Criminal Conversation

Rating:
Summary: Very Thought Provoking.
Review: Forget the background of the mob story, although it is interesting, and realize that this is just a thrilling book about a woman having an affair. I couldn't wait to find out what happened and read the last 250 pages in one day.

I enjoyed this book so much because you could look at it from so many different angles. First of all, since I am a married male, I looked at it from Michael's point of view. His wife is cheating on him and I wanted to see what he would do when he found out. Then you could be Andrew, the man who seduces Sarah, Michael's wife. What are his motivations? Then you want to know what motivates women cheat on her husband (or a man on his wife). Thinking about that can be both chilling and thrilling.

While I liked this book a lot, I think it had a few weaknesses. Hunter does not do enough at the beginning to establish that Michael and Sarah have a great marriage or even a good marriage. I think if he had spent more time convincing the reader that these two shared a strong bond, then what had followed would be that more devasting. We know Sarah has an affair, but to be able to know exactly what she was betraying would have made her betrayal that much worse.

Also, it seems that Sarah gave herself to Andrew rather easily (not a spoiler). I guess that Andrew was charming and handsome, and that was all it took for Sarah to give away her life. Again, it would have been better to know specifics in her life with her husband that she was very unhappy with. Instead, we just get veiled references to the fact that he was working a lot.

This book has a good ending I guess. Sarah was a frustrating character because I was never truly sure why she totally abandoned Michael and surrendered to Andrew. I guess it was nothing Michael ever did, it was just that Sarah was a bad person.

I plan on checking out some more books by Hunter/Mcbain to see if they are as good as this one.

Rating:
Summary: Criminal Conversation
Review: This was my first Evan Hunter read...and now I'm hooked. A friend passed it along and I couldn't put it down! That was two years ago, and I'm still talking/raving about it! It's exciting, but easy to read!

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: What a fantastic book! One thing I've noticed about Evan Hunter's novels is that he is able to write about female characters in a way that is utterly convincing to me, a female reader. I still have a little difficulty getting to grips with the fact that Sarah could have been written by a male author!

The novel is more 'adult' than Ed McBain novels generally are, and this is worth remembering if you don't like that kind of thing, but this is a great book, and a very good read. Very highly recommended.