Rating: 
Summary: Gripping! First book read in full in the last 10 years!
Review: Being a meteorologist this book was recommended to me. I bought it and read it; I was fascinated and impressed with Mr. Thayer's knowledge and understanding of Minnesota weather and geography. But, the various subplots kept the book interesting throughout forcing me to stay up late several nights. I was as drawn to the final chapters' events as I was to the initial tornado that ripped across the Twin Cities. Great work!
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to Put Down - Keeps you guessing until the end
Review: I found this book to have an inventive and original plot with unusual characters- people you don't come across everyday. As the book drew closer to its conclusion, I found it very hard to put it down. For a story that was far from believable, it was certainly most entertaining....a true "whodunnit" where any one of a number of characters could be the killer. The only thing that kept me from giving this a higher rating was the very subtle, but unmistakable political bashing of views from the right - a Republican governor who quietly pays for his love child's abortion, a thinly veiled stab at the Religious Right through the station manager who is a truly sick pervert, and a not so subtle botched death penalty scene which added nothing to the story but rather made an exaggerated point to show the author's opposition to it. I can respect whatever political convicitons you might have, but keep them to yourself. I read fiction to get away from propoganda....if I want to be blasted with someone's political agenda, I'll watch the news.
Rating:
Summary: I really enjoyed this one
Review: Fast paced and interesting. I like novels where I feel liked I've learned something as well as been told a good story. Thayer seems to know his weather and news. I passed my copy along to my my dad and brother and they enjoyed it as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Starts strong. Loses intensity. Good book for a short trip.
Review: Starts strong. Loses intensity. Good book for a short trip.
Rating:
Summary: Not really worth it...
Review: Ok, It starts off pretty interesting... but it gets really slow and very predictable. The ending just leaves you hanging
Rating:
Summary: Unrelenting suspense.
Review: This has to be one of the best books of its type that I have read. Why the author has not received more recognition is beyond me. He weaves a tale with beautifully fleshed out characters any one of whom could have "dun it". Because that's what it is - a superlative whodunit. His treatment of the death penalty goes far beyond his contemporary, John Grisham; no preaching to boot. His prose style is wonderfully fluid. This is a book that has obviously been researched and the smart author manages to seperate the chaff from the wheat. I highly recommend this book to all.
Rating:
Summary: A real page turner.
Review: Interesting characters and a murder mystery plot that keeps you guessing until the last page make this book a real page turner. The author gives the reader a real feel of how a T.V. newroom works when he sets his story in Minneapolis
Rating:
Summary: This book is one of my all-time favorites
Review: The psychology behind the story's protagonist (Beanblossom) is so exceptional that I would have thought this novel to be spectacular even without it's incomparable suspense. It made me laugh, and became a catharsis from the insecurities of my own life. Entertainment galore!, I was sad when the book was finished.
Sincerely,
Christopher Cochrane
Rating:
Summary: An interesting and suspenseful mystery that ends slowly.
Review: The Weatherman is a psychological thriller/murder mysterybased in the Midwest. It centers around a TV newsman and an unusually accurate TV meteorologist, who have an adversarial relationship, both professionally and personally. The character development is excellent; I found the characters vivid and interesting, without having to suffer through tedious detail. The background is also quite good; the information about meteorology and life in a TV newsroom were interesting in their own right, while adding to the story. The writing style is quite brisk, as a rule. The plot moved right along until the very end where, unfortunately, the process of a state execution is described in detail reminiscent of "The Chamber". The ending left me a bit flat; I was hoping for something completely unexpected and didn't get it. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would read the author again. A good beach read.
Rating:
Summary: Steve Thayer--The Weatherman (1995)
Review: Author Steve Thayer's first mainsteam success is a drawn out, yet riveting and enthralling tale with excellent characters, good dialogue, and gives great insight into the politics of a newsroom. "The Weatherman" is not only a suspense/mystery thriller, but it is also a forum for Thayer to promote his views on capital punishment, the Vietnam War, the glamorization and exaggeration of the media, and how women can be as deadly as the bitter cold. Dixon Bell is a fairly ordinary meterologist from the south who happens to be working for a Minnesota television newsroom as their weatherman. He claims that he does not predict the weather, but "I read the weather". He struck fame when he boldly warned the twin towns of Minneapolis/St. Paul that a deadly tornado was coming even without the concern of the National Weather Service. Bell not only became a television figure; he was practically psychic. But what Dixon Bell wants most is the new, beautiful reporter Angela Labore. Meanwhile, women are strangled and killed for each weather season, prompting a media storm that Bell's Channel 7 News has never seen before. As circumstantial evidence compounds against Dixon and makes him a prime suspect, masked news producer Rick Beanblossom (he was injured at Vietnam) believes that Dixon is innocent and stops at nothing to prove it, despite the fact that he is obsessed with Angela as well. Thayer does a great job of bringing characters into his story and allowing the story to fully develop them. Because of this; however, "The Weatherman" drags slightly in the first third of the book and may cause some readers to get anxious, but once Dixon Bell's trial begins, it is a rip-roaring suspense tale that will keep you guessing until the very end. Beanblossom is an exceptional character, who hides not only his grotesque face behind a mask, but also his true inner feelings and purpose. Angela Labore is slighly ho-hum, but her dialogue with Beanblossom is fresh and believable. Dixon Bell is a complete enigma throughout the entire novel--he is a sad man so possessed by the weather, his inner demons, and his past failures to allure women that he may have the capacity to commit these awful crimes--but did he? "The Weatherman" is a complex, intriguing tale that was an extreme project for Thayer, taking him nearly five years to fully complete. His research of the newsroom and his experience as a St. Paul native makes this tale very realistic, diving into the politics of what is put on television and why, how people get what they want in show business, and how the weather is an essential ingredient to the lives of all those who live there. A murder mystery that is sure to satisfy if you can get through the first one hundred pages or so. Compelling, informative, and somber.
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