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Summary: excellent mystery
Review: Dennis Lehane does it again!! He draws you in, and he gets you with the old twisteroo. This is a must read.
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Summary: great historical police procedural
Review: In 1954, US Marshals Teddy Daniels and his new partner, just in from Seattle, Chuck Aule take the ferry from the Massachusetts mainland to Shutter Island where Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane dominates the landscape. The law enforcement officials are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a convict (patient to Dr. Cawley) Rachel Solando, the Berkshire killer of three children she first drowned then "shared" breakfast with them in her kitchen.Teddy and Chuck wonder how the woman could escape from a locked room on the third floor with guards all over the place and no hideaways on the island itself and swimming the distance to the nearest land in the treacherous Atlantic seems monumental. A hurricane is coming, which when it hits will totally isolate the island from the mainland. They begin to find evidence of illegal drug therapy and surgery, but little about the vanished Rachel. As they uncover more proof of wrongdoing Teddy and Chuck wonder if they will get off the island alive. Highly regarded Dennis Lehane may have written the best police procedural and thriller of the year. Plenty of action, several mysteries that feels like a Moebius string as each sub-mystery seems inside one another, and strong characterization including flashbacks to Teddy's tragically deceased spouse make for a great read. On top of a powerful story line with a deep cast and a feel for how society dealt with mental illness during the early Eisenhower red scare era, the climax is as good as a novel gets. If a reader can afford one book, SHUTTER ISLAND is a terrific choice. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: This is a shocking, twist-filled , MUST read thriller.
Review: U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, and his partner Chuck have been given an important assignment, find a young woman who has disappeared. The woman is Rachel Solando and she is a prisoner/patient at a hospital for the criminally insane. It seems Rachel vanished into thin air...the hospital is secluded on a small island with no viable means of escape, and the hospital is crawling with nurses and orderlies but somehow Rachel has managed to get out. Teddy and Chuck begin questioning everyone at the hospital, only to come up empty-handed until the absence of a certain doctor and the discovery of a hand-written riddle found in Rachel's room become their first clues in a strange case that's as twisted and violent as the criminals on Shutter Island. With a storm hitting the island, Teddy and Chuck race to find the violent woman who went missing and uncover the secrets harbored on Shutter Island, but the closer they get to the truth is that much closer they will be to their own madness, as someone plans on keeping the pair on the island for good. WOW! 'Shutter Island' is so good that I'm at a loss for words to describe how good it is. The main mystery of the missing woman grabs you on page one, and pulls you deeper into the web of lies and murder that surrounds it with each turn of the page. The characters are rich and colorful, and each development in the plot ratchets up the tension until you reach the explosive climax. Dennis Lehane has-done-it-again...another page-turning bestseller that further proves him a master storyteller. I have loved all of Lehane's novels, but 'Shutter Island' is one of his, if not THE best he has written, and that's saying a lot considering all his books are among the best crime novels out there. This is definitely a MUST READ! Nick Gonnella
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Summary: Eerie, disturbing, well-written treat
Review: Having read all of Lehane's previous novels I looked forward to Shutter Island with anticipation, and I was not disappointed. This is a very different sort of book than either the Patrick & Angie mysteries or Mystic River. It is just as well-written though, and just as difficult to put down. The story begins as a classic "locked-door" mystery--how did child-murderer Rachel Solando escape from her room in the hospital for the criminally insane on isolated Shutter Island? Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule arrive to try to answer that question just as a major hurricane is bearing down on the island. The hurricane provides a suitably threatening and violent backdrop for the action. Nothing is as it seems. No one can be trusted. Threats to both mind and body lurk around every corner. Events take on an eerie, hallucinatory quality that is as disturbing as it is irresistable. Yes, the ending is definitely a twist (or twisted?) but it isn't a cheat or a trick. Lehane earns every gasp of shock and shudder of horror. This is a book that will stay with you for a long time...at least until Lehane's next is released. ;o)
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Summary: Glorious Non-stop Scary Fun
Review: Just read this book. I picked it up at the airport. I've never read any of Mr. Lehane's other books. I COULD NOT STOP READING IT. I read it on the plane from Vancouver to Los Angeles. I read it until I couldn't see anymore. What else do you WANT from a book for God's sake? It's FABULOUS. It breaks your heart and pulls you in and makes you THINK. It's just good writing and there is no substitute for that.
Rating: 
Summary: My first Lehane
Review: This was my first Lehane book and I must say I'm not impressed. I found it a bit formulaic, recalling bad memories of Dallas. I would think any avid mystery reader would have this story solved just by reading the back of the book.
It wasn't a total waste of my time. I liked the character development and found Teddy's love for his wife endearing. However, it does have loose ends and the ending is left up for interpretation.
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Summary: Interesting, but confusing.
Review: I have to admit, this was a page-turner, but I expected more. By the end, I was rather confused and, when I finished, I felt as if there should have been more to the story. Otherwise, I think it was a great idea and it wasn't one where you can guess what is going to happen before you get to the end.
Also, he didn't proofread it very well. There was one very long run-on sentence that was rather annoying. Not a very big deal, but still annoying.
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Summary: You have a right to be confused.
Review: Yes this book is a real page turner. It was recommended to me three days ago and I've already finished it and am rightly confused and wondering what it all means. It is a great story of distortion, suspense, intrique and deceit. I really enjoyed this book and I guess the ending is left up to everyone's own interpretation. Go read it. You will be pleasantly surprised if not confused and mesmerized for a long time.
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Summary: A Dark Thriller
Review: This is a dark book. Besides being a mystery, it is a psychological and spiritual thriller. Why spiritual? Because for the second straight book, Lehane portrays a world that is scarred by Evil. Yes, we're dealing with diminished capacity in some cases, but what do think those references to Auschwitz are about? Why is the warden in the story? Can one be insane and evil? Lehane does an excellent job creating a sense of foreboding that keeps you glued to the pages. He draws on King Lear (going mad during a storm), film (the Wicker Man), and recent tragedies (Andrea Yates' killing of her children) to tell the story of Shutter Island. I read this book in two nights because I had to find out what fate awaits our protagonist, Teddy Daniels. Shutter Island is a horror story that goes to the depths of our being.
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Summary: This Would Make a Good Movie
Review: I enjoyed Shutter Island ~~ it was a quick read. I read it because I enjoyed Mystic River so much and found it to be a much different style of storytelling. By the middle of the book, I could not wait to see how it was going to end. The ending is very, very different then I expected and I still have some questions and loose ends I'd like to have answered. I did enjoy Mystic River a lot more, but I really do feel Shutter Island would make a very good and suspensful movie (that way I could see if the ending is as I thought it was). A good read for the mystery buffs.
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