Rating: 
Summary: Easy read, terrible ending
Review: "Life Penalty" was a fairly easy read, although a little far-fetched. Jack was too patient, Jennifer to perfect, and Gail just plain too obsessed. I was pleased to see that the police knew what she was doing and that they weren't portrayed as incompetent, but didn't Jack ever phone home during the day and wonder where his wife was? Didn't Jennifer mention coming home to an empty house to him? I also thought the ending was terrible - I understand why she did what she did and even that it wasn't important to the reader to know what the results of her actions would be, but I thought it unreasonable to expect that the reader would accept the fact that other characters reacted the way they did. I enjoyed the book to the extent that I would read future books by this author, but not enough to give it a ringing endorsment.
Rating:
Summary: Easy read, terrible ending
Review: "Life Penalty" was a fairly easy read, although a little far-fetched. Jack was too patient, Jennifer to perfect, and Gail just plain too obsessed. I was pleased to see that the police knew what she was doing and that they weren't portrayed as incompetent, but didn't Jack ever phone home during the day and wonder where his wife was? Didn't Jennifer mention coming home to an empty house to him? I also thought the ending was terrible - I understand why she did what she did and even that it wasn't important to the reader to know what the results of her actions would be, but I thought it unreasonable to expect that the reader would accept the fact that other characters reacted the way they did. I enjoyed the book to the extent that I would read future books by this author, but not enough to give it a ringing endorsment.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY GOOD
Review: Gail had the perfect life until her six year old daughter, Cindy, was brutally raped and murdered. After that, Gail's only mission in life was to find the monster who did this. I notice that many of the readers here have a strong dislike for Gail, and in many ways, I can understand that. However, we have to remember the kind of loss that Gail has suffered. Nothing could be worse than having your child murdered. How is Gail supposed to function like a "normal" person, considering what happened? She repeatedly puts her life in danger in an effort to catch the killer, and it's obvious that part of her doesn't really want to live. Her plans to find this killer make no sense at all, and I felt tremendous sympathy for her husband, Jack and daughter, Jennifer throughout all of this. Gail so desperately needed help, but she refused to get it. Even when she finally did see a psychiatrist, she told him that she wouldn't let him help her.In this book, Joy Fielding takes you on a journey that no one wants to take - losing your child to murder. You get to experience this through Gail's eyes. Although the ending wasn't quite what I expected, the book was still very good overall.
Rating: 
Summary: Oddly gripping, but mostly just bad.
Review: I didn't dislike Gail-- I actually think that one of the things Fielding did decently was create a portrait of a woman gone mad with grief. Hence the extra star on what really is a one-star novel... What I did dislike was that it was poorly written. It was often wooden and jerky in style. It read like it was written far too quickly. Skip this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Story
Review: I didn't like Gail either and thought she was the single biggest idiot to ever hit the literary pages. The loss of a child is the worst possible loss, but Gail was just such a loathsome character and did such irrational, stupid things even by trauma standards. One thing that irked me was early in the book, after Gail learned of her daughter's murder, she pretended the hospital where she [Gail] was admitted was a setting. I didn't like the way the doctors were called actors. I didn't like the whole scenario, e.g. calling the hospital a "setting," the hospital personell "understudies," herself the "center of attention" and a doctor "a distinguished looking actor wearing a white coat," who was clearly a doctor and to REALLY add insult to injury, the "an actress in a white uniform." That whole stupid business of converting the hospital into a stage for her fantasies was an insult to everyone's intelligence. Everybody else seemed to feel Gail was an irrational idiot. The most stupid thing she did short of that Halloween bit the park was to just accuse a man of killing her child by saying to him, "I'm her mother." The poor guy must have wondered WHOSE mother -- Jane Pauley's?! That was dangerous and just too stupid for belief. Everything Gail did was illogical, from the park to the rental rooms to the false accusation to the stupid way she related to people and lastly, the really bad ending. I didn't like the ending at all and could not see how it could work. The ending was really a beginning, in a way and it was just so bad it made Gail even more loathsome. I didn't like her in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping, well written......
Review: I picked this hardcover up during the 80's when it first came out and I enjoyed the read. Sure some of this sounds far-fetched but Joy Fielding along with Mary Higgins Clark were at the top of women writers in the 80's given readers chilling suspense and a good fast read. It seems now a days all these stories they wrote about so well, have been put through the mill and rehashed a million times over. I guess when you look back they may seem somewhat tame and maybe even dull compared to what they write about these days but I still remember this story and reading it till 4AM till finished and enjoying it, thats what readings about. Its really not as bad as many of the reviewers claim.
Rating:
Summary: A let down - a lousy ending and a lousy protagonist
Review: I truly disliked the protagonist, Gail. She was not a sympathetic character. I didn't like her irrational behavior, e.g. renting fleabags, sleeping in the park on Halloween and the way she treated Jennifer. She would deliberately do dangerous things like hitchhinking. I hated the way she talked to Jennifer. Gail had such an inappropriate way of relating in general. I think it served her right that Jennifer left to move in with her dad. I think buying a BIRTHday cake for a DEAD person is sick and macabre. Gail actually bought a BIRTHday cake for Cindy after her death. That was stupid and sickening and I didn't like that part at all. Gail was sick and macabre. I didn't like the way Gail treated Cindy, the daughter who was killed during her music lessons. I also didn't like the way she sank to Cindy's level when she played dolls with her. Destroying the "happy plates" Cindy liked seemed stupid because one would think she would want something to remember that the child enjoyed. I also did not like the way she told the psychiatrist (he and Jack were saints) she would not let him help her. I hated the ending and thought Gail was for the birds.
Rating: 
Summary: A Mother's Grief Has No End At All!
Review: I was surprised to see the poor(?) ratings on this book. I thought that the book had been very well written and couldn't put it down.
Gail, her husband Jack, Jennifer her oldest, and Cindy the youngest, were one happy family. Having plenty of wealth, a beautiful home, and all that goes with a richer lifestyle, you wouldn't want for anything more. But perfect doesn't last forever when six-year-old Cindy is raped and murdered. Her killer leaves her under a bush afterwords like a piece of trash.
When Gail comes home after an afternoon with her friend to find police there waiting on her, she is very fearful. Of course the minute she learns the news, she is in denial big time, a state of shock, and takes forever to even be able to talk at all.
As life continues on, Gail has her mind on one thing only-and that is finding Cindy's killer no matter what. She does very dangerous things; hitchhikes on the streets, and goes to very dangerous parts of town to find the killer. The police just won't work fast enough for her.
She nearly gets herself killed many times over, and not only that she wants to die. She finds crazy ways to injure herself so that she can end her life and be with Cindy. There is no end to the agony until-you must read and find out.
Rating:
Summary: "Life Penalty" brings tragedy a little closer to home....
Review: Joy Fielding once again releases an incredible book. The books main points were placed strategically throughout the book creating a feeling within the reader that they were the lady who's child had been abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered. The ending added an interesting twist to the plot--defiantly not a story to pass up. I would recommend "Life Penalty" to anyone who enjoys murder/mystery/revenge books.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: The book was not bad. I am not sorry I read it. I thought the character, Gail, was a bit ridiculous in her search for her daughter's killer. She was willing to lose everything, including a wonderful husband and daughter, over this obsession of hers. It was really getting to me. The ending was merely an ending. I felt it was anticlimactic. Like I said, the book is fine, but it is not one of those books I would say to someone, "You have GOT to read this!".
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