To Bury the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Potent thriller with compelling characters
Review: After reading the reviews of this book which went from loved it to hated it, I decided to give it a try. I have to say, I found it very compelling. The characters were very believeable and the author's ability to pace a story kept me turning the pages, which I always look for in a good thriller. I actually read it in one sitting.

The ending is somewhat oblique, and at first I wasn't sure I liked it, but then I realized that it's the kind of story that doesn't have a neat ending with all the loose ends tied, and perhaps that makes some readers uncomfortable. The story stayed in my mind long after I read it, which is more than I can say for many other books I've read.

I guess it's up to the individual to decide for themselves whether they like a story like this -- it's dark and hard-edged and feels very real, but it lingers in the imagination. It may make you mad. But it will not leave you untouched. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Raw, unnerving, sucks you in like a vacuum and never lets go
Review: For parents who love and cherish their children, it is the most horrific, middle-of-the-night, cold sweat of a nightmare imaginable. Craig Spector's tale of freefall helplessness, overwhelming grief, and seething rage is within a razor's edge of being too realistic to bear. The main character, Paul Kelly, is a career EMT-Fire Rescue professional accustomed to creeping through burning buildings to save lives. When incomprehensible tragedy strikes his family, Kelly finds his core self melted down by dual raging infernos of anger and anguish to the most base of primal instincts. When the justice system doesn't work, when what's "legal" isn't "right", then "illegal" no longer seems "wrong". TO BURY THE DEAD is raw, unnerving... and sucks a reader in like a vacuum and never lets go. Twists and turns through the plot's smoke-filled corridors will keep you from seeing what lies just ahead, yet drive you to flipping pages toward it. A breath-stopping, heart-thumping thriller of a novel. Must-read.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book-bad ending
Review: I thought this was a pretty original plot. But the ending was so flat and unbelievable. As another reviewer pointed out - the endings of each chapter with a premonition got old really fast.