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Fourth of July Creek: A Novel
Scritto da Smith Henderson
Narrato da MacLeod Andrews e Jenna Lamia
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After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.
But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.
In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. Fourth of July Creek is an unforgettable, unflinching debut that marks the arrival of a major literary talent.
Azioni libro
Inizia ad ascoltareInformazioni sul libro
Fourth of July Creek: A Novel
Scritto da Smith Henderson
Narrato da MacLeod Andrews e Jenna Lamia
Descrizione
After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.
But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.
In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. Fourth of July Creek is an unforgettable, unflinching debut that marks the arrival of a major literary talent.
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It was a good read. Her books usually are. I didn't agree with ending, though. Alice got away with everything while Ronnie suffered.
In what at first appears to be a burglary gone wrong, At first, the murder a successful Wall Street trader and his family appears to be a burglary gone wrong. Then another financial executive dies in a suspicious “suicide.” Ty Hauck left law enforcement and is now an investigator works for a major private security firm. As he investigates the deaths, he uncovers an international financial conspiracy and discovers that the miscreants will kill anyone who gets in their way.With its fast pace and building suspense coupled with convincing characters, makes this a book that will give readers much to enjoy.Recommended.
elaborate thriller set in a world where everything is connected, where not just bullets can kill people. highly plausible how things could happen as described.
I have never read a novel by Andrew Gross, but have enjoyed Gross's joint ventures in writing with James Patterson. Gross and Patterson both employ the short chapter that tricks a reader into completing another chapter. Both men utilize a range of characters and settings that force the reader to continue reading just to discover what is happening. This novel centers on a worldwide plot to topple the financial world that reeks of reality. Has the world become like King Midas who never has enough power and wealth? As usual, both Patterson and Gross write a fast paced novel that demands that the reader stop and think about the world's corrupt practices.
An ex-policeman working in a private financial firm becomes involved in the investigation of two prominent banking heads who are killed. His investigation gets him involved with the US government and takes his chase around the world. So very good. Grabs you from the start. So typical Andrew Gross!
I don't normally pick up books like this, I have to be in a rare mood to read a thriller, but something about the Goodreads description intrigued me to enter the giveaway and lo and behold, I won. This book is apparently third in a series, but that fact had no impact on the storyline at all. It read like it's own, independent novel and it was a nice change of pace from what I have been reading lately.When a friend from investigator Ty Hauck's past is murdered, he finds himself trying to solve the case and is thus drawn into a much larger mystery involving the collapse of the economy. Together with government agent Naomi Blum he travels the world to find out once and for all what's going on and to bring justice to his deceased friend.The plot line was intricate and could be seen from several different points of views of various characters. It read like a movie and was definitely a page-turner right through the bitter end. Just when you think things are winding down -BAM!- they're not and I loved that. What's more, you can tell Gross is a student of James Patterson because of the chapter length. I love short chapters, they really keep a novel moving in my opinion. Overall, glad to have won and read it.
Excellent book. Good pace/rhythm. I will definitely read more Gross.
Andrew Gross has had a seven-year partnership with James Patterson and it shows. I'm mixed about James Patterson who I thought wrote some great books early in his career - the first Alex Cross books were truly outstanding thrillers - and then became, quite frankly, a hack spewing out indifferent thrillers back-to-back. Andrew Gross has benefited in a sense from both sides of this equation - he's definitely learned the elements of a successful thriller and he's definitely learned to spew out the formula. You can probably guess that I'm not impressed with the latter half of the equation.I read a lot of thrillers and many of them are very good. Sure, they follow a formula, but the best ones go beyond that to deliver both plot and characters that make you want to keep turning the pages. Unfortunately for me this just didn't deliver anything beyond the average. The plot premise was definitely interesting: What if the recent economic crisis was actually evidence of a complex terrorist action targeting the financial sector? It's an idea with a lot of promise - a sort of Law and Order ripped from the headlines kind of thing (and I do love Law and Order).Where the problems come is in the characters who are pretty lackluster and typical. Yes, yes, the intrepid hero is intrepid and, well, heroic. Yes, yes, the government agent is female, skinny, and model-beautiful - can you see the TV mini-series being cast? If the book was skewed more towards the female agent, it'd be on Lifetime, but since it's skewed towards the intrepid hero think FX.Don't get me wrong, this was fairly entertaining, but not entertaining enough to keep me up reading and that's the minimum requirement for me to think it was a great thriller.
Summary: Two eleven year old girls are convicted after they kidnap the baby girl of a prominent public official. Seven years later, they are released and babies start disappearing again.The Take-Away: I really thought that this would be tough to read, but the violence stayed off the pages. It was referred to, but never in detail. In fact, the lack of detail added to the suspense of the story. Who really was the murderer? Was it the dutiful Alice Manning or the unpredictable Ronnie Fuller? Each girl blamed the other, but the true story doesn't come out until the end of the novel.Lippman is better known for her Tess Monaghan. I'm not familiar with them but would pick them up. The writing in this one was so fab that the others are probably good too.Recommendation: If the subject matter seems too tough, try a different title. This author is worth it.
I read this book a couple years ago after seeing the excerpt in the back of the book I was reading. I anticipated the book, read it, and was thoroghly disappointed. It wasn't just that the characters were horrible people, it was the writing itself. There wasn't much to recommend it, and the story, since it wasn't well written, dragged forever for me. This is a book that lasted probably a month for me (really unheard of when it comes to me and reading), but I just couldn't get into it. When I was done I just let out a relieved sigh. Yeah, I could have set it asside, but as I've mentioned before, it was always really hard for me not to finish a book once I start it. Now I'm finding that it's ok...lifes too short to stick with the bad ones.
Sure, there aren't many characters to like in this novel, but I'm not so simple as to not be able to enjoy and appreciate what an author does because there are no sunshine and puppies. If you want a nice little novel about people doing nice little things (yawn) look elsewhere. If you aren't afraid the the dark side of human nature and can enjoy a novel about people you wouldn't necessarily want over for dinner, you could do worse than this book. I found it an interesting look into what women are capable of. So often we want to deny women the ability to be vicious or dangerous, but this novel puts them on equal footing with men in those departments. Overall I enjoyed the story about these fractured people and how their lives intersected. Helen disturbed me the most and I think the narrator did a great job with her character. Her low self-esteem manifested itself in such bizarre ways that seemed to contradict and then override any maternal instinct she might have posessed. Alice, her daughter, was drawn a bit heavy-handed to be completely believable and I wasn't surprised to see her true self emerge in the end. Ronnie, while not always a sympathetic character, earned those feelings in the end, at least from me. Cynthia was a woman driven by her dark side just as much as Helen was. Nancy wasn't so clearly drawn as the rest. She kept harping on her former need for attention, but it didn't really come through since we were beyond its time frame. While it's not her best work, I think Lippman wrote an unusual story well.
Two eleven-year-old girls kidnap what they believe to be an abandoned baby. A few days later the baby is found dead. Fast forward seven years as the two girls are released from prison. Then other children start disappearing. Alice and Ronnie are the two girls. As the reader gets inside each of their heads, it is obvious they have some serious problems. They are not so much friends as co-dependents. Alice appears to be the one easily manipulated but the twist comes in the end as Detective Nancy Porter works these disturbing cases. The most interesting character is the mother of the baby who died seven years ago. Her vengeance makes the reader almost believe she is the one behind the kidnappings just so she can get the two girls blamed and back into prison. Seven years, in her mind, wasn’t enough for killing her baby. She had wanted them tried as adults but the prosecutor had struck a deal. Her stalking of the two girls is pretty eerie but understandable.
I really enjoyed this book. Lippman's writing is engrossing from the first word making this book difficult to put down. I did sort of guess the ending, but it is sort of obvious. What I didn't see were the small details, and that's what really makes this book.
I'm really hoping that Lippman has a few more books for me to add to my to read list. I would definitely recommend this to someone who likes a bit of a crime thriller, but a crime thriller with a bit of a twist!
I'm really hoping that Lippman has a few more books for me to add to my to read list. I would definitely recommend this to someone who likes a bit of a crime thriller, but a crime thriller with a bit of a twist!
Synopsis: Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller, two 11-year-old Baltimore girls, were on their way home from a birthday party when their lives were changed forever. The girls spot a child, unattended in a baby carriage. Deciding to help, the girls take the baby and try to care for it. But the baby dies, and Alice and Ronnie are sent away for 7 years.At the age of 18, the two girls are released and instructed to have no contact with one another. Each girl is to try to build a new life for herself. But when babies start to disappear in situations startlingly similar to Alice and Ronnie's crime, people begin to wonder whether the two girls should have been released and what really happened to the baby the girls were charged with murdering.Review: The premise of this novel is very intriguing. Two 11-year-old girls kill an infant, serve time in jail, are released, and then similar crimes begin to occur. I think, especially given the unfortunate events that occur in our society, children committing murder does hold a bit of fascination for the reader.With that being said, I wasn't blown away by this novel. I enjoyed it, particularly the first half of the novel, but it ended up being one of those books that are more exciting in the dust jacket description than in execution.The characters were well written. The plot was good. The writing style was very easy to fall into. This book was also a very quick read. There was just something lacking for me, though. It was missing that extra bit of oomph that would have pushed me from lukewarm to on fire.If you are looking for a decent mystery novel with an unusual plot, definitely check this book out. I wouldn't steer anyone away from this book, but I might not guide them toward it either.
Two eleven year old girls are asked to leave a birthday party after one of them gets angry and accidentally hits the birthday girl’s mother. They are allowed to leave without a ride home and without any adult supervision. On their way home, they spot a baby in a carriage, unsupervised, outside the closed door of a house. The girls take the baby and later say that they took the baby to protect it and keep it safe. The problem is that the baby is dead. Did one of the girls kill it, or both, or did it die naturally of SIDS? Only the girls know the truth and they blame each other. Seven years later, babies are going missing again. Is it one or both of the girls, just recently home from juvenile detention, as the mother of the deceased baby thinks, or is it someone else?Every Secret Thing is a really good mystery with lots of twists. Some of the twists I anticipated in advance, but others took me by surprise. It is told through a variety of the characters’ views, sometimes switching from one to another too fast for my taste, but it does add more detail to the story. I hate to say it, but I didn’t really like any of the characters in Every Secret Thing, but I’m not sure Lippman wants the reader to like them. I did kind of like the detective, Nancy, but she wasn’t really well-developed enough to gain much investment from me. I didn’t trust either of the two girls, and I really didn’t like the mother of the baby that was killed in the beginning. She just seemed self-important, judgmental, and bossy. Alice’s mother seemed odd, and I wasn’t sure what to think about Alice’s lawyer, but I didn’t really like her either. The reporter obviously didn’t care about anyone other than herself and I never understood what had caused her to become stuck at such a low-level position to begin with. Despite the character issues, Every Secret Thing keeps you guessing, making you question what you think you already know. It had me racing to the end to find out if my suspicions were accurate or not. It was a thrilling ride and I was itching to know what the truth really was.I recommend this one, with just a little complaint that the character POV change was too abrupt at times.
I couldn't finish reading this sick sensationalist murder tale.A waste of time better spent reading almost anything else.Laura Lippman makes this stuff up, she must be a real charm to live with. She should purge her soul by researching and writing a novel about nice people doing nice things.
This was the first book I've read by this author. She writes the Tess Monaghan mystery series, but this title is a standalone. It's well written and in some ways reminded me of Minette Walters with the way it delved into characters, offering insights from the past to explain the present. At its heart, it's the story of how the past can come back to haunt the present and the powerless of some people to change things for the better.Alice and Ronnie were eleven years old when they happened across a baby in a stroller in front of a house. Convinced the baby had been abandoned, they took her, and were blamed for Olivia Barnes' death. Now, 7 years later, they've been released from "kid prison" to start their lives over. But when another child disappears, suspicion falls on the two young women.But it's not just Alice and Ronnie's lives that have been altered. There is the detective who, as a police cadet enlisted in the search for Olivia Barnes, found the baby's body and is now one of the investigators on the current missing child case. There is also Alice's public defender lawyer who still thinks Alice got a raw deal, and Alice's mother, who seems to have perfected her own brand of denial. And finally, there is Olivia's mother. Cynthia Barnes never got over her baby's death, and her need for vengeance propels much of the action and the inevitability of the conclusion.I enjoyed the book a lot, but felt at times, a bit manipulated. Lippman is careful to not tell us any detail before she's ready for us to know it. Yet by the end of the book, I felt as if I knew each character intimately and that's due to Lippman's engrossing, engaging prose. If you like a suspenseful page turner, you'll likely find it here.
Every Secret Thing is a standalone mystery that is not part of the Tess Monaghan detective series. This dark story from Lippman was inspired by a real crime in which two ten-year-old boys killed a three-year-old boy. In Every Secret Thing, the perpetrators are two eleven-year-old lower class white girls, Alice and Ronnie, and the victim is a nine-month-old baby named Olivia from an upper class black family. Thus, Lippman explores not only the crime and the nature of the juvenile justice system, but also the intersection of race and class in Baltimore County.Alice and Ronnie are each automatically released from prison at age eighteen, and simultaneously, a rash of child abductions occur. Most of the children reappear shortly after they are taken, until Maveen Little’s three-year-old girl is taken, and she doesn’t return.Evaluation: Nothing is as straightforward as it seems in this story. Even the twists don’t resolve neatly; the book is in fact more like “real life” than one might want! Interestingly, almost all the characters are female. There is no romance to lighten the mood, nor actually much of anything that lightens the mood. This is a good book, but one that had me longing to go back to the brighter life of Tess Monaghan.Note: This book won both the Anthony Award (for mystery novels) and the Barry Award (for crime novels) in 2004.
In this novel Lippman makes everything work for her. Even if this means completely altering her characters to better fit the predictable plot. The story has promise; two young girls who are accused of kidnapping a baby, that eventually leads to the infant's untimely death (sick, yes, I know, but plot-worthy). I was as confused as the two girls in this story by the time I finished it, not by the plot, but on who was who because their personas changed as quickly as a woman's emotions going through menopause. One word: bleh.
Synopsis: Two young girls, Alice and Ronnie, are sent home from a birthday party for misbehaving. On their way they discover a baby in a baby carriage sitting outside a house. No one is around so they rescue her and hide her. When the baby is found she is dead. Both girls are sentenced to 7 years in a correctional facility. Once they are out, at age 18 years, they return to their homes. Ronnie gets a job and tries to pick up her life. Alice wanders the streets, ostensibly to lose weight. Another child is missing and both young women are suspected. Detective Nancy is put on the case. She thinks something was wrong with the first case and that its connected to the this one. The mother of the fist child is sending hints to the police and to the newspapers to move the case along. Nancy must determine if this woman has an ulterior motive.Review: This was a good story but was draggy in parts. It was a nice change from Tess books.
This was a wonderful book! This was my first book to read by this author. I was prompted to read this because it won the Anthony Award for 2004, and I am always interested in reading any books that have won this literary award. It was a page turner to the very end.
This was better-written than I expected a mass-market paperback to be. And it had a good twist at the end. However, I disliked the "born bad" explanation for the murder; that is just as "easy" and stereotypical as blaming the girl from the tough home.
I can’t say my first experience with author, Laura Lippman was a positive one. I really didn’t enjoy Every Secret Thing. I thought the plot jumped around to much. There seemed to be far to many unnecessary story-lines. So many times well reading the book I was thinking. O.k. Where is Ms. Lippman going with this? Also I kept thinking. Can you please get to the point. Pages and pages of descriptions and pointless chatter between characters that didn’t really have a part in the story. I won’t give up on Ms. Lippman totally. I’ll read a few more of her books. Hopefully she has something else worth-while reading.
Train WreckAnyone who thinks about reading this book needs to understand that everyone in the book is a complete train wreck. The social worker who is the main focus, his estranged wife, daughter, girlfriend, brother and boyhood best friend. And then there's the people he is trying to help -- almost always unsuccessfully. None of these people is just mildly flawed -- they are all walking disasters. The one hint in the last few pages of something going right is erased by the last page in the book. Don't expect to be uplifted, satisfied or anything other than regretful that you had to read through such horror stories of lives.
Absolute page turner, filled with really gorgeous writing and decadently rich characters. A clever, deep, and yet completely readable book. How nice! And I love that there were big complex words that needed to be looked up...no one does that anymore! Why? Smith Henderson obviously is a true craftsman, and a real talent.
This is the story of a Montana social worker, a flawed character in need of social work himself. He comes across Benjamin Pearl, a nearly feral boy living in the wilderness with his survivalist father Jeremiah, who is paranoid and mentally disturbed. Pete, the social worker, begins leaving food and other items that might be useful to the family in an attempt to gain their trust. Then, confirming Jeremiah's fears, the FBI comes to believe that Jeremiah is a terrorist. Pete's professional dramas are played against Pete's chaotic family life. Pete fights his own alcoholism. He is divorced from his wife who is unstable, and has followed a trucker to Austin, taking their daughter with her. After their daughter runs away, Pete also spends much time and resources to trying to find her. Pete's brother is also a fugitive from the law, and Pete is involved in trying to find him as well.kI enjoyed the book, was interested in many of the characters. There is a great deal going on throughout this rather long book--we learn much about the hard lives of the survivalists living in the great western wildernesses, the life of a teenage runaway on the streets of Seattle, the lives of children whose parents are crack addicts, and who are shunted through foster homes, and even into juvenile detention if no foster homes are available, the life of hard-scrabble musicians in Austin Texas. It's a very sad book, full of broken characters. It might have been a better book had the author not attempted such breadth, but it is nevertheless a book well-worth reading if you can deal with the pain of the characters.3 1/2 stars
Joy's review: Yes, everyone in this book is a train wreck. The social worker, the kids he's trying to help, his own daughter, the crazy guy living on the mountain. It also a wonderfully written book. All the scenes are vivid; all the characters seemed very realistic; all the dialogue I could hear in my head. For me, one of the primary reasons to read fiction is to get a glimpse of other lives quite different from my own and hopefully to become more empathetic and kind as a result. This book did this very well.
In the opening chapter we are introduced to Pete Snow, social worker, as he intervenes with a very dysfunctional family in Pete's jurisdiction of rural Montana. And we think, "Ah, a do-gooder! Let's root for Pete." But come the second chapter, we find that Pete's pretty dysfunctional too. His wife is leaving him, and his daughter has no sympathy for him either for the things he's done, so our sympathies shift to them. But, no, we then find up they're pretty screwed up, too.
Indeed, there's not a single character in this book--and there are quite a few--who isn't screwed up in one way or another.
And by the end, a major character whom we perceived as being screwed-up from his introduction becomes one who gains some of our sympathy.
Human beings are a complicated lot, we are. No one can righteously carry the mantle of angel, and there are few true devils. The book ends, "You gotta believe. You can't just go through live acting like there are answers to every--"
The book is very well written. Ironically, with so much ugliness happening in the narrative, it is countered in the narrative by so much beautiful prose. I question a bit whether some of the wonderful allusion and metaphor the author uses should have been allowed to slop over into the things actually voiced by some of the uneducated characters, but I suppose that's literary license.
This is Smith Henderson's first novel, and I would look forward to his next.
Indeed, there's not a single character in this book--and there are quite a few--who isn't screwed up in one way or another.
And by the end, a major character whom we perceived as being screwed-up from his introduction becomes one who gains some of our sympathy.
Human beings are a complicated lot, we are. No one can righteously carry the mantle of angel, and there are few true devils. The book ends, "You gotta believe. You can't just go through live acting like there are answers to every--"
The book is very well written. Ironically, with so much ugliness happening in the narrative, it is countered in the narrative by so much beautiful prose. I question a bit whether some of the wonderful allusion and metaphor the author uses should have been allowed to slop over into the things actually voiced by some of the uneducated characters, but I suppose that's literary license.
This is Smith Henderson's first novel, and I would look forward to his next.
This book and its characters are so messed up. There are some truly despicable characters with some truly despicable lifestyles but the writing and story were so compelling that I didn't want to put it down. Most readers won't have trouble finding somebody to hate in this story, and overall it is bleak and devoid of happiness but well worth a read in my opinion. By the end my feelings were so conflicted.
The only criticism I have is that the "interview" type chapters with the daughter were confusing and uninteresting the first few times. It wasn't until later on that I really got into them and appreciated that perspective. The ending will surely disappoint those looking for a tidy conclusion to this hot mess of a great book. Highly recommended, unless you're easily offended.
The only criticism I have is that the "interview" type chapters with the daughter were confusing and uninteresting the first few times. It wasn't until later on that I really got into them and appreciated that perspective. The ending will surely disappoint those looking for a tidy conclusion to this hot mess of a great book. Highly recommended, unless you're easily offended.
This is an extraordinary first novel. Pete Snow, a 31 year old social worker, seems to be failing at his personal
and professional lives, overmatched by the evils of the world, drinking way too much. Three stories are interwoven: the failure of Pete's marriage and disappearance of his daughter; the tragedy of a family infected by drugs; and the story of Jeremiah and Benjamin Pearl. Can Pete save any of them? Himself?
and professional lives, overmatched by the evils of the world, drinking way too much. Three stories are interwoven: the failure of Pete's marriage and disappearance of his daughter; the tragedy of a family infected by drugs; and the story of Jeremiah and Benjamin Pearl. Can Pete save any of them? Himself?