The Lion's Game

Rating:
Summary: Demille Delivers
Review: Nelson Demille delivers another thriller. In "The Lions Game", I had to allow myself to try to understand the Muslim culture. Once past that, I just sat back & enjoyed the harrowing game.

John Corey is back with his witty, sometimes over the top wisecracking. Sexy Kate is there to keep him in line.

It all starts with a 747 arriving in NY with over 300 souls lost. The plane lands itself. Everyone is dead, or are they? The chaos of a viciously vengeful Libyan psuedo-defector continues from there.

I liked this book. I enjoyed the back & forth of Corey's 1st person & the mix of the "Lions" perspective. And the sidebar mentions from some of Demilles other books mixed in from "The Gold Coast" and "Plum Island" were good to see.

Parts of it I read out loud to my husband, He loves Corey's sometimes sexist but funny ways. I do too, most of the time. A good book, enjoy it.

(...)-CDS

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Sequel
Review: In this sequel, if you will, Nelson DeMille has hit it big. De Mille brings back his wonderfully witty if not sarcastic John Corey. Corey is the epitome of the NY cop and wants everyone to know it. He is still getting his life back together after the incidents and after effects of Plum Island. This book brings you right in from the beginning. I had trouble putting it down, in fact I have read it twice.

The way that DeMille brings the reader along for the ride is so quick. Each chapter has you following John Corey and the next chapter will be what Asad Kahlil is up to. It is so exciting that before you know it you are staying up late and waking up with red eyes in the morning.

After meeting DeMille at a local book signing, he clearly knows that this character is someone who can capture an audience. He even hinted at the fact that the big studios were interested in John Corey, Plum Island and The Lion's Game, so interested in fact that they may come to the big screen. I always envisioned Bruce Willis as John Corey but, that is just my New York mentality.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining (as it is meant to be)
Review: I am going out on a limb here because I am about 100 pages from finishing this book. I am thoroughly enjoying this book and the lead character. To tell you the truth, I am enduring some stress in my personal life right now and reading this book is a welcome distraction. And it serves its purpose as it is suspenseful and entertaining enough to keep my complete attention.

Other suspense books I have read this year that have let me down have included Monster by Jonathan Kellerman (very weak ending) and False Memory by Koontz (BORING, BORING, BORING).

Rating:
Summary: Not too bad, but formula
Review: The writing style is Ok, but the plot is pretty predictable and the ending was easily amongst the worst I've read in years: VERY unsatisfying! I was pretty disappointed overall.

Rating:
Summary: Can't talk now, i am reading
Review: I picked up this book from a second hand shop because I liked the cover (hey, it's a good reason as any to buy a book nowdays), with no expectations as I have never read a De Mille novel before. I turned to chapter 1 and what followed, so I was informed by several relatives later, was 14 hours of catatonic antisocial reading behaviour on my behalf as I became self absorbed in one of the most wittiest thrillers I have read in a long time. Terrorism is not normally my forte for reading, I find that authors have you knee deep in the technical information concerning the arsenal everyone is carrying, buying, delivering etc.(you know, where the semi automatic has 4 letters of the alphabet after its name, my deduction, the more letters that follows, the bigger, faster, deadlier, pick an adjective please, the weapon is)Forget that here, this book is about the characters whom you will either love or hate, sorry, no fence sitting here. The plot revolves around a ruthless cold blooded arab terrorist Asad Khalil, hell bent on retribution for the death of all members of his immediate family, courtesy of the United States and a wise cracking, political incorrect federal law enforcement officer John Corey and the chase that follows as they both race against the clock trying to achieve their prospective goals, all of this happening as they jaunt across the United States( never having been there, I found I was getting a geography lesson as well, bonus). With each chapter alternating to concentrate on these 2 central characters, we are able to get into the minds of these 2 fellows(scary prospect either way you look at it), allowing us to identify with both, the light heartedness of Corey followed by the seriousness and equally determined Khalil, a rollercoaster of emotions, intrigue and heart palpatations as you race towards the end of the book. It is a long book, nearly 700 pgs, but I found that as I was so absorbed in it, I didn't really notice, and it makes me feel like I was getting value for my money.Downside is that it has been left open for a sequel though that seems to be the normal thing these days much to most readers annoyance. Upside is that it has been left open to a sequel, which means we get to welcome back these mesmerising characters again in the future, which I shall welcome back with open arms just before I retreat back into my anti social shell with the next book. I laughed out loud so often with this book, I swear the publishers sprayed the pages with nitrous oxide, and while it may not be political correct to laugh and find enjoyment in such a serious subject as terrorism, I lay the blame at Nelson De Mille's feet(whom I now worship) for making me do so.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but could have been much better
Review: After thoroughly enjoying Plum Island, which was also narrated by John Corey, I was really looking forward to reading the Lion's Game. This novel did prove to be a rather entertaining and compelling thriller, but it nonetheless left me disappointed in several regards.

In Plum Island, John Corey's humor had me laughing out loud every chapter. Here, I found Corey's personality much less amusing and even annoying at times. It seemed to me like he was trying to hard. I also think this book would have greatly benefited from a good editing job. It would have been an extremely taut 400 page thriller; at nearly 700 pages it was definitely bloated. DeMille spent way too much time on utterly irrelevant detail such as conversations between the Lion and private pilots flying him about. Finally, I really liked the technique of interspersing chapters narrated by Corey with chapters describing the actions and thinking of the Lion. However, DeMille dropped this during the climactic final section of the novel so that we never really understood what was happening in the way we did earlier in the novel.

Despite these complaints, I still enjoyed the book and I am glad I read it. I am just disappointed in that it seemed that it could have been so much better.

Rating:
Summary: Warning: Spoiler!
Review: If you plan on reading this very entertaining book, please don't read the review from June 6, 2000. The "Midwest Book Reviewer" has included too much detail and will spoil your enjoyment of The Lion's Game.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling reading.
Review: DeMille's back on target with The Lion's Game

It was with some trepidation that I read Nelson DeMille's new book, The Lion's Game. His last outing, Plum Island, left a lot to be desired with its really outrageous plot -- think of Ludlum at his worst in the late 90's. The book's hero, John Corey, also had some mysterious power over women--every female he met wanted to sleep with him.

With his latest story, DeMille redeems himself, and reclaims his place as one of our premiere authors of international thrillers. True, legendary woman-killer, John Corey is back, but he's a much kinder, gentler man who suppresses his more primal urges and has even made friends with the women he works with at his job with as a member of the federal government's anti-terrorist force. DeMille makes a point of letting his reader see into Corey's mind regarding his friendships with women....maybe his editor clued him in ... or maybe he read the book's reviews.

Whatever the reason, I liked this John Corey, wise cracks and all.

Imagine you're John Corey, a former NYPD officer, turned federal agent assigned to pick up a Libyan defector in New York. You and your buddies get to the airport in plenty of time and go to a high security office known as the Conquistador Club to wait for your charge who's coming in on a 747, escorted by two veteran agents who specialize in transporting defectors.

Your first clue something might be amiss is that no one has had any radio contact with the incoming flight for over 2 hours. The control tower at JFK sends Andy McGill, sergeant of the airport's special task force to the tarmac and tells him to be ready for the worst. The plane, however, lands as planned and comes to a complete stop. Still no radio contact. That's Corey's second clue.

As Sergeant McGill and his crew approach the plane, his view into the cockpit is blocked by a glare on the windshield, so he puts his ladder up by the door and heads in.

"Two things occurred to him almost simultaneously. The first thing was that he didn't know what to do next. The next thing was that something was wrong. Not obviously wrong, but quietly wrong. This was the worst kind of wrong."

Third clue.....the flight is full, but no one is moving. As McGill moves slowly through the plane, he realizes that there is no life on board. The 300 passengers, flight crew and pilots are all dead. McGill does manage to radio the extent of the horror, but then runs into the novel's evil assassin, Asad Khalil. And that's the end for Sergeant Andy McGill.

The rest of this nail-biter deals with how Asad, "the lion" in Arabic, methodically goes about his Dracula mission, as Corey calls it. Most of Asad's family were killed in the bombing raid on Moammar Gadhafi's residence and its outlying buildings on April 15, 1986. Since that dreadful night, Asad has trained to take his revenge upon the airmen who manned the bombers...and also on the Commander in Chief who ordered the raid.

Asad is clever, having been trained by a former Russian KGB agent, and he is maniacal in his need for an up-close and personal reckoning with his enemies. He leaves a wide path of death in his wake as he travels down the East Coast, killing those who had killed his family.

The federal agents assigned to find Asad are not as gifted in finding the reason for Asad's death sortie. They know he's on a mission, but they don't know his reasons, so they believe the passengers were enough to satisfy Asad's need for blood.

If there is a flaw in this book, it's in John Corey's part...he keeps getting clues, but he doesn't speak out about them. The feds assume Asad got out of the country on the next flight leaving JFK, so they don't put together very, very obvious clues until almost 2/3rds of the way through the story. Corey gets the clues, but he just doesn't put them together soon enough to save the lives of the men who flew the planes and dropped the bombs.

When Corey solves the "final" piece of the puzzle in such a lightning fashion while in a California airport bar, you wonder why he hadn't put his considerable powers of deduction to work sooner.

Maybe Corey's inevitable romantic involvement with Kate Mayfield distracted him...but there is a serious gap in his ability to see the big picture.

However manly John Corey is, Agent Kate Mayfield is his equal and their pairing is a satisfying one. Corey won't be able to put anything over on Kate...and that will keep him honest and will keep their relationship interesting. I look forward to them working together again.

The Lion's Game is to the new millenium what Ludlum was to the early 80's....fast-paced action, espionage, chases, and a common man (in our case, former NYPD officer John Corey) who makes the federal agents look like school boys and who ultimately saves the free world from the bad guys. In the 80's it was the Russians. Now, it's the reform faction of the Muslim faith.

I liked this book and highly recommend it. My one suggestion is to start it on a day/night when you don't have to be at work the next day. Once you've been on that 747 full of deadly silence, it's difficult to close the book and go to sleep.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: the Lion's Game
Review: Excellent! Not only is it a page turning novel but it is a chapter turning novel as well. Demille has managed to craft this book like a high speed ride on the Interstate, when you get to the next chapter its like moving to the passing lane and then back again. A great novel with a great plot, characters, and ending.

Rating:
Summary: One of DeMille's best if not THE BEST.
Review: All of the books that I have read by Nelson Demille have been execellent. However, this one is in a different playing field. The way DeMille wrote the first 65 pages of this book should be required reading for students in journalism. He let the reader find out what happened to the plane with all of the characters in the book. I couldn't put it down. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I got this book at the libary and went past my due date and didn't care. I loved the adventure.

DeMille also writes with such humor. When he wrote about the NYPD sitting on their butts and reading the file on Khalil and the FBI agents sitting on their derriers and reading the dossier on Khalil I laughed out loud. I also liked how he brought back the character Boris in this book from one of his previous novels, The Charm School. I agree with Ms. Meyer the first chapters were among the the best I've ever read. The whole book was intoxicating.