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Slow start, but ending was unexpected.
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Carmine Delmonico #1
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Hardcover with dust jacket
372 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,2006
This edition
- Format
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372 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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May 23, 2006 by Simon \u0026 Schuster
- ISBN
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9780743286428
- ASIN
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0743286421
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
About the author
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Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and Tim.
Raised by her mother in Wellington and then Sydney, McCullough began writing stories at age 5. She flourished at Catholic schools and earned a physiology degree from the University of New South Wales in 1963. Planning become a doctor, she found that she had a violent allergy to hospital soap and turned instead to neurophysiology – the study of the nervous system's functions. She found jobs first in London and then at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
After her beloved younger brother Carl died in 1965 at age 25 while rescuing two drowning women in the waters off Crete, a shattered McCullough quit writing. She finally returned to her craft in 1974 with Tim, a critically acclaimed novel about the romance between a female executive and a younger, mentally disabled gardener. As always, the author proved her toughest critic: "Actually," she said, "it was an icky book, saccharine sweet."
A year later, while on a paltry $10,000 annual salary as a Yale researcher, McCullough – just "Col" to her friends – began work on the sprawling The Thorn Birds, about the lives and loves of three generations of an Australian family. Many of its details were drawn from her mother's family's experience as migrant workers, and one character, Dane, was based on brother Carl.
Though some reviews were scathing, millions of readers worldwide got caught up in her tales of doomed love and other natural calamities. The paperback rights sold for an astonishing $1.9 million.
In all, McCullough wrote 11 novels.
Source: http://www.people.com/article/colleen...
Raised by her mother in Wellington and then Sydney, McCullough began writing stories at age 5. She flourished at Catholic schools and earned a physiology degree from the University of New South Wales in 1963. Planning become a doctor, she found that she had a violent allergy to hospital soap and turned instead to neurophysiology – the study of the nervous system's functions. She found jobs first in London and then at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
After her beloved younger brother Carl died in 1965 at age 25 while rescuing two drowning women in the waters off Crete, a shattered McCullough quit writing. She finally returned to her craft in 1974 with Tim, a critically acclaimed novel about the romance between a female executive and a younger, mentally disabled gardener. As always, the author proved her toughest critic: "Actually," she said, "it was an icky book, saccharine sweet."
A year later, while on a paltry $10,000 annual salary as a Yale researcher, McCullough – just "Col" to her friends – began work on the sprawling The Thorn Birds, about the lives and loves of three generations of an Australian family. Many of its details were drawn from her mother's family's experience as migrant workers, and one character, Dane, was based on brother Carl.
Though some reviews were scathing, millions of readers worldwide got caught up in her tales of doomed love and other natural calamities. The paperback rights sold for an astonishing $1.9 million.
In all, McCullough wrote 11 novels.
Source: http://www.people.com/article/colleen...
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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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The writing is brilliant, the ‘scare’ factor delivered, detective is well done… just the ending was unpleasant in its delivery. I like a good cat & mouse chase, I like a writer to tease & throw me off the scent, I like being surprised, but…! This felt like the writer wanted a last laugh at our expense, and I didn’t enjoy her joke so, 3.5 stars.
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http://verovsky-meninadospoliciais.bl...
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Este libro se me hizo un poco pesado a decir verdad, no sólo en el principio, sino que en el transcurso del libro también. Si hubo momentos en el que logró engancharme, y es por eso que no lo abandoné, pero no logré conectarme con el libro y no tanto como me gustaría con los personajes.
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I read this book simply because it was sat on my roommate's and I's shared living room shelf. The cover piqued my interest, and the summary was reminiscent of a lot of my grandparent's collection of various thrifted murder mysteries I'd read as a child. While I can't say it was my favorite novel I've read, it captured my interest well enough to read it in one sitting.
My biggest critiques are the characters and the very abrupt fashion in which they were introduced. As someone else had mentioned in the reviews here, my first instinct too, was to write a list of the names and a summary due to the density. You learn of their roles and positions within the medical facility they are employed before learning much else; by then their names and roles are a memory. I found myself flipping back to make sure I was correctly understanding which character was which. Within the critique of characters as well, there are pivotal points of character changes that I found deeply confusing; fundamental changes to a character's attitude happening within the five months in which the book takes place. Some of the dialogue felt very strange as well, and it felt as though stereotypes bled though into the foreign characters. One could argue this is from the point of view of our main narrator Lieutenant Carmine given the time period, but there were a few moments that had me questioning the biases of the author.
The climax was somewhat underwhelming, the final three chapters felt rushed into completing the novel, wrapping it up. The mystery behind the individual who was released due to a lack of evidence is not solved for the audience until the final handful of pages, and is not very strongly foreshadowed throughout the novel; only enough to be aware something was not quite right with the character in question. The audience is left with many unsolved questions nonetheless, and the final chapters seem to focus more on the interpersonal relationships that Carmine had made. I can't say I would read this novel again, but it was not an entirely unpleasant experience.
My biggest critiques are the characters and the very abrupt fashion in which they were introduced. As someone else had mentioned in the reviews here, my first instinct too, was to write a list of the names and a summary due to the density. You learn of their roles and positions within the medical facility they are employed before learning much else; by then their names and roles are a memory. I found myself flipping back to make sure I was correctly understanding which character was which. Within the critique of characters as well, there are pivotal points of character changes that I found deeply confusing; fundamental changes to a character's attitude happening within the five months in which the book takes place. Some of the dialogue felt very strange as well, and it felt as though stereotypes bled though into the foreign characters. One could argue this is from the point of view of our main narrator Lieutenant Carmine given the time period, but there were a few moments that had me questioning the biases of the author.
The climax was somewhat underwhelming, the final three chapters felt rushed into completing the novel, wrapping it up. The mystery behind the individual who was released due to a lack of evidence is not solved for the audience until the final handful of pages, and is not very strongly foreshadowed throughout the novel; only enough to be aware something was not quite right with the character in question. The audience is left with many unsolved questions nonetheless, and the final chapters seem to focus more on the interpersonal relationships that Carmine had made. I can't say I would read this novel again, but it was not an entirely unpleasant experience.
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I didn't see most of this coming, and it has teeth. Big, sharp shiny teeth.
I also love the hero because he isn't handsome or brilliantly gifted or especially intuitive. He feels real.
I also love the hero because he isn't handsome or brilliantly gifted or especially intuitive. He feels real.
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I read this book twice. Not because of the writing, which is standard, but because of the wonderful twist in the end. It still leaves me in awe.
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This book was ok. I did want to find out who the killer was. I think there was too much filler however.
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