The Secret

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Before I picked up this book I knew that it was written by a ghost writer, posthumously. But since it was a "sequel" I wanted to get it anyway. What a waste of time! It is obvious that Harold Robbins had jotted down some notes and ideas and someone with no talent whatsoever had tried to make it into a novel. It is fairly clear to distinguish some of the passages that are Robbins' and then there are those that he would be ashamed to even look at. There is actually a part where the same sentence is repeated, with two words changed, on the next page. The intensity of characters, the eroticism, the storytelling that are so evident in most of Robbins' work is nowhere to be found in The Secret.

Rating:
Summary: Missed The Boat!!!!
Review: I was extremely disappointed in this book. I kept waiting for something to happen besides "scanties", than technology came into play, but the storyline was so boring and nothing worth reading about happened.

Rating:
Summary: Missed The Boat!!!!
Review: I was extremely disappointed in this book. I kept waiting for something to happen besides "scanties", than technology came into play, but the storyline was so boring and nothing worth reading about happened.

Rating:
Summary: Missed The Boat!!!!
Review: I was extremely disappointed in this book. I kept waiting for something to happen besides "scanties", than technology came into play, but the storyline was so boring and nothing worth reading about happened.

Rating:
Summary: Let the dead stay dead
Review: One of the best books I ever read was A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins. Great characters and a great story. I think I've read that book 5 times over the years.

The Secret - should have been kept a secret. No plot - no story except sex. Characterization not too shabby - but nothing extraordinary

Leave Harold Robbins alone. These are notes that someone embellished and is trying to characterize as Robbins'. Let the dead stay dead.

Rating:
Summary: Let the dead stay dead
Review: One of the best books I ever read was A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins. Great characters and a great story. I think I've read that book 5 times over the years.

The Secret - should have been kept a secret. No plot - no story except sex. Characterization not too shabby - but nothing extraordinary

Leave Harold Robbins alone. These are notes that someone embellished and is trying to characterize as Robbins'. Let the dead stay dead.

Rating:
Summary: Repetative
Review: This is the first book I can remember reading by this author so perhaps he's a better author than this book leads me to believe. I became interested right from the beginning and found him to be a good storyteller but mid-way through the book, I became disapointed with the repetition. Too much talk about women in their scanties. The ending left very much to be desired. In short, came out of the gates well but had no stamina.

Rating:
Summary: Not too bad a legacy
Review: This one is more like Harold the Storyteller. Some of his more recent work has been as much about sex as it has been about character development-and some rather debased sex at that. Which was a shame-over his long career, Harold Robbins has created some of the most interesting and sympathetic characters I have ever encountered in fiction. Film industry pioneers. Union leaders. South American revolutionaries. Young prizefighters. Auto industry pioneers. You name it. This one is the sequel to "The Predators", the story of a lingerie industry magnate (??) and it's two novels in one-a father and his son. It switches back and forth between the two men in the way Evan Hunter's "Sons" did with three generations of American fighting men. There's one small flaw in this book which is more amusing than off-putting-in the early stages of father Jerry Cooper's setting up the undie company, he has to deal with some mob types, and I'm afraid Harold Robbins is no Mario Puzo there. You get a family with the name Boiardo and of course the head of the family is called "Chef". They have a cousin named Napolitano and everybody calls him "Ice Cream". Otherwise, this is a pretty decent book. Part of Cooper & Son's business dealings involve a subsidiary in Hong Kong around the time of the "Handover" to China (coincidently, I just finished a Stephen Coonts book set there at that time). Being that clothing is involved, the issue of sweat shop labor comes up. This is hardly a landmark book for Robbins, but it's more consistent with why I was one of his steady readers for decades. What a relief-I thought he was totally losing it. At least he goes out with something readable. Gonna miss ya, old timer.