The Pact

Rating:
Summary: About "The Pact"
Review: About the Book: (source: www.1stbooks.com)

Does anger and bigotry justify murder? Can young boys raised by intolerant parents develop cavalier attitudes while planning and performing terrible injustices-and feel guiltless? Are one-or two-or all three boys involved in a spree of killings that take place over a twelve year period in a normally complacent twin city area? Somebody is committing the murders-and we need to know who-and why!

The Pact chronicles several decades in the lives of three errant Irish youths from the Massachusetts North Shore, depicting their thoughts, deeds, and exploits in a manner to pique readers of all ages. Each youth has his own secret agenda, and a number of provocative incidents and plot twists keep the reader deeply involved as two determined, dedicated detectives search out the truths and answers.

Don E. Finegold:

Don E. Finegold, after nearly fifty years as an executive and Tanner in the New England Leather Industry, retired and began a new career that he had long awaited-writing mystery novels. His first novel, INTERLUDE< a tale of wealth, corruption, and murder was published by 1st Books Library in 2002. A graduate of The Oxford School of Business Administration, Cambridge, MA and Lowell Technological Institute, Lowell, MA, Mr. Finegold continues in his favorite realm, the mystery. He and his wife Elaine reside in Salem, MA, Conway, NH, and Boynton Beach, FL.

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The basketball behaved as if controlled by radar, continually finding the hoop and dropping through. It didn't matter which boy was shooting as they were equally skilled, and this one-on-one match-up was a thing of beauty.

I had watched these two boys--I would guess they were 14 or 15 years old--several times before, but they were oblivious to anyone and everything but their game. I didn't know their names, but being the cop on the beat, I remembered faces, and I liked seeing a black kid and a white kid enjoying each other's company. It didn't happen often in this neighborhood, that's for sure.

I moved on, unaware that these two youths would become victims in a series of killings that would haunt me for years.

Rating:
Summary: About "The Pact"
Review: About the Book: (source: www.1stbooks.com)

Does anger and bigotry justify murder? Can young boys raised by intolerant parents develop cavalier attitudes while planning and performing terrible injustices-and feel guiltless? Are one-or two-or all three boys involved in a spree of killings that take place over a twelve year period in a normally complacent twin city area? Somebody is committing the murders-and we need to know who-and why!

The Pact chronicles several decades in the lives of three errant Irish youths from the Massachusetts North Shore, depicting their thoughts, deeds, and exploits in a manner to pique readers of all ages. Each youth has his own secret agenda, and a number of provocative incidents and plot twists keep the reader deeply involved as two determined, dedicated detectives search out the truths and answers.

Don E. Finegold:

Don E. Finegold, after nearly fifty years as an executive and Tanner in the New England Leather Industry, retired and began a new career that he had long awaited-writing mystery novels. His first novel, INTERLUDE< a tale of wealth, corruption, and murder was published by 1st Books Library in 2002. A graduate of The Oxford School of Business Administration, Cambridge, MA and Lowell Technological Institute, Lowell, MA, Mr. Finegold continues in his favorite realm, the mystery. He and his wife Elaine reside in Salem, MA, Conway, NH, and Boynton Beach, FL.

Free Preview:

The basketball behaved as if controlled by radar, continually finding the hoop and dropping through. It didn't matter which boy was shooting as they were equally skilled, and this one-on-one match-up was a thing of beauty.

I had watched these two boys--I would guess they were 14 or 15 years old--several times before, but they were oblivious to anyone and everything but their game. I didn't know their names, but being the cop on the beat, I remembered faces, and I liked seeing a black kid and a white kid enjoying each other's company. It didn't happen often in this neighborhood, that's for sure.

I moved on, unaware that these two youths would become victims in a series of killings that would haunt me for years.

Rating:
Summary: The Pact--a thriller
Review: I found the Pact most enjoyable and an easy read. I enjoy books that have a twist, an unusual ending, and as in his last book, the author has the knack of doing this, without the reader suspecting the ending. As much as I enjoyed reading Mr. Finegold's first book, Interlude, I enjoyed this novel in a diffent approach. The lives of the three youths, intertwined with the New England atmosphere, held my attention until the very end, when the mystery was solved. If anyone lived during the era when the novel took place, and knows the NorthShore of Massachusetts, then the novel takes on a different aspect-as one might recognize names and places in the novel. This is definitely a "must read" for anyone interested in an evening of good reading.

I look forward to another book written by Mr. Finegold.

Rating:
Summary: "The Pact" is great on many levels
Review: I love a mystery whose solution is one I never anticipated but is perfectly logical in hindsight.

No tricks. No last minute introduction of a new character. No surprise evidence in the last chapter.

A good mystery is a challenge between the author and the reader. "Can you figure this out?" "I'll give you so many pages, so many chapters. The answer is there. Can you deduce it before the end?" It's a battle of the author's skill and the mystery lover's powers of deduction. The best mystery writers make you concede before the end, and when they reveal the answer, you menatlly clap a hand to your head and groan, "Yes! Of course!"

Don Finegold achieves this in "The Pact."

He draws you into post WWII America, where second generation immigrant families are still in conflict. When irrational bigotries and segregated society were acceptable, and "getting even" and "looking out for your own" was the norm.

He opens a window on the rough blue collar lives of the mill and tannery workers and the near aristocratic lives of the owners whose industries once thrived in northeastern Massachusetts, and which have now almost completely disappeared.

The characters are vibrant, their loves and hates and their struggles and triumphs are passionate. It is Don Finegold's skill in writing and the world he recalls that can seemingly distract one's focus for solving the murders--yet, the keen reader discovers it is in understanding this world recently past that one finds the essential clues to solve the mystery.

As much as I liked Don Finegold's first published book "Interlude," I love "The Pact" even more.

Mystery lovers rejoice.