Rating: 
Summary: A huge disapointmen
Review: I have enjoyed all of Eddings earlier works but this book is a disgrace. A step away from his usual fantasy, this novel takes place in Seattle where a string of violent crimes are being comitted. The charecters in this book are incredibly 2 dimensional and all the dialogue is laced with "cute" phrases and witticisms. Also disgusting is theobvious conservatism of the athor that is continuously injected into the book. Don't buy it and don't read it!
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I have been a fan of David Eddings for many years and have given copies of his books to many students of mine. I was excited to see that he had written a novel in the thriller genre with a contemporary setting. Unfortunately, this book was not very enjoyable.
The narrator, Mark Austin, is supposedly a young man, but the only way I could picture him throughout the novel is as a large, oafish, middle-aged man. None of the other characters were as well-drawn and memorable as I've come to expect from an Eddings novel.
One of the better aspects of Mr. Eddings' novels is his humor. This novel, however, bludgeons the reader with its heavy-handed attempts at wit. Every character in the novel seems to be trying to "one-up" the others at funny. It becomes very annoying very quickly.
Any person who has extensively read suspense/thriller novels will be disappointed that the mystery in this novel is so easily apparent. I kept reading, hoping that there would be a twist, something thrown into the mix that would alter what seems so obvious from the beginning, but that did not happen.
This novel will not prevent me from buying other novels written by David Eddings; I've read far too many wonderful books by him for far too many years to allow this one disappointment to deter any future purhases.
Rating: 
Summary: This could have had great written all over it!
Review: David and Leigh Eddings have taken what could have been a wonderful novel and turned it into something bordering on the moronic. The original premise, a sister's identical twin is murdered and she is left behind to cope in a rather psychotic state, cannot sustain dialogue that seems to have been lifted from a very bad B movie of the 1950s. The narrator(who has been friends with both twins for years) is an arrogant,patronizing fool who tends to be a bit racist and sexist, though he probably has no clue he is. No matter who is speaking, all the words sound as if they are spoken by the same person. Plus, there are grammatical mistakes that even a freshman comp. student could spot. (This is especially ironic since both the narrator and David Eddings have taught English.) What is so frustrating is that you can see that this could have been a great novel, a combination of English department life and serial killer mystery;instead it falls flat on dull white paper.
Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: I don't understand...I have loved all of David Eddings books. For some reason, now his wife name is added to the title and his writing has lost it's charm? Or maybe he ran out of ideas. Whatever, his last few books have been very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: A step down for Eddings, but still a fun read
Review: Like many, I have a hard time reviewing this book without bringing in all of the Eddings' previous works as well. It's their own fault - recently, they have taken self-plagiarization to new, almost embarassing heights. It's a shame, because I can't help but believe that there are still plenty of great, original ideas in there. But the man is 72 years old, for crying out loud. Someone suggested that the fault lies with Leigh, David' wife and co-author. I see it differently - I can imagine her desperately trying to pull some of his old wit and sharp writing out of him, and getting pulled back again and again to the old stock characters and lame catch phrases. Maybe she's just as frustrated as we are.
I agree with the review that said this book is a novella that's been stretched out to 400 pages. You could easily cut this book in half without losing anything. Much more needs to be said about the twins' childhood, much less about Mark's classes and his roommates. Ironically, one character's observation about the local police chief - he does things backwards, picking a suspect and then working the evidence to implicate them - could apply to Eddings as well. He's come up with a set of plot devices, and he's willing to twist every scenario around until it fits his preconceived notion of how the book should come out.
Some questions (Semi-spoilers ahead): What psychiatrist in his right mind would let a patient as disturbed as Renata to not only leave the hospital, but move an hour away to live with a relative who habitually doses her with dangerous barbituates anytime she gets out of control? What English professor worth his diploma would think Renata's writing worth even a B, let alone the accolades that are heaped onto her essays? What D.A. would sit on his hands during an entire trial, and not cross-examine a single witness? Why on earth were all six roommates called to testify? Why does every character have the same, pseudo-"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" speech pattern? Why was it so important that they get Renata/Regina to that convent? What was wrong with the mental institution she had already spent several years in? Either Eddings needed to explain that one further, or he needed to cut that entire, ridiculous "Mission Impossible" chapter at the end.
But.... but but but. I love Eddings, truly I do. And you have to admit it's an intriguing idea, in a Lifetime movie sort of way. They could have gone further in making Renata's victims villainous, if they really wanted us to sympathize with her, but they get the point across.
So, three stars. From a lesser author, it might be worth more, but expectations are so high for anything with an Eddings byline that I just couldn't help being disappointed. It's easy reading, and if you can suspend your disbelief for a few hours it's even kind of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Hmm, I seem to be right in the middle...
Review: I've read the other reviews of this book, and for the most part they fall into two groups. Those who loved this book, and those who thought it was a waste of time.
I find myself right in the middle on this one. The book had many obvious problems, and Twink was so darn cute most of the time that you could just scream, but it had a few redeeming qualities as well.
The characters were not very well developed, but they were at least slightly interesting, even if they never seemed quite like real people.
The premise was good, I thought, with one murdered twin and no way to tell which one. Much more really should have been done with it, but if you gloss over the obvious answers to most of the questions asked, and it does take a bit of glossing, you can get into the story at least a little.
My main problem was really how predictable the book was. Who didn't know the answer to most of the mysteries, at the very least, before the end?
And I wasn't satisfied with the end either. I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it, but it really wasn't all it could have been.
So, it seems to me that diehard Eddings fans will either love it or hate it. And as for others...well, I don't think I would recommend this one.
Rating:
Summary: What were they thinking?
Review: After reading this book, you will neither know or care which of the twins died. All I can say is the surviving one was pretty dull. They try and make her seem intriguing by having her write a Freshman English Comp paper that shows her sane/insane worldview. It then get shown to anyone and everyone in the book to show how extrordinary she is. I showed her "paper" to friends for laughs and we all agreed that her paper would be a joke in high school and would certainly not have her "brother" be told by his boss in the English department that she must become an English major. All in all, everyone seemed to be too perfect in their area of expertise, while still not being interesting enough to make the reader care if they lived or died after the book was over.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed the Belgariad, but this was ridiculous!
Review: I feel like I wasted my time. A whole bunch of hours of reading that I'll never get back, wasted on reading this book. Now, I'm not a person who bashes books lightly - books that other people look down thier noses at I'll often find SOME redeeming value. In this book I find none. What's wrong with it? Plenty. The characters are unnapealling - does Eddings really think women are like that? Honestly, the portrayal of women in this book is worse than Robert Jordan's, and that's saying a lot. The focus of the book, the disturbed twin Renata (or Regina), or as she's commonly known, "Twinkie", is not written so as anyone could think of her as a real person, with a real character. She's a plot twist, nothing more. She has less personality than an empty eggshell. The main character, Mark, has all the likeability of a pair of old, unwashed gym socks. The man is obnoxious and unlikeably irritating, and the assignments he gives his freshman english class are ridiculous. Eddings tries to build an interesting, well-rounded character in him - and fails miserably. The comraderie between the boardinghouse crew is frighteningly reminiscent of that of the group in the Redemption of Althalus, and there already Eddings was pushing it - but here it's worse. Each member of the group has a token job - the law student, the med student, the philosopher, the psychologist - and absolutely no other personality at all. Furthermore, Eddings is fond of repeating himself - he gives the reader the same information over and over again through the mouths of different characters, when the reader is desperate for new information, for anything interesting. The book is long, drawn out, and takes forever for anything intriguing to actually happen - and when it does, it lasts for less than a page, and is barely mentioned or explained for the rest of the book. This book is a failure. I can't remember the last time I so thoroughly disenjoyed reading something - I'm even mildly enjoying the Dickens I'm reading, and Moby Dick, for goodness sake! This is the first time I ever gave a book one star, but I'd give it no stars if that were an option. Don't waste your time. Read the Belgariad, even the Mallorean - but stay away from Regina's Song, far away. Trust me, this is one book you don't want to waste your time on.
Rating:
Summary: Ditch the wife please
Review: This is the first David Eddings book I have read where his wife was listed as co-author. The jacket claims she helped him on his earlier books -... This book was so poorly written I had to force myself to finish it. The plot devices were obvious, the dialog uninteresting and the storyline just really didn't make it into any identifiable category. The structure was so poor that I skimmed last 20 pages of the book. They were completely unnecessary to the story. I'm a huge fan of his earlier books. No matter what the book jacket says, he didn't write this book - Leigh did...
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the while
Review: When I was much younger, I devoured Edding's Belgariad and Mallorean series. Recently, while browsing through a bookstore I came across this novel, and for old times' sake, I picked it up. It seemed mildly interesting, so I checked it out from my local library. This was my first mistake. This novel has no original material (the narrator seems to have virtually all the characteristics of Belgarath in the Belgariad and Mallorean series, and the whole identical twin and "twin-speak" idea is also explored in there). The ending is corny, and quite frankly I do not wish to hear about Eddings' opinions of Melville, Milton, Hemingway, or Faulkner, which he goes into in great detail. Often the main plot just seems an excuse for Eddings' observations on the writing skills of college freshmen or for him to brag about his abilities as a "Renaissance man." The main plotline is thin, uninteresting, and mostly unrealistic. The book seems to start off with an attempt to be realistic, but Eddings does not know, after so many years of writing fantasy, how to write a story without supernatural or fantastic elements. In short, this book is mostly suited to the middle-school aged adolescent who still feels that lines such as "I thought I noticed you noticing" are hilarious. Unfortunately, once this line has been repeated time after time after unhumorous time, it loses its effect.
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