Murder List

Rating:
Summary: Not her best
Review: am a huge Julie Garwood fan. I have all her books, and had to replace a few for I read them so much that they got worn. I can even tell you some of the small errors that the editors made. I was disappointed when she changed her writing style, but after reading her first contemporary novel, I was hooked again. This book will not we one that will be read alot, if again. If I didn't know better I would swear it wasn't a Julie Garwood book. To much like Mary Higgens Clark, who is a wonderful author, but not Julie Garwood. Her usual humorous and loveable characters were missing, as well as the passion between her characters. If I hadn't read all her books, and had started with this one, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Hope this isn't her newest style.

Rating:
Summary: Margins and type too large,
Review: For the price, this book should have been twice as long. The margins were too wide, the type face too large and the story... oh well, Garwood got 3 stars, something I thought I never would do.

Rating:
Summary: I loved it but...
Review: I am the fortunate one who translates Julie Garwood's works into Hungarian and I must say I loved all her books I got a chance to read. Though I think Bride is the best, I am always anxious to read her thrillers, and the Buchanan brothers is the thing that really worth waiting for. As my title says I loved this book, too, but I think there is too much resemblence to the first book, The Heartbreaker and that is a little bit disappointing :-(

Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: I haven't read that many earlier Julie Garwood novels, so I have no opinion on whether this novel is better or worse than some of her historical ones. I think this book is as good as Mercy, one of her newer romantic suspense ventures, and I thoroughly enjoyed her excellent characterizations and plot line. This is an interesting and skillfully told story, with an intriguing premise.

Personally, I found the book to be very satisfying. Be forewarned, though, that the mystery/suspense angle of the story is stronger than the romantic part, and that may disappoint some readers.



Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: I loved this book. The chemisty between the two main characters was magnetic it drew me in. This was by far Julie Garwoods best contemporary romance. I hope there's more to come.I do miss her historical I hope to see more of those as well.

Rating:
Summary: so disappointing...
Review: I'm another avid Julie Garwood fan, but this book was a dud. No one writes historical fiction better than Ms. Garwood, but she's making the same mistake other historical writers (McNaught) have made, by turning to writing contemporary novels. None of her contemporary novels begin to compare to her historicals. I too wasted big bucks on a hardcover copy of this one - wish I'd waited to check it out at the library.

Rating:
Summary: Dissapointed fan
Review: If you're looking for a decent, predictable read with very few twists and turns, then this is the book for you. After reading most of her previous novels, I expected a bit more from Ms.Garwood but was sadly dissapointed with this offering. The plot is predictable, to the point of being annoying, there is very little passion between the main characters, the supporting cast is one dimensional and I frequently found myself glossing over 3 or 4 pages at a time, looking for bits of dialogue and passages that weren't mundane.

Julie Garwood has some great books. This isn't one of them.

Rating:
Summary: Hip, Hip Hooray!
Review: Now that's what I'm talking about Ms. Garwood. A list of folks whose bodies turn up missing and where's the link? Excellent read, full of mystery and suspense. Also, please read LUST OF THE FLESH. A different type read but very compelling, enlightening, riveting, pageturning novel. About a district attorney who gets caught up in a web of destruction and deceit, lies, lust, betrayal, romance, mystery, suspense, and sex galore! Is he really the biological father of his ex-wife's promiscuous teenage daughter's infant son? Or has he been set up? What goes around comes around for him. An eye-opener through and through. Happy reading!

Rating:
Summary: Predictable, but entertaining
Review: Once again, Miss Garwood takes us into the life of another Buchanan brother. This time around it's Alec's turn and his story was very entertaining, yet predictable in some instances.

Rating:
Summary: (2 1/2) An Excellent Plot but Much Too Predictable Story
Review: This is a book marketed under false pretenses. It has only brief moments which can be characterized as deserving the book jacket description of suspenseful drama and tension, and it certainly is far from the murder mystery that the title implies. The premise is actually quite clever, that an obsessive sociopath gets hold of a "death wish" list of potential enemies compiled as a seemingly harmless exercise at a self-help seminar and starts murdering the individuals on the list. When the list's author, Regan Hamilton Madison, a wealthy hotel heiress is notified of the murders, she is not only horrified but soon led to fear for her own life as well. We have already been introduced to the murderer early in the book, and thus the mystery is not his identity but the reasons for his sick pursuit of Regan and whether he will succeed in his quest to satisfy his personal demons. The character of the murderer is by far the most interesting element of the book and the rationale for his obsession quite clever; unfortunately he actually appears only relatively briefly at various moments during the story.

The majority of the story involves two other intersecting storylines, with the murderer being use as the thread that ties them together. The major emphasis is on what might be called "Regan Madison Grows Up", and involves how this experience leads Regan to reinvent herself and finally free herself from the well meaning dominance of her life by her brothers. The second involves Cordie and Sophie, Regan's friends since childhood who convince her to join them in an attempt to expose a self help charlatan (Dr. Lawrence Shields) who they believe might have been responsible not only for defrauding his followers but perhaps even causing the death of one of them. (It is at one of Dr. Shields' seminars that the MURDER LIST was created.) The final key character is Detective Alec Buchanan, who has decided to leave the Chicago PD and join his brother as an FBI agent, probably stationed in Boston. However, Alec's and Regan's lives are both destined to change when his last police assignment is to act as her bodyguard in view of the apparent danger to her life. Voila! Soon it is obvious that a potentially interesting and suspense filled novel of detective procedure and character development is instead destined to become primarily a cute, predictable sentimental romance that suffers from really mundane and prosaic writing only interspersed occasionally with insightful commentary or interesting plot twists. Thus, this is a book which will probably be most enjoyable for speed readers who will find the plot and/or romance interesting and won't mind it's superficiality..

My undoubtedly overly generous rounding up of my rating to three stars was a result by the following factors. First, the basic idea of the plot appealed to me and kept me intrigued. Second, this is a fast easy read, an uncomplicated story that doesn't pretend to be anything other than the escape fiction which it is. Third, I am still a sucker for a basic "justice is served and the hope for the future" story ending, and this is about as "feel good" a conclusion as there can be for the good guys. So, as chick lit with some murders thrown into the story it actually approaches a four star rating. However, as the suspense filled mystery murder that it is advertised to be, it barely rises above one star and is need of an editor who would have forced a comprehensive rewrite.

Tucker Andersen