Rating: 
Summary: Fast start, good read, little payoff.
Review: "The Lion's Game" really takes off out of the starting gate, with a bloody opening scene, a vicious villian, and the return of the wisecracking John Corey from DeMille's terrific mystery/thriller "Plum Island." DeMille hits his narrative stride in the (too-long) middle of the book, but the killings become all too repetitive and the love story adds a little heat but no light. The good news is that Corey keeps the book enjoyable throughout--DeMille's dialogue is funny and sharp (though perhaps not quite in Robert B. Parker/Spenser's league). Downside: the lengthy setup serves to telegraph where the story's going. I'll be surprised if most readers don't have it all figured out 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through. DeMille tries a couple of twists, but there are thinly veiled hints like yellow signs warning you of the curves ahead. And without giving the ending away, I wanted a "showdown" and a big payoff, and in my opinion, the book doesn't deliver--quite a letdown after several hundred action-packed pages. A sequel seems inevitable. All in all, I'd recommend "Lion's Game" as a solid beach or weekend read, with lots of violence and some laughs, but don't expect to give five stars to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: An uncanny preview of Sept 11 written in 2000.
Review: About a terrorist's revenge against the Libyan bombings by looking to kill the airmen involved provides an exciting and realistic plot.
This book is amazing! It touches on so many terrorist items that
forewarn about the hijackings and terrorist acts of Sept 11, 2001.
The references to continuations of the 1994 attack on the Twin
Towes in uncanny. The CIA, FBI, and other intelligence forces should make this required reading at ALL levels.
The dialog is superb. The action is continuous and makes the book
almost impossible to put down. When I start on his books, I just put aside work and wife and settle down for A GOOD READ. I love his sarcastic humor combined with suspense and action.
The emotional characterization of the people is amazing. They beccome real as they pop out of the pages. His characters think of themselves honestly and openly. The reader can associate with many events and feeling in Nelson Demille's novels.
The incident in Florida when the terrorist looks for another victim just ahead of the pursuing John Corey is fantastic. The reader is on pins and needles wondering what will happen to the pilot.
Read Plum Island first because this is a sequel to it, I think.
Fellow readers, confirm this, please.
As I have said before, Nelson Demille puts women right up there in the action. These women are good investigatin partners, intelligent, educated, gutsy, witty and sexy.
I wish Nelson Demille could write as fast as I can read.
He is among the FEW authors whose books I keep to read
again later.
My second read will be right before the movie comes out.
Enjoy this book!
Rating:
Summary: Revenge Story Whose Idea We Ignore at our own Peril....
Review: During the bombing of Tripoli in 1985, a young boy loses most of his family, grows up angry, revengeful, and psychotic. In fact, his mission in life is to attack and kill any Americans having to do do with his family's death. This includes the airmen, generals, et al. After hijacking an airliner, and killing all its occupants, he seeks out his targets, and will not be happy until his "mission" is accomplished. This is a harrowing chase thriller by an author who understands the complexities of war and revenge. Unfortunately, many of our present day "leaders" do not. It might behoove them to read this book, since its plot is just as relevent today.
Rating:
Summary: Eerily prophetic. Reads like an action flick w/bad direction
Review: I don't know if I would have bothered with this book pre-9/11. I simply would have had no interest in terrorists or the motivation of Muslim radicals. Now I found it riveting, painfully realistic and hauntingly prophetic. With the first mention of the World Trade Centers, I turned to see when The Lion's Game was published. It was eerie to realize that it was published just 10 months or less before 9/11. Equally eerie was the terrorit's use of a plane to kill Americans - albiet differently than on 9/11. It was unsettling to read the scene of the NY City Police Commissioner looking out his window at the World Trade Center, watching over it and thinking about how it was always a terrorist target and had been bombed in 1993. Chills actually went down my spine though when I read, "...jetliners were little more than flying bombs ... sailing through space with the potential to take out a few city blocks."
As to the merits of the book itself, I found myself "watching" the book in my mind, just like a movie. The book had a soothing rhythm switching the scene back and forth between the terrorist and the protagonists every other chapter. We watch as Asad Kahlil cooly and methodically hunts down and kills his enemies, with near seamlessly detailed planing, always remaining steps ahead of his persuers. I found the character of Asad Kahlil well developed and his motivations and actions believable up until the end.
Then, like an action flick gone bad, the rhythm stops, and the plot loses all believability and crediblity. Throughout the story we have been privy to the inmost thoughts and workings of Kahlil's heart. We know why he's on US soil, what he's come to do, and how he thinks and operates. We watch him make very few mistakes and never stray from the path of his obsession with killing the 8 men in the bombing squadrin who killed his family 20 years before. Suddenly, we stop all focus on Khalil and switch exclusively to our two FBI agents - John Corey and Kate Mayfield who have become lovers. While working together often leads to sexual intrigue, in light of the very serious plot line, the sex scenes seem strangely out of place and banal.
When we finally rejoin Kahlil we find he has a new, heretofore never mentioned objective to kill President Reagan - an interesting plot line that could make an entire book - just not this one. This plan has never been mentioned before in Kahlil's musings, which is entirely out of character. A man of his singular intent would not switch gears mid-plan, nor would he have kepts us (his thoughts) in the dark about this plan. It is an unbelievable plot twist that instead of being exciting, causes the reader to say, "Yeah, right!" Then, in the classic way of an action flick director who has forgotten his plot line and just wants a really bang up ending, our antagonist suddenly goes from being a self-controlled precision assiassin, to firing off over 70 rounds over the course of a few minutes in an attempt to kill John and Kate. It is so far out of character, that as a reader I just wanted to yell, "Cut! Rewrite!" Then poof, it's over. No more Kahlil - as if the writer didn't know where to go from there, so he just gave up.
Lion's Game seemed like two books in one. The first half of the story was suspensful, carefully planned, rythmic and well written. It was interesting looking into the mind of a terrorist. The second half was not well done, and looking back could be skipped. Whatever ending you decide to create could be no more ambiguous than the one written.
Because the violence is vivid, and the plot line is now a reality of our world, I recommend this book as an action/thriller, and an object lesson to those with stout hearts and a curiosity about terrorism. To those for whom the pain is still raw or the world too realistic, I recommend a lighter fare.
Rating:
Summary: Whimsical but grounded
Review: I have read nelson demille for years; and had previously thought I had read everything good by him. Like most authors, i felt he suffered from some type of disease of only being able to write 3-5 good books before the writing inevitably goes down hill. It was into this section that I had classified demille, I read generals daughter, rivers of babylon, charm school among others, and really didn't enjoy anything else by him I tried.Then this summer after not reading a demille book for years i picked up plum island, and 5 hours later I put it down with a smile on my face and hoping and wishing that he would continue the story of hte character he began: John Corey. He did, and so that is why I am going to talk about lions game. John Corey is back, from LI and his convalescense and is ready to start business as usual. He meets a new woman who surprisingly is a match for his chauvanism and egotism, and of course we are re-introduced to the spooks that John loves so much: Ted Nash and George Foster. Anyway, read the book if you want to know about it. . .the reason for this review is to sing the praises of Demille in writing this book. This book was whimsical and funny, every other line was an off-color joke, or some type of inner comment made by john corey and they all had me laughing either on the inside or outloud. Genuinely this book could be considered a comedy if it wasn't for the seriousness of the plot lines. This style of writing is a fine line to walk: there are terrible things that the books main enemy do, and any humor stemming from this could be taken as macabre and distasteful, but Nelson pulls it off admirable and creates one of the best reads I have had the please of experienceing in a while. I say it again as i said after plum island, I can't wait for a new book with John Corey in it; and I can't wait to see where and with who he will end up with in whatever new book comes out.
Rating:
Summary: Another outstanding book from Nelson DeMille
Review: I loved Plum Island, but think this one was even better. It was pretty scary reading this story about Mideast terrorism in the United States. It refers to the World Trade Center bombing - that is the first one, since this book was written before 9/11. He also references many real life pieces that we are more aware of, than when it was written (JTTF - the Joint Terrorist Task Force), as well as some good descriptions of goings on in New York, like the Port Authority Police officers roles. I love John Corey's humor. At 677 pages long, it went suprisingly quickly.
Rating: 
Summary: Like it a lot, but still kvetching
Review: I read The Lion's Game in print and am listening to Scott Brick's fabulous narration, so that tells you I liked it enough to re-"read", especially the character of John Corey. This is a really fun read and I recommend it highly but only gave it four stars because I found a few things incredible or awkward.
(Spoiler here).
After 2 hours of radio silence, one rescue guy is sent in to check the 747 and all 200+ passengers on board, and concludes they're all dead? Okay, so this was written in the more halcyon pre-9/11 days, but I feel this is where DeMille slips. The Dracula analogy was excellent but you can't transplant Victorian innocence wholesale into 21st century alertness, especially with all the references to the first WTC bombing this book contains. However, I think his use of the disconnect between various agencies was very realistic. I also love the recurring theme throughout almost all his books of the CIA guy with at best questionable character and at worst, evil motives.
Second, goodbye Beth Penrose, hello Kate Mayfield, lover du jour. Reading how in love John Corey was with Beth in Plum Island, it felt jerky for him to relegate Beth to phone and e-mail in favor of Kate. It's weird how he goes from ambivalence to being engaged to Kate, although I like her character as I like all DeMille's female characters. They can be quirky, erratic, and powerful, but never boring. His word-count for the women may be low, but they are always central to the plot. Lastly, the plot did not justify 900-odd pages and could have been greatly enhanced with some judicious editing.
Aside from that I loved it, but not enough to be stopped in pleasurable astonishment at some of his references or just bask in the awed afterglow created by other of his books like The Gold Coast, Spencerville or Word of Honor. I have come to expect a lot of Mr. DeMille because he delivers in spades and is one of my top 5 favorite authors. So you may think this critique is hindsight or nitpicking, but it's not. Nelson DeMille is so talented, he can take the criticism.
The really bad news is, I only have MayDay left to read...maybe I can find some out-of-print Jack Cannon, or just wait until Night Fall.
Rating: 
Summary: My first, and last, Nelson DeMille book...
Review: I saw this on the bargain book shelf, had heard of Nelson DeMille, and decided to find out for myself what was behind his popularity. The description of the book sounded interesting. And the book was interesting in the beginning, or at least OK. Around page 200 John Corey enters the picture. And brings with him one annoying line after another. Every word out of his mouth is a 'zinger' and I guess he's supposed to be witty, but he just got on my nerves and I didn't find one thing he said funny. After a few pages of this character I did something I've only done once or twice in my life - closed the book, returned it to the store, and got my money back.
Rating:
Summary: Long winded thriller
Review: Let me begin by saying THIS BOOK IS NOT BAD. I enjoyed it; I was turning the pages feverishly. The plot was good; the dialogue was captivating, especially the interaction between agencies. John Corey's character was very funny. This is not my first Demille novel, so I knew what I was getting myself into when I picked up this book. The joke about the CIA, FBI and NYPD still makes me laugh when I think about it. Even the terrorist Asid Kalil was intriguing as far as his motivation, mindset and intelligence were concerned.
What spoiled the book for me was that between one exciting or interesting moment and the next one, there was, unfortunately, an unnecessary amount of nothing; situations that didn't really move the plot forward. I was often tempted to skip paragraphs because I could anticipate what should happen next but I felt like I was at a stoplight and the light was red for just a little too long.
And often time "John Corey" would digress from a thought and clumsily seque back with "Well, anyway, back to ___". First time was ha, ha cute . After the sixth or seventh time, it lost its humor. Those are my only gripes about the novel.
I found the book chlling at times. In this post 9/11 world we live in, reading sentences that were, at that time, considered fiction, and are now a reality, were definitely unsettling. In one scene "John Corey" writes: "...jetliners were little more than flying bombs ... sailing through space with the potential to take out a few city blocks." Hindsight is, indeed, 20/20.
Regarding the ending, I won't spoil it for those who haven't read the book yet, but we've seen this type of ending in other books and movies too. Obviously there were a number of ways Mr. DeMille could have finished his novel and he chose the non-traditional route thriller readers don't anticipate as they near a 900+ book.
I look forward to reading other DeMille novels. I only hope he cuts out the fat and gives us the lean meat.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting, funny read
Review: Nelson Demille is a tremendous writer. He takes his time developing characters and he keeps the reader laughing. His characters are intelligent and treated with respect. Demille can be a little wordy in places, but that is part of his charm. I enjoy the rich details he provides. He avoids formulamatic writing and shortcuts. With the exception of General's Daughter, I recommend all of his works.
Lion's Game was very topical and truly ahead of its time. The 9-11 foreshadowing was absolutely scary.
Several others have sung the book's praises and discussed the story. I'd like to touch on a few issues....
{{{{ SPOILER ALERTS }}}}
1 - John Corey falls in love a little too quickly for me. The engagement and marriage was crazy. It made no sense and didn't belong in the book.
2 - Why wouldn't they make Azim call Khalil from the van? Why not put 4 agents inside and take a drive? That was Dan Brown-level dumb. The book was so smart and sensible, then the agents make that blunder? Let the guy get smoked out in the van, not the house!
3 - I like the fact that the villian escapes. Of course, when the sequel is written it will probably stink and we will know the ending, but I give Demille credit. The good guys don't always win. Bravo!
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