Guilty as Sin

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Ending! Vintage Hoag....
Review: I've been a Tami Hoag fan since the mid-nineties. While Night Sins left me somewhat unsatisfied, Guilty As Sin gripped me from the first chapter and held my attention all the way through. Even my guessing early the identity of the accomplice and the other "secret" relationship of the villain did not dilute this book. I could have done without the confusing prologue, however, the rest of this book hit the mark. Kudos to Ms Hoag for another excellent read. Her prose is almost lyrical in places, yet blends so seamlessly with the element of suspense. She is truly a master of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent legal thriller
Review: This is, esssentially, a legal thriller, but Hoag, the wonderful author that she is, mixes lots of other elements in with it, giving it many extra dimensions, and making it stand as a truly stunning work.

Hoag's writing is excellent. Her descriptions are wonderful. and her character developement is the best in the business. Seriously.

I read Night Sins (the prequel to this) and Guilty As Sin back to back, and it was 1000+ pages of unadulterated pleasure. I was blown away first by the dark and sinister tale presented to us in "Night SIns" and again with the tense, thrilling, legal suspense novel which she gives us in "Guilty As Sin".

Hoag can write anything. All her books are very different. With this book she proves that she is even better than John Grisham when it comes to coutrroom thrillers. I was hooked, and couldn't put the book down.

Hoag is a simply brilliant writer, possibly my favourite, next to Cornwell. I love the way she subtly mixes the genres of romance and dark thriller. The relationships between her characters are great, and they are so well drawn it is as if you are really watching real people in a real town.

The plot here is a cracker. It follows on from the brilliant "NIght Sins", but is excellent in the fact that it manages to be very different from the first book. I liked the introduction of a new lead character "Ellen North" whilst still including Megan and Mitch. All the characters are intriguing and interesting, and the final twist at the end really is quite stunning. Hoag is wonderful. She never puts a foot wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Sequel to Night Sins
Review: "Guilty As Sin" is the sequel to "Night Sins". It still takes place in Deer Lake, Minnesota, but the female protagonist has changed. Instead of Agent Megan O'Malley leading the investigation into the abduction of 8-year-old Josh Kirkwood, it's now up to 35-year-old Ellen North, the prosecuting attorney, to prove Dr. Garrett Wright guilty of kidnapping. Because Dr. Wright is such an influential member of the community, Ellen is faced with some fierce opposition from his colleagues and supporters (like the Space Cowboys), but especially from Wright's defense attorney, Anthony Costello (Ellen's old-time flame who has a malicious way of practicing law).

Now although Josh has mysteriously been returned to his family without being physically harmed (emotionally and psychologically he's a mess), the young boy refuses to speak for fear of all the evil things the Taker could do to him and his family. Without Josh's assistance, Dr. Wright just might walk free. However, he might just be proved innocent anyways when--while still in custody--another 8-year-old boy is kidnapped from a neighboring town. Ellen begins to speculate that Dr. Wright might have an accomplice who is trying to divert attention from Wright by committing various crimes he obviously couldn't have committed. But when Ellen goes after Wright's closest friends, she gains a high-rising number of enemies, all of whom could be suspects in the kidnappings and would like nothing more than to stop Ellen's investigation for good.

"Guilty As Sin" began with a strangely out-of-place prologue that left me a little baffled. It wasn't until I was nearing the end of the book that I realized it had been taken from an attack scene between the kidnapper and Ellen. In my opinion, the excerpt should have been kept at the end of the book where the event actually occurred, not as a senseless hook. I'm sure I wasn't the only one confused by it.

As usual, my main complaint with any Tami Hoag book is the budding romance between the leading lady and the dark, brooding hunk she's pitted against. Well, in this case, Ellen has two men to juggle, but one (Jay Butler Brooks, a Southern bestselling crime novelist) takes precedence over the other (Anthony). In my opinion, the entire relationship between Ellen and Jay should have been removed, or at least edited. There had already been one troublesome relationship before with Megan and Mitch in "Night Sins", so why follow the same formula with similar-acting characters who are only varied by their occupations? (Megan was a tough-minded BCA agent; Ellen is a tough-minded attorney; Mitch is a relentless police chief; Jay is a relentless writer. In the end, they all shed their emotional armor, inhibitions, and clothes in the heat of passion. It's all very predictable and boring.)

Don't get me wrong; this book isn't all that bad. The action and drama--plus the final climax--were all great and shocking. However, I thought it was much too long, complex, and occasionally too romantic to be a mystery. Plus, was it really necessary to stretch the plot into a second book? If given a major editing overhaul, the entire story could have fit into one medium-sized book instead of two behemoths and made plenty of readers far more happier. I mean, who really wants to read 1145 pages about a kidnapping? I know I already did, but I would have preferred reading about half of that.

Still if you've finished "Night Sins" and want to find out how this case ends, then you should definitely read "Guilty As Sin". It's worth reading 605 more pages to find out who abducted Josh Kirkwood. (...)

Rating:
Summary: When a Decent Story Meets Too Many Clichés
Review: Tami Hoag began "Guilty As Sin" with a teaser. It's a sequence that actually occurs toward the end of the book. Apparently even she realized that she needed something to try to hook her readers. Personally, I thought it was a bad idea.

The book has a decent premise. A young boy has been kidnapped, and his family's neighbor, Professor Garrett Wright, has been arrested for the crime. However, the boy is still missing. All of this takes place before the book begins. Unfortunately for prosecutor Ellen North, the boy is returned, and another boy is subsequently kidnapped and murdered, apparently by the same person who perpetrated the first crime, while Wright is in jail. Is he innocent? Does he have an accomplice? Is it a copycat crime? Obviously, some other person is involved, either working with Wright or acting on his own?

Actually, I spotted this other person the very first time he appeared in the book. His identity should be obvious to anyone paying attention. (Hint: It's the guy who is always where he doesn't belong. No, not that guy, the other one.)

For me, there were two major problems with "Guilty as Sin". First, it is filled with every literary and dialogue cliché ever used. It was always pretty obvious to me where Hoag was going with her story. Also, I found myself cringing at the dialogue every few pages. The characters seemed to use one overused phrase after another. Second, there wasn't a single character in the book worth caring one iota about including the first kidnap victim. (The second victim never appears in the narrative.) The characters were all incredibly bland and unsympathetic.

Some mention must also be made of Hoag's treatment of the African-American characters in "Guilty As Sin". Apparently, all Blacks in the area of Minnesota where the book takes place are of college age, male, and very bright criminals who speak street gibberish and cannot complete a sentence without cursing.

Well, everyone kept saying how bright these men were.

Also, it appears that everyone in Minnesota is in love with, or having an affair with someone they shouldn't be involved with. We have work affairs, extra-marital affairs, affairs in conflict with both parties' self interests, and even that old standby of unrequited love between a parishioner and her priest. I guess you have to do something to stay warm on the frozen tundra of Ventura-land.

Hoag does try to throw in one surprise at the end, but by then why would anyone care. Besides, it is a pretty silly addition to an already poorly thought out novel.

I had previously read Hoag's "Ashes To Ashes" and found it a pretty good read. Clearly, she's a more than competent writer. Maybe she should have published this mess under a pseudonym.

Rating:
Summary: Buy as a gift
Review: If you have someone that is a Tami Hoag fan, her new book is good, if not, dont buy it just to read it, you will be lost. I have never read any of her books before and I was completely missing the point of the plot. Im sticking to my MAD magazines.

Rating:
Summary: Guilty as Sin
Review: I can not believe how wonderful this book was!!!! What a perfect book to read after you've read Night Sins, Make sure you read Night Sins first!!!!I just could not put this book down or Night Sins down, I just had to keep reading!!!! Very suspenseful Definetly 5 Stars!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A pleasant sequel to Night Sins
Review: This is a good novel, and after reading "Night Sins", I felt compelled to read the sequel as soon as possible. I didn't feel quite that the main character was quite as well-developed as Megan in "Night Sins," but I still enjoyed the novel and had I read the books in reverse order, I doubt I would have been so critical. Any follow up to "Night Sins", which was a wonderfully suspenseful novel, would be difficult. I still recommend this book, it's a good read!

Rating:
Summary: Great Sequel
Review: Read "Night Sins" first, but have this one on hand to start as soon as you finish it. I just happened across a copy of "Still Waters" a couple of weeks and read it without having read any Tami Hoag stuff before. I liked it so much that I immediately ordered both "Night Sins" and "Guilty as Sin" and read them back to back. Both are pretty long and I breezed through both in about 4 days - they were that good. I am a big fan of Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson and since I am caught up on their stuff I am now going to order a few more of Tami Hoag's books. She writes a good combination of love story and mystery, a little bit of a change from Cornwell and Patterson, but a good change in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but too long winded
Review: While this book started out strong and intriguing, it quickly lost it's pace. The author started icorporating storylines that went nowhere and had nothing to do with the major plot. By the time she got back to the major plot, it was hard to remember where it left off. The characters were not very well developed making it difficult to care about them. My desire to find out the final outcome of the plot was the only reason I finished the book. And I found myself skimming through much of it.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely one of the best crime fiction novels!
Review: I had never read anything by this author, Tami Hoag, before, but I surely will again. With amazing depth and clarity, Tami Hoag plunges her reader into a nightmare time of death and destruction. The twisted plot looms large, and becomes tangled and eerier with each page. Dr. Garrett Wright, a renowned professer and outstanding citizen is charged with the unspeakable crime of kidnapping eight year old Josh Kirkwood. When yet another child is kidnapped in the sleepy town of Deer Lake, Minnesota, while Dr. Garrett is incarcerated, the county prosecutor has a tough case to crack. Ellen North is our story's heroine, and she is portrayed as a tough nut herself. She is Deer Lake's county prosecutor, and she must face the fact that there is every possibility that Dr. Wright will go free, for a crime she is sure he committed. A lone writer named Jay Brooks appears, and Ellen despises him for his need to welsh on other people's pain, but he plays a strong role in her life, and she must face him, along with a ghost from her past, and a town whose children it is up to her to save. You will not be able to put this book down, I know I couldn't. Tami Hoag builds her characters in such a way that they are never confusing, and the end of the story will have you squirming in your seat.