Rating: 
Summary: good prose, good characterization, contrived plot
Review: As is customary in Dobyns'work, it is the characters who capture your imagination. That is true in this volume as well, however, there are also uncommon devices in the presentation of the plot. One begins with the finding (and not reporting) of a body of a student floating in the pool. This is followed by the callous killing of an accomplist in petty crime, a switch to an underage stripper, and finally the introduction of a famous psychologist known for his work with children at risk, who, after the loss of his family, is trying to lose himself in saving a private, residential school. Over the following 400 pages these story threads are slowly pulled together into a single picture - but pulled together as two separate strands, the primary one following the school, the secondary one following a Boston cop tracking down a serial murderer.
That this novel keeps the readers attention, keeps the characters distinct (admittedly the teachers begin to run together), and the motivations are realistic (well, the step father is pushing credulity) is a credit to Dobyns' skill. Unfortunately, the loose ends, the "wrapup" being the perspective of the secondary strand, and the unbelieveable match between characters' psychological needs and the plot putting them in a position to test this need combine to make this less successful than several of Dobyns' other works. But it is still great fun for light reading.
Rating: 
Summary: All Wet
Review: Boy in the Water is more a psychological thriller than an action thriller, which may well account for the number of reviews here complaining of its slow pacing. But regardless of its author's intent, I must agree with those reviews from the perspective of the reader. Dobyns can clearly handle a sentence, even a paragraph or a chapter; but too often the suspense of the entire storyline was handled clumsily. There were few surprises other than the rather unpleasant one for the reader of a most unsatisfactory denoument--again, probably set up the way it was to emphasize the psychological rather than action aspects, but hardly well-done for all that. And how two of the villians of the book ever got together isn't important enough for Dobyns to concern himself with; but I was left wondering where the paths of a wealthy stepfather and a serial killer would meet and how in the world they might recognize in the other someone who would fulfil their unsavory needs. Most readers apparently either love Boy in the Water or hate it; the best I can say about my reaction is that it left me indifferent.
Rating: 
Summary: Talk About a Page Turner
Review: Dobyns continues to enchant with his wonderfully descriptive scenery. Likewise, Dobyns's character descriptions are terrific, giving his audience a sense that these characters are involved in every part of our own daily lives. As Dobyns delves into the psychology of grief and guilt felt by those who have lost loved ones he gives the audience for a moment insight into the human heart and soul. The fear felt through the climatic ending to the book is splendid. This book keeps you hanging on every word and urges you to continue reading. Despite, being a little over 400 pages the book seemed like it was finished before it started.
Rating:
Summary: Another dissection of small-town American life
Review: Dobyns has a knack for writing quirky thrillers, complete with dissfunctional characters and unexpected surprises (sometimes even delivered in the form of a flashback). His dialogue is almost Garrison Keillor funny; his backdrops seemed to be painted by Norman Rockwell. It's no wonder to me why most reviewers disliked his latest novel so much. After all, in a world filled with Grisham wannabes, a reader is often taken back by an author that can truly write."BOY IN THE WATER" is another fine example of a talented novelist that not only can create a mystery but also deliver well-crafted prose -- two things that normally don't go hand in hand in suspense thrillers. Much like his earlier novel "CHURCH OF DEAD GIRLS," Dobyns builds a story around the small-town life (this time at a failing school for troubled children) and picks apart some of the things that make people tick. The characters are, once again, well-crafted and nearly each is given a fair-amount of time in development. However, "BOY IN THE WATER" is not without a couple flaws (repeat scenerios, stilted dialogue and B-movie quality situations), but no more than any other suspense novel out on the shelves today. In fact, because the writing is so stylized, I found them easy to overlook.
Rating:
Summary: Better than I expected ...
Review: I didn't enjoy 'Church of Dead Girls' which I thought was overrated so I didn't rush out to buy 'Boy in the Water'. In fact the only reason I did buy it was that I was looking for something to read on a flight and it was the only reasonable choice. I was pleasantly surprised to find it a very acceptable, well-written thriller with a brooding atmosphere of menace, plausible characters and a satisfactory ending. I would recommend it and would consider buying other books by the same author ...
Rating:
Summary: Starts Off Beautifully, But Ends Like A Scooby-Doo Episode
Review: I love the first couple of chapters in this book-- the writing is incredible in these chapters. I could visualize everything perfectly. I particurarly like the way Dobyns begins chapters with "close-ups" that appear very innocent and benign, but then he slowly reveals a "wide-angle" view that is unexpected and sinister.
About mid-way through the book, the plot becomes clumsy and not very believable. Dobyns' beautiful writing is hindered by a second-rate gothic plot. Suddenly very true to life material is invaded by imagery of ghosts and spectars. And while the theme of the book and the characters do revolve around past events that haunt them, Dobyns' introduction of overt ghost/haunting imagery is clumsy and destroys the eerie subtlety of the first half of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Floater
Review: I wonder why people who really want to write screenplays try to disguise them as novels. "Boy in the Water" is a "novel" to be read by airplane passengers who have already seen the emasculated in-flight entertainment.
I was attracted to Dobyns by the NEW YORK TIMES review blurb on his novel "The Wrestler's Cruel Study." The reviewer commented that the book "stirs together Nietzschean philosophy, professional wrestling, fairy-tale scenarios and Gnostic speculation to produce what is at once a darkly humorous and gravely unsettling work of imagination." At the same time, I ordered "Boy in the Water," and it arrived first. Now I am very apprehensive about reading "The Wrestler's Cruel Study," because "Boy in the Water" stirs together many different varieties of schlock to produce one of the most moronic things I have ever read. If the NYT review is at all accurate, perhaps Mr. Dobyns decided sometime in the 1990s to abandon art for garbage. He does, after all, have three children to send to college.
Let me turn from general commentary to some specific remarks on the "plot," such as it is. Dobyns depends on the stupidity of his readers. (Of course, the fact that the albino in "The Da Vinci Code" could fight off the French police and carry his dying mentor to the hospital with no further police intervention counts heavily on reader stupidity, and that book sold millions. Maybe stupidity is a trend?) Much of the "Boy in the Water" plot is based on the one bad guy (#1) paying another bad guy (#2) to commit a heinous act. Now it stands to reason that, by paying #2 to do the deed, #1 would be interested in staying as far away from #2 and the scene of the crime as possible and in keeping his relationship to #1 tenuous at best. Yet, in advance of a raging snowstorm, #21 comes to a town near the scene of the crime and walks out in public with #2, AND, in the middle of the raging snowstorm, he subsequently rides out to the actual scene of the crime to deliver the rest of the money to #2. In fact, #2 even confides to another character that he was going to be able to use #1's SUV as a getaway car. Where's the logic here? It doesn't exist. Unless you're stupid.
Another amazon.com reviewer commented on Mr. Dobyns' "Church of Dead Girls," and his or her objections can be overlaid almost exactly on "Boy in the Water." This sorry excuse for a novel, whose title does not even resonate in the rest of the book, is just another in a long list of examples of screenwriting gone bad or bad screenwriting gone worse. Still, Mr. Dobyns' children should be able to go to the universities of their choice. Just hope that they don't enroll in his creative writing classes.
Rating:
Summary: Story Under Water
Review: Luckily for us, Dobyns comes from the "readers need constant review" school of writing. That's good because when you get to the point (early in the book) when you are skimming for all that you are worth, you can still keep up with the thin story line that is lost under layers of useless detail. Robert Parker would have gone through this book with a machete and come up with a real page turner. I don't know if Dobyns was paid by the word or the character or both but the result is a story that had me rooting for the murderer. Dobyns does capture the essense of life on a prep school campus reasonably well (although the headmaster has entirely too much time to waste, as do the students who apparently don't have to show up for class). You can put your time to much better use.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, excellent characters, a bit predictable
Review: Stephen Dobyns has once again proved his versatility with his new book, "Boy in the Water". Fans of his Saratoga series are familiar with his wonderful sense of humor, great characters, and spectacular mishaps, all surrounded by a great deal of local color. This novel, like his "Church of the Dead Girls", is serious, haunting, and mysterious, set in winter in New Hampshire, with predictable villains and a great deal of foreshadowing. This book reminds me a bit of a PD James novel,(the snowy mountains instead of the foggy moors) not quite as thick, and certainly with a New England twist. I enjoyed every minute of it, found the characters likeable, believable, and interesting. I loved the subtle changes in the boarding school which Jim Hawthorne was able to implement during his troubled first semester there, as evidenced by the scenes with the students; Dobyns has an excellent eye and understanding for the behavior patterns of abused kids. This was a great read, and highly recommended. My only criticism is that the foreshadowing is a bit heavy, the "bad guys" are pretty obvious even though our hero seems to be oblivious, and the ending is a bit strange - we see the aftermath of the climax of the novel through the eyes of a very minor and peripheral character and there is no alternative wrap up. An interesting literary device, but I felt a little cheated. Maybe foreshadowing of a sequel, Mr. Dobyns?
Rating:
Summary: Tense
Review: The season this book is set - fall and winter - absolutely capture you with the golden days of autumn, sunny during the day, but getting chilly in the afternoon and the snowy, white-and-cold days of winter together with the story that occurs during these days, tense and full of mystery, delivered by excellent prose as smooth and clean as a freshly fallen blanket of snow. This novel is haunting and spookey and in some way even better than "Church of the Dead Girls" - a poetic thriller, if there exists something like that.
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