Denial

Rating:
Summary: Appallingly inadequate, yet mesmerizing...
Review: Keith Ablow is simply the worst author I have ever encountered. His characters are two-dimensional, psychotic, and perverted. They react in odd ways to entirely unreal scenarious. This book, purportedly about a murder, was actually mostly about one man's affinity for prostitutes and crack. This is a train wreck of a novel, and I kept flipping back to the front of the book to make sure that, yes, a publishing house had actually decided to take this on. There is nothing distinctive or extraordinary in Ablow's writing, except for his fascination with and fixation upon the dismal and twisted in the human psyche, and the dark side of the sex industry.

I kept reading this book because I had to make sure that it wasn't simply a talented author 'slumming,' about to surprise me with a tantalizing ending. It wasn't. The ending was just as indescribably bad as the beginning, middle, and end. While reading this, it is impossible to think of these characters as real people, their motives as real motives, or their words as having ever been spoken.

Two stars for making me read it from cover to cover out of morbid fascination that something so utterly awful could be printed.

Rating:
Summary: Great reading non-stop!
Review: Mr. Ablow does a wonderful job at creating a scenario that not only engrosses the reader, but at times can somewhat relate to.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, want moe!
Review: One of the best thrillers I have ever read. Ranks right up there with Silence of the Lambs.

Rating:
Summary: This "mystery" is actually a teaching in vast compassion.
Review: Stephen Levine, author of HEALING INTO LIFE AND DEATH, makes the point that those who best know their own grief are most capable of joy. John Tarrant's recently published THE LIGHT INSIDE THE DARK sets out to heal the aching chasm between spirit and soul, pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Ablow's DENIAL, ostensibly a murder mystery with sex, drugs, messy relationships, and not entirely admirable characters, will remain on my shelf next to Levine and Tarrant long after I've forgotten many other capable who-dun-its. Frank Clevenger, the forensic psychiatrist who seems unable not to screw up his own life on a regular basis, is an increasingly believable and ultimately sympathetic character. As I "lived his life" through reading this novel, my capacity to live the challenges of my own life was strengthened. This is what the best fiction does: make a difference that matters at the same time it has integrity as a work of art. READ THIS BOOK.

Rating:
Summary: Deliciously flawed characters
Review: Ten pages into Denial, I hastily emailed a friend of mine who's a big fan of Hardboiled mysteries and told him, "Have I got an author for you!" This is believably seamy stuff, quickly paced, smart and scary, filled with deliciously flawed characters. Ablow doesn't even place his protagonist above the fray: Frank Clevenger is a forensic psychiatrist with severe addiction issues--including coke, women other than his partner, and twisted psyches. There is not a character in this book who is free of quirks and tics, and it is from this pallette of dark human vagary that the story draws its power and its very plot.

As one who lives in Eastern Massachusetts, I was taken by Ablow's adept use of local geography. Clevenger lives in one of those big houses in coastal Marblehead that require two doctors to support a mortgage; he works and plays, if such a word can cover his particular recreations, in his rag-tag hometown of "Lynn, Lynn, City of Sin," and in equally gritty Chelsea. The duality fits the man, an abused blue-collar boy beneath a professional veneer.

With its sex, blood and lines of white powder, this book is not for everyone. But for those who like their mystery dark and their humanity imperfect, it's a real find.

Susan O'Neill
Author: Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

Rating:
Summary: A bad Mulligan Stew
Review: The only description that applies is " bad Mulligan Stew". The author apparently decided if he included lots of perversions the reader wouldn't notice the lack of a story. The main character, Frank Clevenger, somehow stumbles through an almost constant drugged blur onto what's going on and takes an absurd course of action that brings a conclusion to a waste of time spent reading this book. I won't dwell on the sex, drugs or gambling which accounts for the bulk of the 358 pages, but instead on the lack of any twisting, turning or surprises, as the ending was predictable and really not much of a mystery at all.

Rating:
Summary: Yeech!
Review: The premise of this book is simply described: You've got to be kidding. The only thing less likely than the characters who inhabit this book is the ridiculous ending. Maybe it works for readers who think all psychiatrists are extremely disturbed. Maybe it works for those who know nothing about what psychiatrists do. Maybe it works for those who believe a doctor could show up at an old frined's hospital and ... (I don't want to give away the plot)... I tried. I really did. I tried to allow literary license, but it just got too silly. I ended this book by shaking my head. In fiction it is okay to ask the reader to suspend disbelief a bit... But to expect us to bang our heads against the wall so we don't notice the inanity of the plot? Sorry. Better luck next time.

Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: This book is one that i would definetely suggest to anyone interested in murder, sex, suspense, etc. Ablow, is a terrific writer and he is also a practicing pychiatrist. I give this book two thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: Psychological murder mystery blends forsensics with therapy.
Review: This book literally jumped off the shelf and I had to buy it. I was initially put off by the coke-snorting doctor, who didn't seem to have his life together. But, I was hooked by page 19. Ablow's writing is real, not the stuff of Hollywood or those writer's who crank out a book every six months. There were definitely parts that made me reel and squirm. However, his insights into the human psyche are phenomenal. I've had enough therapy to know that the comments he makes about individuals and pain are well researched.

In fact, some of his comments helped me with some work I am currently doing on my own childhood.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next one! Thanks, Mr. Ablow.

Rating:
Summary: Can't Put It Down
Review: This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I've never heard of Keith Ablow until now. When you follow the twisted physcological life of Frank Clevenger, you start to see him as a good and bad character. Although he lives a life of drugs, sex, and gambling, he seems to entise you by giving reason why all of his "addictions" play a survival part in his life. Once the first murder happens, you have to keep reading to see what happens next. The book does an excellent job of going through each character's mental problems and how they do or don't overcome them. Definetly a keeper!!