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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Dr. Frederick Starks, a psychologist, just turned 53, receives a letter on his birthday informing him that he has ruined the life of the letter-writer's mother and that his own life is about to be destroyed. Soon his credit cards and bank accounts disappear, he is accused of the sexual harassment of a patient, and a client commits suicide. He is told that if he does not discover the identity of the letter-writer's mother within two weeks, he must commit suicide or a member of his family will be killed. The only clue he has to the letter-writer is that he calls himself Rumpelstiltskin and a beautiful girl who delivers messages. "R" always seems to be one step ahead of him and Starks is soon baffled and undure what to do next as his life crumbles around him.
Starks decides he has but one course of action: to die. Without giving too much away, Starks fakes his death and assemblies several new identities for himself as he seeks to discover who is behind the plot to destroy him and why. This book is a real page turner, as frustrating as The Castle, until Starks reassembles his life and seeks the answers to his torment..
Starks decides he has but one course of action: to die. Without giving too much away, Starks fakes his death and assemblies several new identities for himself as he seeks to discover who is behind the plot to destroy him and why. This book is a real page turner, as frustrating as The Castle, until Starks reassembles his life and seeks the answers to his torment..
This book was difficult for me to get into until about half way through when the main character finally started being such a wet towel and started doing something instead of just talking about things.
Ok so
Estuvo bien. No es una historia de misterio en el sentido de que vas a poder resolver al ritmo del protagonista, sino que te limitas a acompañarlo mientras Ricky resuelve su problema luego de una muy lenta primera mitad que se podría haber resumido bastante.
Lo consideraría un buen thriller para gente con paciencia que no acostumbra leer thrillers, aunque también juega con algunas cosas que solamente tienen sentido en un metanivel. Como los tropos bobos introducidos al inicio que se subviertan o que el giro inesperado / sorpresa al final sea uno en el que se pueda participar menos por pistas en el libro y más por descarte de "personajes suficientemente relevantes aunque haya más de medio libro intentando desviar la atención de este hecho obvio".
La prosa de Katzenbach es útil, no opaca ni enaltece la historia, es funcional y eso me parece perfecto. La segunda mitad se pone bastante mejor y si bien los personajes secundarios tienen menos dimensiones que una hoja de papel, seguir a Ricky se vuelve entretenido.
Igual salí ganando porque alguien quiso cambiar esto por Mar de Fuego. Can you believe?
Estuvo bien. No es una historia de misterio en el sentido de que vas a poder resolver al ritmo del protagonista, sino que te limitas a acompañarlo mientras Ricky resuelve su problema luego de una muy lenta primera mitad que se podría haber resumido bastante.
Lo consideraría un buen thriller para gente con paciencia que no acostumbra leer thrillers, aunque también juega con algunas cosas que solamente tienen sentido en un metanivel. Como los tropos bobos introducidos al inicio que se subviertan o que el giro inesperado / sorpresa al final sea uno en el que se pueda participar menos por pistas en el libro y más por descarte de "personajes suficientemente relevantes aunque haya más de medio libro intentando desviar la atención de este hecho obvio".
La prosa de Katzenbach es útil, no opaca ni enaltece la historia, es funcional y eso me parece perfecto. La segunda mitad se pone bastante mejor y si bien los personajes secundarios tienen menos dimensiones que una hoja de papel, seguir a Ricky se vuelve entretenido.
Igual salí ganando porque alguien quiso cambiar esto por Mar de Fuego. Can you believe?
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a very late review, but I've been thinking about writing it ever since I began reading this book. Because the story is so intriguing and so well written, I can't help but think about this book every once in a while.
We begin this story in Dr. Frederick Starks' (a psychoanalyst) 53rd birthday. It would be just another (lonely) birthday if it wasn't for a very mysterious and threatening letter. Someone from Frederick's past wants revenge on something he did wrong. But it isn't just some ordinary revenge. Frederick must enter a dangerous game and try to discover his "enemy"'s identity before time is up - two weeks - or else he'll have to kill himself in order to protect someone - completely chosen at random - from his family. This man calls himself Rumplestiltskin and he lives up to the fairytale character's twisted personality.
If you ever watched The Game (with Michael Douglas) you won't, like me, be able to shake off that feeling that this book has a "The Game" feel to it. Finding out if your gut is right or wrong will be a very interesting reading ;)
Frederick is alone in this game and he must not look for help, or something bad will happen. R (as Rumplestiltskin likes to sign his letters) seems to always be one step ahead of Frederick, as every time Starks tries to do something R puts a stop to his new plan. Frederick is forced to see everything from his old life be torn away from him without a chance to prevent it and to discover a new self in order to stay alive, and keep his distant family alive. As these things happen, Frederick will change his way of view the world, which will decide his - and R's - fate.
A must-read, if you enjoy thrillers of the sort ;)
We begin this story in Dr. Frederick Starks' (a psychoanalyst) 53rd birthday. It would be just another (lonely) birthday if it wasn't for a very mysterious and threatening letter. Someone from Frederick's past wants revenge on something he did wrong. But it isn't just some ordinary revenge. Frederick must enter a dangerous game and try to discover his "enemy"'s identity before time is up - two weeks - or else he'll have to kill himself in order to protect someone - completely chosen at random - from his family. This man calls himself Rumplestiltskin and he lives up to the fairytale character's twisted personality.
If you ever watched The Game (with Michael Douglas) you won't, like me, be able to shake off that feeling that this book has a "The Game" feel to it. Finding out if your gut is right or wrong will be a very interesting reading ;)
Frederick is alone in this game and he must not look for help, or something bad will happen. R (as Rumplestiltskin likes to sign his letters) seems to always be one step ahead of Frederick, as every time Starks tries to do something R puts a stop to his new plan. Frederick is forced to see everything from his old life be torn away from him without a chance to prevent it and to discover a new self in order to stay alive, and keep his distant family alive. As these things happen, Frederick will change his way of view the world, which will decide his - and R's - fate.
A must-read, if you enjoy thrillers of the sort ;)
This is a very late review, but I've been thinking about writing it ever since I began reading this book. Because the story is so intriguing and so well written, I can't help but think about this book every once in a while.
We begin this story in Dr. Frederick Starks' (a psychoanalyst) 53rd birthday. It would be just another (lonely) birthday if it wasn't for a very mysterious and threatening letter. Someone from Frederick's past wants revenge on something he did wrong. But it isn't just some ordinary revenge. Frederick must enter a dangerous game and try to discover his "enemy"'s identity before time is up - two weeks - or else he'll have to kill himself in order to protect someone - completely chosen at random - from his family. This man calls himself Rumplestiltskin and he lives up to the fairytale character's twisted personality.
If you ever watched The Game (with Michael Douglas) you won't, like me, be able to shake off that feeling that this book has a "The Game" feel to it. Finding out if your gut is right or wrong will be a very interesting reading ;)
Frederick is alone in this game and he must not look for help, or something bad will happen. R (as Rumplestiltskin likes to sign his letters) seems to always be one step ahead of Frederick, as every time Starks tries to do something R puts a stop to his new plan. Frederick is forced to see everything from his old life be torn away from him without a chance to prevent it and to discover a new self in order to stay alive, and keep his distant family alive. As these things happen, Frederick will change his way of view the world, which will decide his - and R's - fate.
A must-read, if you enjoy thrillers of the sort ;)
We begin this story in Dr. Frederick Starks' (a psychoanalyst) 53rd birthday. It would be just another (lonely) birthday if it wasn't for a very mysterious and threatening letter. Someone from Frederick's past wants revenge on something he did wrong. But it isn't just some ordinary revenge. Frederick must enter a dangerous game and try to discover his "enemy"'s identity before time is up - two weeks - or else he'll have to kill himself in order to protect someone - completely chosen at random - from his family. This man calls himself Rumplestiltskin and he lives up to the fairytale character's twisted personality.
If you ever watched The Game (with Michael Douglas) you won't, like me, be able to shake off that feeling that this book has a "The Game" feel to it. Finding out if your gut is right or wrong will be a very interesting reading ;)
Frederick is alone in this game and he must not look for help, or something bad will happen. R (as Rumplestiltskin likes to sign his letters) seems to always be one step ahead of Frederick, as every time Starks tries to do something R puts a stop to his new plan. Frederick is forced to see everything from his old life be torn away from him without a chance to prevent it and to discover a new self in order to stay alive, and keep his distant family alive. As these things happen, Frederick will change his way of view the world, which will decide his - and R's - fate.
A must-read, if you enjoy thrillers of the sort ;)
3.5
This one starts off with a bang, it felt as if you got pushed into the story and just had to hang on to each detail. The beginning was fast paced, one thing was happening after the other, the threats became very realistic, and you could sense the fear and paranoia that Dr.Starks’ feels.
During the story I kept feeling sorry for the Dr. after getting on the bad side of a patient, his life crumbles. You get to see how everything he holds close to his heart gets ripped away. He’s forced to play this game and the clues he gets don’t help him much.
This thriller is one of those where you don’t get to guess who the patient is, you get clues and you get information from the Doctor, but you have no true way of knowing who the patient is before he does. And even then, you don’t have time to theorize who he is, so many things happen in those 15 days that it’s hard to pick up the clues and put them together.
The writing was good, at moments a bit slower paced mostly towards the second section of the book, it gets a bit more tiring and you can tell the story is getting stretched. The first part was definitely more fast paced and intense. The problem solving was more captivating than the second portion of the book where things take a turn. Nonetheless, the rest of the book is good, just different.
Something that helped me not get stuck on the slower paced portions was switching between the audiobook and physical reading. With the added suspense music and the narration were a great way of making the story more gut churning and suspenseful.
This book accomplished the feeling of complete distrust in every character that Dr.Starks encounters. You second guess everything that is told to him, every step forward he takes you’re sat waiting for something to make him take 3 steps back.
Also towards the end you get the chance to admire the villain’s work at plotting this entire game. The lengths he had to go for this to go his way, the entire process of planning and calculating was done meticulously which made for a catching reveal. Don’t worry though, he doesn’t get the full blown villain speech that some hate, but you get a taste of how his mind operated during the whole game. It adds just the right amount of reveal without it being extremely detailed to the point where your mind can’t make up it’s own bits and pieces.
Final Thoughts
This book has its good and bad, it’s an intriguing story that doesn’t leave room for early guesses. It was a great read, it went by faster than I had imagined and the ending was acceptable, not my favorite, but I still liked it
This one starts off with a bang, it felt as if you got pushed into the story and just had to hang on to each detail. The beginning was fast paced, one thing was happening after the other, the threats became very realistic, and you could sense the fear and paranoia that Dr.Starks’ feels.
During the story I kept feeling sorry for the Dr. after getting on the bad side of a patient, his life crumbles. You get to see how everything he holds close to his heart gets ripped away. He’s forced to play this game and the clues he gets don’t help him much.
This thriller is one of those where you don’t get to guess who the patient is, you get clues and you get information from the Doctor, but you have no true way of knowing who the patient is before he does. And even then, you don’t have time to theorize who he is, so many things happen in those 15 days that it’s hard to pick up the clues and put them together.
The writing was good, at moments a bit slower paced mostly towards the second section of the book, it gets a bit more tiring and you can tell the story is getting stretched. The first part was definitely more fast paced and intense. The problem solving was more captivating than the second portion of the book where things take a turn. Nonetheless, the rest of the book is good, just different.
Something that helped me not get stuck on the slower paced portions was switching between the audiobook and physical reading. With the added suspense music and the narration were a great way of making the story more gut churning and suspenseful.
This book accomplished the feeling of complete distrust in every character that Dr.Starks encounters. You second guess everything that is told to him, every step forward he takes you’re sat waiting for something to make him take 3 steps back.
Also towards the end you get the chance to admire the villain’s work at plotting this entire game. The lengths he had to go for this to go his way, the entire process of planning and calculating was done meticulously which made for a catching reveal. Don’t worry though, he doesn’t get the full blown villain speech that some hate, but you get a taste of how his mind operated during the whole game. It adds just the right amount of reveal without it being extremely detailed to the point where your mind can’t make up it’s own bits and pieces.
Final Thoughts
This book has its good and bad, it’s an intriguing story that doesn’t leave room for early guesses. It was a great read, it went by faster than I had imagined and the ending was acceptable, not my favorite, but I still liked it