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Summary: Do Not Judge This Book By The Other Reviews.
Review: This book is one to be savoured. It flows convincingly and assuredly. Richard Mason is here to stay and those who disagree need to get used to it. If I had been capable of writing something so fine by the age of 18 I would be ecstatic and I for one applaud mason for a slightly unconventional but brilliant debut. But, don't judge this book by my critique! Read it for yourself, Buy, relax, sit back and enjoy!
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Summary: I loved this book-- and stayed up all night to finish it.
Review: I first learned of this book by picking it up in an airport bookshop. I had read no reviews, and knew nothing of the author. Diving in, I was instantly hooked. I stayed up the entire night reading. I haven't enjoyed a book so much in years. So what if there are few references to the 90's? Do we need to hear about cell phones, pagers, the Internet, or Ricky Martin in a story like this? Some elements of life play across the centuries-witness the boost of interest in Mr. Shakespeare this year. I found the story fascinating, touching, tragic, horrifying, and heart-wrenching. I reread the first few chapters after finishing, relishing all the hints and clues I didn't catch the first time through. I'll look eagerly for the next effort from Mr. Mason.
Rating: 
Summary: Stagey and rhetorical
Review: It may be that this novel fits into a mystery/fantasy genre which I'm not aware of or into, but I found this a very self-conscious read, and too removed from believable lives to be compelling. I didn't believe the murder, still less the 'games' played among the major characters. There are some good descriptive bits, but the whole tale is undermined by the annoying overdone style.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Reading
Review: I read the reviews of this book after I read the book. How many people who criticized this book published a best seller at 20? This book has a great story digging into true feelings of love. The story grips you to the end. I hope young Mason has another soon. I enjoyed it!!!!
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Summary: Mr Farrell is rather a bore...
Review: Clearly nostalgia for a by-gone age appeals to some people, but the stuffy way Mr Farrell explains the fact that he has just killed his wife is neither credible nor fun to read. He sounds like a fairly eloquent Latin master holding forth on the merits of Virgil. The fact is that the narrator has just blown a woman's brains out. A matter of hours later he is treating us, calmly and correctly, to the story of his life and early loves. But the only kind of person who could actually do this in the real world would be a psychopath. Killing people, if you're not used to it, is a very traumatic thing. If Mr Farrel's calm was a symptom of his madness that would be interesting and fine, but sadly this is not the case. We are supposed to think he is normal. The age of gentleman murderer in fiction is dead and gone. Why? Because they were an expression of a daft fantasy, not of reality. Murderers are great subjects for fiction, but in any novel with 'serious' aspirations, the psychological investigation has to be more grounded than this, and a great deal more convincing. I found this tale of 'passion' and 'revenge' depressingly hollow. In short, Mr Farrell is a fictitious old bore.
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Summary: Very engaging tale
Review: I enjoyed this book. The plot device of looking back from the vantage point of a elderly man in his seventies on his early twenties that took place in the 1990s gives the book an interesting point of view. While I don't think that the author was completely successful in adopting the view of a senior citizen, it is forgivable. What he does give us is a clever tale of love and deceipt with some fun plot twists. I would recommend "The Drowning People" and look forward to the author's second novel!
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Summary: Hello, this is the 40's calling, we'd like our book back...
Review: Sorry. This book should have been set in the 40's. Mason makes no references to anything 90's (no technology, culture, etc.) and no one in this era talks the way these people do! I also thought there was no drama in it, you know what's going to happen at the end 3 chapters before you get there. I felt sorry at first that everyone is saying he only got the publicity based on his looks, but after reading this, I'm afraid I have to agree...
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Summary: A curious kind of novel
Review: I do like novels to have a tangible plot line, even the most high-brow, and so I was drawn to this one. The revelation of events is put together with care and works at the level of logic. But I did find the style, and to some extent the context, a problem as the book went on. There are very few references to the contemporary world, and the narrator's voice is very correct in an old-fashioned, very British kind of way, so that I found myself forgetting that the book was set in the present day (and the future). I kept expecting a Model-T Ford to come around the corner, honking its horn, or for someone to come rushing in with the news that Hitler had just invaded Belgium. I thought maybe this was a deliberate ploy - a device that revealed something about the main character (Is he living in a romantic dream of the past? Is he so self-absorbed that he just doesn't notice the world around him? Is he just very buttoned up?) But slowly it dawned on me that maybe novels of past eras were mostly what this author had read - and that this was his idea of how novels were meant to be. For me, this left the story feeling strangely disconnected, and quite difficult to stay with. This book is very hard to categorize, but it's more of a throw-back than a break-through, and this maybe limits its appeal. Maybe in his next novel this author will find his own voice.
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Summary: Well I loved it
Review: I can see why some reviewers on this page have hated The Drowning People - though it is precisely the chief qualities of this novel that have irritated them most. (And these qualities, too, which so many intelligent people have applauded.) Richard Mason is no Easton Ellis - but who wants another one? What The Drowning People does is tell a compelling story in a fluid, elegant and convincing manner. And I, for one, loved the way that the writer takes his reader into a rareified and exclusive world - which my husband, who was born in it, confirms is still alive and kicking today. Not only entertainment, but (occasionally) profound stuff, The Drowning People is both serious and seductive. And if some bits are a little melodramatic or over-written, I think the overall qualities of the novel more than make up for them. As the review in The Guardian hints - aren't some of the one star reviewers just a leetle beet jealous? If high quality, entertaining, challenging fiction appeals to you - this is your book.
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Summary: Tired and emotional
Review: This novel kicks off with the old chestnut (at least to moviegoers): why did Mr X kill his wife? It then delves into the past (which is meant to be the present) to tell us. What results is a strictly white-tie-and-tails melodrama - one that feels closer to the 1900s than the 1990s - of betrayal, jealousy, stolen kisses etc, among the Britsh upper classes. It might have been fun, but Mason adopts a ponderous, self-consciously 'poetic' style, attaching enormous weight and significance to every turn in the story. There's a lot of regret and moaning about the follies of youth, but zero spontaneity and very little worthwhile insight. Sorry, but this one was a major drag.
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