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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
One of the most surprising reads for me in a long time.
Even tho I figured out "who dunit" 1/2 way thru, the author still
provided enough twists and turns for me to still go "OMG!!!!"
Even tho I figured out "who dunit" 1/2 way thru, the author still
provided enough twists and turns for me to still go "OMG!!!!"
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is normally not a book that I would pick up to read. But something in the summary caught my attention and I had to start reading.
I felt a little lost through most of the book, with the back story of Tessa, the independent investigator on the case of the kidnapped family and the who and why of the kidnapping. I felt that the story dragged on quite a bit, but after reading the entire book, I got why so many details were added.
Justin, Libby and Ashlyn Denbe are kidnapped with a bang during the first chapter of the book. We are then taken on a wild ride as we follow the kidnapping in Libby's eyes. After being tasered, drugged, and finally forced to live three deep in a prison cell, the family starts to break down. Things come to light that you really wouldn't have expected.
We also have Tessa Leoni's POV along with Wyatt, Sheriff in New Hampshire, pov. Seeing things from the pov of the police and investigators was a nice change of pace, though the constant switching of the povs was a little much for me; since I couldn't always tell who's pov I was reading.
The kidnappers request a ransom, and once that is paid you would think that the story is over; everyone goes on their merry way and things are good.... Well in this case you would be wrong! There are even more twists and turns.
This makes for one completely thrilling read, and while it took me a bit to really get into it, once I did I couldn't stop reading!
I felt a little lost through most of the book, with the back story of Tessa, the independent investigator on the case of the kidnapped family and the who and why of the kidnapping. I felt that the story dragged on quite a bit, but after reading the entire book, I got why so many details were added.
Justin, Libby and Ashlyn Denbe are kidnapped with a bang during the first chapter of the book. We are then taken on a wild ride as we follow the kidnapping in Libby's eyes. After being tasered, drugged, and finally forced to live three deep in a prison cell, the family starts to break down. Things come to light that you really wouldn't have expected.
We also have Tessa Leoni's POV along with Wyatt, Sheriff in New Hampshire, pov. Seeing things from the pov of the police and investigators was a nice change of pace, though the constant switching of the povs was a little much for me; since I couldn't always tell who's pov I was reading.
The kidnappers request a ransom, and once that is paid you would think that the story is over; everyone goes on their merry way and things are good.... Well in this case you would be wrong! There are even more twists and turns.
This makes for one completely thrilling read, and while it took me a bit to really get into it, once I did I couldn't stop reading!
Investigator Tessa Leone covers the missing Denbe family – a wealthy family that was abducted from their Beacon Hill home. As the owner of the Denbe Construction Company, the stakes are very high for the BPD to find the family – and quickly. Again, I found the audio to be very strong and enjoyed the different components to the story – including everyone’s perspectives. I was happy that I guessed the ending correctly towards the beginning, but the book was still very enjoyable – I especially liked the parts where we saw how the family was dealing with being held captive.
How did we end up here?
Much to my pleasant surprise Penguin contacted me to review this one. I’m pretty sure they’re in on my mind meld or something because I was certainly looking for something different, more adult and along the thriller lines. Hello! Couldn’t get much more fitting than TOUCH & GO so I accepted it. The only thing was couple of adult thrillers I have read in the past were short on thrills and if I happened to like the bulk of the book the ending was a tank so I had reasonably high hopes that this title wouldn’t suck. I’m not familiar with the author so I didn’t have much to go on other than an interesting-sounding premise.
Okay, book. You've got 50 pages. Go!
The good thing about thrillers, they’re usually super interesting right of the beginning. Hence thrill, right? Needless to say TOUCH & GO didn’t disappoint. The gas pedal was pressed within the first chapter and it was all go from there. The voices of the various characters were immediate draws for me as well. Nothing seemed to try too hard or overreach at all. I believed everything I was reading so it was easy to get soaked into the story.
What worked . . .
The characters. Every single one of them was compelling and just a little bit effed up for me to get involved in. No one was over the top although a couple of scenes did have the Law & Order doink doink noise ringing in my head as I read them but overall the tone, the pacing, the plot, it was all incredibly engaging and I had a hard time putting the damn thing down. Troublesome with things like work and sleep in the way.
I think one of the reasons thrillers appeal to me so much is because they keep my brain spinning. I have a hard time predicting what’s going to happen and all TOUCH & GO did was keep me constantly guessing. I kept being wrong time and time again but it made all the shocks in the story that much more, well, shocking because my blind ass couldn’t see them coming.
The book kept dropping hints into Tessa’s previous cop life and it was just enough to make me want to go out and buy the relevant book. I got an idea of what happened to this woman and what her motivation was going forward to find the family but it didn’t detract from the story. I wasn’t bogged down in erroneous past life detail that would only make a convoluted plot more confusing. It was all very streamlined, though, and read effortlessly. That’s some level of talent right there.
I also liked how every character, no matter who seemingly shitbaggy, had at least one redeeming quality to him or her, whether it was a weakness for family, a willingness to help others or even not letting your fellow kidnapper pummel the shit out of a woman. Gardner did an excellent job of rounding out each and every character, making them anything other than what they seemed and forcing you to keep guessing not only about the plot but about the characters themselves. From the scummiest kidnapper to the highest ranking FBI agent, there wasn’t a single character that I could have done without. How she managed to juggle so many and keep them as independent and dynamic as she did blows my mind.
What didn't work . . .
I wasn’t a fan of Justin’s all-consuming awesomeness in construction. We have a term in the insurance world for contractors that think they know it all: jack of all trades and master of none. I bought the size of the company, I bought the jobs they did, I bought Justin’s character and how he functioned within his role but I couldn’t get on board when things like how he wired the alarm system in his house himself were mentioned. Not when he grew up doing drywall but he’s master game player too. That’s not to say he can’t be knowledgable in multiple lines of the trade but if he’s a master carpenter he didn’t get there being a master of fifteen other things too.
Yeah, little nit pick and ultimately irrelevant to the greater story but considering my own knowledge of the trade I couldn’t help but latch on and it bugged me through the end of the book and it still kind of bugs me now.
And in the end . . .
I’ve added the rest of Lisa’s books to my WANT list on Goodreads. I do have a fear that they’ll get a little procedural after a while but I have hope. I do think this kind of thing does have a tendency of wearing thin but I guess you’ll get that with anything by the same person, be it book, TV show or whatever. I love me my Law & Order: SVU but there’s only so much of that show I can watch. And I do think TOUCH & GO read like a police procedural show but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it just means I could visualize it better. But I’m looking forward to reading more Gardner, especially her bother book about Tessa. That’s some history I NEED to get my hands on. I just have to know what happened.
Much to my pleasant surprise Penguin contacted me to review this one. I’m pretty sure they’re in on my mind meld or something because I was certainly looking for something different, more adult and along the thriller lines. Hello! Couldn’t get much more fitting than TOUCH & GO so I accepted it. The only thing was couple of adult thrillers I have read in the past were short on thrills and if I happened to like the bulk of the book the ending was a tank so I had reasonably high hopes that this title wouldn’t suck. I’m not familiar with the author so I didn’t have much to go on other than an interesting-sounding premise.
Okay, book. You've got 50 pages. Go!
The good thing about thrillers, they’re usually super interesting right of the beginning. Hence thrill, right? Needless to say TOUCH & GO didn’t disappoint. The gas pedal was pressed within the first chapter and it was all go from there. The voices of the various characters were immediate draws for me as well. Nothing seemed to try too hard or overreach at all. I believed everything I was reading so it was easy to get soaked into the story.
What worked . . .
The characters. Every single one of them was compelling and just a little bit effed up for me to get involved in. No one was over the top although a couple of scenes did have the Law & Order doink doink noise ringing in my head as I read them but overall the tone, the pacing, the plot, it was all incredibly engaging and I had a hard time putting the damn thing down. Troublesome with things like work and sleep in the way.
I think one of the reasons thrillers appeal to me so much is because they keep my brain spinning. I have a hard time predicting what’s going to happen and all TOUCH & GO did was keep me constantly guessing. I kept being wrong time and time again but it made all the shocks in the story that much more, well, shocking because my blind ass couldn’t see them coming.
The book kept dropping hints into Tessa’s previous cop life and it was just enough to make me want to go out and buy the relevant book. I got an idea of what happened to this woman and what her motivation was going forward to find the family but it didn’t detract from the story. I wasn’t bogged down in erroneous past life detail that would only make a convoluted plot more confusing. It was all very streamlined, though, and read effortlessly. That’s some level of talent right there.
I also liked how every character, no matter who seemingly shitbaggy, had at least one redeeming quality to him or her, whether it was a weakness for family, a willingness to help others or even not letting your fellow kidnapper pummel the shit out of a woman. Gardner did an excellent job of rounding out each and every character, making them anything other than what they seemed and forcing you to keep guessing not only about the plot but about the characters themselves. From the scummiest kidnapper to the highest ranking FBI agent, there wasn’t a single character that I could have done without. How she managed to juggle so many and keep them as independent and dynamic as she did blows my mind.
What didn't work . . .
I wasn’t a fan of Justin’s all-consuming awesomeness in construction. We have a term in the insurance world for contractors that think they know it all: jack of all trades and master of none. I bought the size of the company, I bought the jobs they did, I bought Justin’s character and how he functioned within his role but I couldn’t get on board when things like how he wired the alarm system in his house himself were mentioned. Not when he grew up doing drywall but he’s master game player too. That’s not to say he can’t be knowledgable in multiple lines of the trade but if he’s a master carpenter he didn’t get there being a master of fifteen other things too.
Yeah, little nit pick and ultimately irrelevant to the greater story but considering my own knowledge of the trade I couldn’t help but latch on and it bugged me through the end of the book and it still kind of bugs me now.
And in the end . . .
I’ve added the rest of Lisa’s books to my WANT list on Goodreads. I do have a fear that they’ll get a little procedural after a while but I have hope. I do think this kind of thing does have a tendency of wearing thin but I guess you’ll get that with anything by the same person, be it book, TV show or whatever. I love me my Law & Order: SVU but there’s only so much of that show I can watch. And I do think TOUCH & GO read like a police procedural show but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it just means I could visualize it better. But I’m looking forward to reading more Gardner, especially her bother book about Tessa. That’s some history I NEED to get my hands on. I just have to know what happened.
Excellent! Lisa Gardner at her best!! Totally suspenseful, lots of action, and great plot! This one even had a bit of redemption and heart. Love it!
Okay so far each and every book from Lisa Gardner have been impressive and it is because of this that shes one of the authors that are always on my auto-read list. I don't mind actually going in blank without checking any reviews of her books. Tessa Leoni in Love you More was brilliant from what I remember and in Touch and Go, we find her trying to find a family as a whole who have been kidnapped. There were so many by-plays in the story with a very interesting set of secondary characters and Libby's voice sort of felt like an absent-minded woman which was I guess intentional as shes a drug addict for the major part of the story.