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Reviews of Beach Road - Page 1 of 4
A Reader posted a review at 2009-12-01 01:53:37. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Nice story and the end of the story is quite a suprise!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-07-11 08:51:25. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Little tough and slow in the beginning, but WOW!!! What an ending!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-01-15 02:10:11. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Beach Road is a quick read and I must say that I did not see the twist in the end coming at all...well done!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-04-02 10:14:51. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Didn't see the twist coming!!
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-03-14 01:58:15. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Started off slowly, gradually picked up in pace, then became a fast page turner, a twist in the end. Liked it !
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-08-28 06:37:14. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Amazing Book. Has a twist that you wont see coming!! A most read!!!!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-03-12 09:45:54. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Very suprise ending!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-10-17 11:50:03. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 very unexpected ending! loved it - suspenseful to the end!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-10-12 10:41:21. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 One of the worst books I have ever read. Implausible characters involved in a hackneyed story with a "twist" for the ending. Don't read this book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-09-13 02:53:07. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 I found this thriller very enjoyable. Fast paced with a great twist. 8/10
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-10-21 10:14:24. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Great twist at the end. Never saw it coming.
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Vicki posted a review at 2009-11-30 05:48:42. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Just when I thought a expected and yes good ending, it doesn't happen!!! Definitely a surprise ending!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-10-10 06:20:50. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 This was my first James Patterson read...I was hooked! The story is amazing, and you never know what's really going on until the last pages.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-08-18 04:35:25. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Classic Patterson! I didn't see the twist at the end coming although I KNOW his writing style! Another memorable character.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-07-12 01:17:27. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 This summer, I wanted to try authors I haven't read before. I'm always looking for a good book to read. I picked up Beach Road by James Patterson & Peter De Jonge and took it with me on vacation. I've read good things about Patterson and his books. Beach Road is set on the east end of Long Island which appealed to me. I recognized many of the places Patterson mentioned in the story.

The trouble is ... I didn't like the book very much and felt disappointed.

It started out all right. Tom Dunleavy, the main character, is a sort of lack luster lawyer. He used to play pro basketball but washed out after an injury. Apparently he didn't have such a great family life because his older brother is more like a father to him. Naturally he used to have a wonderful girlfriend years ago but dumped her for reasons unknown and now she is a high power city lawyer. And also naturally, Tom has a dog.

Three of Tom's friends are murdered some time after a game of basketball at the home of one of those absent ritzy rich folks who happened to have a very nice court built on the property. Tom, his brother, and the three murdered friends challenged Dante Halleyville, a giant of a high school athlete, and four of his friends. There was a scuffle that turned a little ugly during the game and so when the three guys turn up dead, naturally suspicion falls first on Dante and his pals. Up to this point, I thought it was interesting.

The story is told from several view points. Among them: Tom, Kate Costello, Dante, a knowledgeable cop from Brooklyn named Connie Raiborne, a psycho drug dealer named Loco, Dante's grandma, and a very minor character named Nikki Robinson (cleaning person and cousin of Dante's).

Some of the obvious: Dante is arrested and accused of the murders. Although Tom doesn't step in at first to act as his attorney, he does become lawyer for the defense. He also persuades Kate to join him. Grandma is staunchly supporting her grandson. Raiborne does his job, carefully seeking out clues and figuring out what happened. All of these things aren't terrible, just predictable.

The reason I didn't like the book? There was a twist in it that just didn't ring true. If you read the book you'll see what I mean. When I read it, I thought there is no way that these people would act like that, I just don't believe it. I think it's because the authors didn't lay enough of a foundation to suggest the possibility. It just seemed to come out of thin air and that is very annoying.

I felt like one of the characters from the movie Murder By Death, who gathered all the great literary and movie detectives together to solve a murder. The character, Lionel Twain, totally bamboozles these detectives and then says: "You've tricked and fooled your readers for years. You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You've withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it." Like I said, that stuff is very annoying.

One more thing annoyed me: in the book, the press dug up a tidbit about Tom Dunleavy that I suppose was supposed to be a clue. Whether it was or not, we never found out whether it was true or not. That's one thing I would have liked to have known. There's several other questions but I don't care enough about the book to even post them.

I'm going to try another of James Patterson's books before I cross him off the list. Maybe it wasn't such a great book because he wrote it with someone else. I thought I would give one of the Alex Cross books a try. We'll see what happens.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-02-20 08:32:32. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 major TWIST!
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-02-05 10:01:14. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 I had a hard time getting into this book, even at the half-way mark. However the ending more than made up for the slow start. I usually have a pretty good idea of who I think committed the crime...not in this book!
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Linda posted a review at 2011-07-26 08:00:04. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Gripping and suspensful through and through (typical James Patterson)- twists and turns each short, easy-to-read chapter!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-09-10 04:07:18. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 What a surprise ending.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-04-26 05:38:42. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Anything James Patterson writes I enjoy
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-05-03 01:23:53. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Different, with lots of twists and turns and not the ending one expected which somehow didn't follow through with the storyline!! Not one of his better books :/.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-10-12 07:09:23. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 THis was HORRIBLE!
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-07-21 06:54:57. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 I'm not a big fiction reader, and I wandered through the fiction section looking for a read. BEACH ROAD caught my attention, with its flashly cover, and the fact that Patterson has written (or co-written) a bunch more.

The book's strength is the way it tells the story from multiple viewpoints. You hear different "voices" that way, and it keeps you turning pages. Sexual escapades are portrayed twice, thankfully not enough to distract from a good yarn.

Legal mysteries are a genre I like, and Patterson/De Jonge did it well. The chapters are very short, so it took a bit of getting used to at first.

The twist? It really was out of the blue, but I thought I just missed the clues. Surprise endings are unsettling because they remind us of a truth: people aren't always what they appear to be.

Another Patterson? Probably not to own, but lots left at the library.
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Christine posted a review at 2010-06-23 09:18:21. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 Nice little twist at the end.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-03-09 08:17:36. (Language: English)
didn't like itit was okliked itloved itit was amazing
 One of my favorite books ever. The twists and turns keeps the pages turning. :)
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Reviews of Beach Road - Page 1 of 4
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