the usual troubled teen theme (typical Saul).

This was the first time reading a John Saul book. I had read a few reviews and it sounded like it would be spooky which I like, however, he did not scare me at all and I kept waiting for it to happen. Did not care much for the characters in this book either. The main female character just kind of drove me crazy, did not like her. Anyway, as I said it was my first time reading Mr. Saul so I probably should not judge too harshly, but I was not impressed or scared.

This is my first time reading John Saul, and I must say I really enjoyed this book. The characters were very well drawn out and were given great personalities. It was a very well written book, but the only thing that got me at a time was that it seemed repetitive. First it would show Joan being crazy, Matt getting [...] at school, and then Kelly's dad being a psycho a little too much...seemed somewhat repetitive but other than that, a great read.

This book certainly follows the pattern of A Year In Provence with an up-close and in-depth look at the rural culture of a town in Provence. The book, however, starts off in London where the life of the hero, Max, has just fallen apart. His friend, Charlie, helps him travel to the warmer, more exotic environs of southern Provence where the weather is temperate and the people somewhat strange and mysterious. He takes up residence in the house of his uncle which sits on a vineyard that produces a wine of horrific qualities. The story takes off from there into a tangled but fascinating whirlwind of romance, crime, boutique wineries, local culinary customs and some rather unique, local personalities. Mayle peppers the story with witticisms that add extra life to the story...a good read.

I bought the book because I had seen the movie. Although I enjoyed the movie a lot, I found the book to be even better - much better. this is a good and easy read!
Janet Foret Lococo

Have you ever been to Provence? Non? Do you know the French? Non? If you haven't and you don't, then this short time with Max Skinner might not be as much fun as it was for me. Not only have I been to Provence, but I stayed in Montpelier for a month and made many outshoot trips to nearby locales, including Arles and Avignon and small villages like Saint-Pons, the setting for "A Good Year." I lunched and wined and dined as Max Skinner does in Peter Mayle's novel. I also know the English, as different from the French as can be. Knowing the English also helps in the pleasure of reading this novel. But if you haven't and you don't, this is still a great read because you will get to know Provence and its people and the ways of the English.

My introduction explains, I think, why I love this novel. No, this is not literature that sits on shelves with Faulkner and Austen. But it is a great, enjoyable few hours transported to a wonderfully sunny, pleasant place among people with a joie-de-vie outlook.

Max Skinner lives in England and works as an investment banker and is at odds with his boss. He wakes up one day, thinking, This will be a great day. He expects to close on a big deal. Instead, his boss asks for details of the deal, then fires Max and claims the deal. But his "great day" is yet to come. He receives notification that he has inherited his uncle's small chateau and vineyards in Provence.

Thus begins Max's year as a future winemaker. Mayle is excellent in making his characters flesh out as real people, in creating visual images of the chateau and surrounds. He has the ability to put the reader right into the story, savoring the smells of wonderful food and wines.

The real story is this pleasant, daily life in Provence. The seemingly main plot is the secret concerning a special section of vineyard and how most of the characters' lives intersect concerning this one section. The number of coincidences coming together seem impossibly large, but the reader knows this is a book of fiction and that the author has ordered such events in such a way. If the reader has immersed in this world of the French, then the coincidences will merge into the flavor of a good wine. Take it at that.

Does Mayle purport to writing great literature? Or, does he give the reader a delightful and pleasant story for a few hours? Prepare a cheese and sausage plate, open a bottle of good red wine and enjoy those with this book. It will be a good few hours.

Like another reviewer here, I had seen the movie first and bought the book because I wanted the fuller, more developed story line. What I found was a completely different story. Other than the same character names, location, and the fact that Max's Uncle had died leaving him the house, the story is completely different. One reviewer here loved the line "Excuse my lips, etc." - guess what - he did not read the book, he saw the movie - this line is not in the book. Please do not expect the same story in the book as the movie.

That being said, I did find the book enjoyable. It is a good read - not quite up to Peter Mayle's previous efforts but fun. Without spoiling it for you, the ending left me a little disappointed. Like so many novels today, the author does not have an ending - they just stop without resolution of the plot lines. If you like Peter Mayle's other books, you will also like this one. If you have never read any of his books, Hotel Pastis is far superior - a beginning, a strong plot line, and a good ending. A Good Year only comes close to this superior novel.

I've never read anything by Peter Mayle, but a friend gave me A Good Year, knowing that I like to read books about other countries. I found A Good Year to be fun, but lightweight and fluffy.

Max Skinner is a Londoner who is struggling with a job in finance. After working on a project for six months (that he expects to reap big financial rewards), his supervisor steals his work and then fires him. Skinner goes home that day to find a letter from a French lawyer. An uncle who lived in Provence recently died and has left his chateau and vineyard to Skinner. With a 10,000 loan from his best friend, Skinner travels to the small town of Saint-Pons, hoping that maybe he'll be able to start a new life in France. He spent his summers visiting his uncle, so he's familiar with the area and the language. He also hopes to learn something about winemaking.

Mayle has an obvious love of France and his books are filled with the beauty of France, the small towns, the customs, the people, the food, and especially, the wine. But not everything is idyllic with Skinner and his new home. The chateau's wine tastes like vinegar and there seems to be some hanky-panky going on with his caretaker and the vines. There is also a question of whether the chateau truly belongs to him. It is just enough to keep Provence from being paradise.

Mayle piqued my interest enough to want to read A Year in Provence. Not only was it a best seller, but the television series based on the book was very popular. Mayle's recurring theme of foreigners living in France has obviously been successful for him. Now if only he would help us out with a little French vocabulary...

Hegi's remarkable family saga is about nothing less than the American Dream, and in this novel that dream is represented by the Wasserburg, a "flamboyant" and "conspicuous," six-storied, 36-apartment building overshadowing a small New Hampshire town, "its reflection biting into the lake further than anything [the townspeople] had built." In spite of its out-of-place opulence, the building "elevated the town's reputation among neighboring communities," as well as the reputation of its owner and builder, Stefan Blau, for whom the Wasserburg stands as a symbol of his arrival, achievement, and acceptance in his new homeland.

As multilayered and extravagant as Hegi's novel, Stefan's dream-house has room for a colorful assortment of residents, and much of the novel's warmth, humor, and pathos come from their sideshow exploits. His children, however, occupy the center stage--and they are mostly a disappointment to him; none of them fulfill the "vision" he has for an heir to his estate, and they all bear the brunt of his unapproachable temper. "He was not well suited to be a father. And here he was with three children, but without the skill or habit of asking forgiveness." Secretive Tobias holds a longstanding, petulant grudge against his father, an inherited stubbornness instigated by a childhood prank, and he swears that he won't even attend Stefan's funeral. Robert has a secret of his own, an eating disorder that his girth can't hide. And, Greta, "the only child who'd made him feel a worthy father," inherits three million dollars from the mother of Stefan's second wife and ultimately lets him down by setting up an ascetic existence in the smallest apartment of the building, where she nurses a covert love for a priest from Boston.

It is Stefan's granddaughter, Emma, who finally finds a way to his love and who promises to be the fulfillment of his dream. Although their lives intersect for only a small portion of Emma's childhood, Stefan's love for the Wasserburg leaves an indestructible impression. But dreams and visions change with the times, and the building that was a luxurious testimonial to an immigrant's ambition and success early in the twentieth century has become a dated, run-down boondoggle by the end of it. It takes Emma far too long to learn what her grandfather never did: that friends and family, not buildings, are the stuff of dreams.

With dreams of adventure and fortune in his mind's eye, 13-year-old Stefan Blau ran away from his German home, setting sail for a new life in America.

He arrived with nothing - but thanks to hard work and a bit of luck, Stefan became a successful New Hampshire restaurant owner before his twenties were through. Full of vision and confidence, Stefan dares to build the Wasserburg - German for "water fortress" - a large, modern waterfront apartment building unlike anything area residents have ever seen before.

Over the coming decades, the Wasserburg becomes the center of Stefan's - and many residents' -lives. There's old Miss Garland, a retired spinster who weaves stories about a tragically killed young fiance until she herself scarcely remembers the truth; and the Braddocks, with their young retarded daughter Fanny. Outrageous Pearl Bloom, who shocked the community by marrying her husband after a courtship of hours, forms a lifelong friendship with Helene, Stefan's quiet, German-born third wife, an awkward woman who never thought she'd marry. As the building expands, Stefan hires the Wilsons as live-in caretakers. With them comes their nephew Danny, who will one day be important to young Tobias Blau in a way few might imagine.

As the decades pass, readers experience the changing world through the eyes of the Blaus, their family and friends. In the beginning of the book, America is at the cusp of the 20th century, full of hope and exciting new inventions. Two world wars later - one of which causes incredible discomfort for the German-American Blaus among their neighbors - it's evident how much the Blaus and the world have changed, and not necessarily for the better.

Hegi's book, Stones by the River, ties in nicely with this book, and characters and scenes overlap in each, especially during the World War II years.

Since I first read this book several years ago, I have reread it at least a half dozen times. With every reading, I continue to notice new details and levels of meaning that escaped me before. Hegi's characters and the world they inhabit are just as intense and realistic as any you could hope to meet in person.

Was this book about anything? If so, I missed it. I only saw an attempt at a counterpart to "Stones" that didn't come off.
Instead I feel battered by the message of, "Gosh, it's hard being German," which worked in the earlier book and fell flat in this one. Hard being German in this country in WWII? Maybe. But not as hard as it was, say in WWI. Not as hard as it was being German in Germany in WWII. Or as hard as being Jewish in either country. Or black.
It's not just an annoying message; it's unbearably trite, and I finished the book because I couldn't believe it wouldn't get better, while promising myself I never had to read another one.

I listened to this book on tapes. Beautifully written and read by the author.

She is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. This book is filled with so many emotions and events my mind is still going over everything. Def a book that stays with you for awhile. I wanted to comfort the characters and felt as if I was myself living at the Wasserburg. I do agree that the characters had a sad tone to them, but none the less, made for a book I couldn't put down!

Set in rural New Hampshire, Boy In The Water centers around Jim Hawthorne, a respected psychologist with a tragic past, and his attempt to save Bishop's Hill, a rundown private school filled with troubled kids and an even more troubling faculty and staff. The result of Hawthorne's hard work and effort turns out to be murder, mystery, and frustration. Personally, I found the pace of the book to be a little slow, and it took me about 100 pages to really get involved with the characters and the story. By the middle of the book, however, I found myself emotionally drawn into the drama and curious about how the story would end. The outcome, while not bad, was somewhat predictible, and I didn't encounter any sections of the book that I thought were particularly edgy, creepy, or frightening. My biggest complaint was with the epilogue. It concentrated more on one of the minor characters in the story and left you hanging about what happens with several of the main characters. Overall, this was not a bad book, but not one of my favorites either.

Dobyns manages to write a thriller that engages the reader in ways that put most thrillers to shame. From the first moment you see the villain, you know he's bad news but he isn't the only villain and the fact that he's working for someone else makes the whole thing that much more sinister. The teacher is virtuous and he's a little flat, but you still worry about him. Dobyns manages to make the commonplace strange and the strange overly sinister.

Great prose. Intriguing story and well rounded characters make for some very enjoyable reading.

It doesn't quite come up to "The Church of Dead Girls," but Stephen Dobyns has a knack for giving us characterization, description and plot. There's plenty of all three in this novel.

Jim Hawthorne, a famed psychologist who blames himself for the deaths of his wife and daughter in a fire started by an obsessed student, takes the job of headmaster at a failing New England preparatory school that has become the dumping ground for troubled kids. Hawthorne hopes to save the school and students as a redemption for his past failure.

The job isn't made easy when his efforts are met with suspicion and a campaign to undermine his success. The serene, ivy-clad campus conceals a world of secrets, corruption and murderous plots. In addition to Hawthorne, there are some equally intriguing characters including a 15-year-old student who previously was a stripper, a few devious staff members, a cook with a penchant for dirty stories and an old-time Boston cop I felt should have been given more space.

I wonder why people who really want to write screenplays try to disguise them as novels. "Boy in the Water" is a "novel" to be read by airplane passengers who have already seen the emasculated in-flight entertainment.

I was attracted to Dobyns by the NEW YORK TIMES review blurb on his novel "The Wrestler's Cruel Study." The reviewer commented that the book "stirs together Nietzschean philosophy, professional wrestling, fairy-tale scenarios and Gnostic speculation to produce what is at once a darkly humorous and gravely unsettling work of imagination." At the same time, I ordered "Boy in the Water," and it arrived first. Now I am very apprehensive about reading "The Wrestler's Cruel Study," because "Boy in the Water" stirs together many different varieties of schlock to produce one of the most moronic things I have ever read. If the NYT review is at all accurate, perhaps Mr. Dobyns decided sometime in the 1990s to abandon art for garbage. He does, after all, have three children to send to college.

Let me turn from general commentary to some specific remarks on the "plot," such as it is. Dobyns depends on the stupidity of his readers. (Of course, the fact that the albino in "The Da Vinci Code" could fight off the French police and carry his dying mentor to the hospital with no further police intervention counts heavily on reader stupidity, and that book sold millions. Maybe stupidity is a trend?) Much of the "Boy in the Water" plot is based on the one bad guy (#1) paying another bad guy (#2) to commit a heinous act. Now it stands to reason that, by paying #2 to do the deed, #1 would be interested in staying as far away from #2 and the scene of the crime as possible and in keeping his relationship to #1 tenuous at best. Yet, in advance of a raging snowstorm, #21 comes to a town near the scene of the crime and walks out in public with #2, AND, in the middle of the raging snowstorm, he subsequently rides out to the actual scene of the crime to deliver the rest of the money to #2. In fact, #2 even confides to another character that he was going to be able to use #1's SUV as a getaway car. Where's the logic here? It doesn't exist. Unless you're stupid.

Another amazon.com reviewer commented on Mr. Dobyns' "Church of Dead Girls," and his or her objections can be overlaid almost exactly on "Boy in the Water." This sorry excuse for a novel, whose title does not even resonate in the rest of the book, is just another in a long list of examples of screenwriting gone bad or bad screenwriting gone worse. Still, Mr. Dobyns' children should be able to go to the universities of their choice. Just hope that they don't enroll in his creative writing classes.

This book was intriguing from start to end. It keep throwing loops that were extremely entertaining. Like many have said I just could not put this book down. This is by far one of the most compelling thrillers I have ever read. It's my first Stephen Dobyns books and I can't wait to read more of his masterpieces.

This book is so good I bought it on hardcover at full price to read later. The character development is fabulous. You felt like they are real people and that you could run into Mr. Hawthorne, the new headmaster of a sinking school on the bridge of closing. Its one of those books that keeps you hanging and wanting more. I suggest anyone who likes good murder thrillers to get this book immediately.