- Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Signet (1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0451204298
- ISBN-13: 978-0451204295
- Product Dimensions: 18.9 x 11.1 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,035,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
"Eight gray birds, sitting in dark. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"Eight gray birds, sitting in dark. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
top ten list,
By
This review is from: A Maiden's Grave (Mass Market Paperback)
I read roughly 90 books per year, all fiction, and generally in the same genre, and this novel has remained on my top ten list for many years. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I found it to be gripping from cover to cover, and could easily have stayed up all night in order to read it in one sitting. Despite this being one of his "early works", I still believe it to be his best. He manages to produce real fear and suspense without cheap thrills and gore. The characters are well drawn, and easily understood and related to. And hey! My wife loved it too. We keep a copy in our "library" to loan out to friends, and probably always will. We don't typically read a book twice, but we will both do so with this one. Guaranteed. Hey, and it's really cheap!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Non-stop entertainment,
By
This review is from: Maidens Grave (Hardcover)
This nail biter of a thriller involves a hijacked schoolbus carrying eight deaf school children and two teachers. Sound familiar? Mary Willis Walker's "Under the Beetle's Cellar" develops a very similar premise. Both books even include an asthmatic among the kidnapped children.But in Deaver's skillful hands, the story works again. The two protagonists are Arthur Potter, senior FBI negotiator, nearing retirement, and Melanie Charrol, a young, timid deaf teacher whose lonely passion is music. The three kidnappers are prison escapees who have already killed three people before holing up in an abandoned slaughterhouse with the terrified hostages. Potter works against time to get inside the head of their leader, Lou Handy, and derail his threat to kill one hostage every hour until his demands are met. Meanwhile, state officials have their own agenda, as does the press, and their machinations ratchet up the suspense in several different directions. And, inside, Melanie fights her fears, holding onto an image of Potter (who she has glimpsed outside) as inspiration, and works feverishly to save at least a few of the girls. Deaver's characterizations - the outbursts of rebellion and tears among the children, the gleeful coldbloodedness of Handy, Potter's feverish analysis and risky gambles, Melanie's terrified bravery - hurtle the plot forward, while the slaughterhouse atmosphere is dank and cold, and the action is non-stop, right up to a couple of switch-back twists at the end.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Plodding, Not Worth the Effort to Read!,
By StarrEise "N/A" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Maiden's Grave (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm a big fan of Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series and eagerly picked up A Maiden's Grave. Unfortunately, this novel simply isn't the same calibre of the Rhyme books.The plot involves the kidnapping of several young deaf girls who are held hostage at an old slaughterhouse in Kansas. The main character in the book is Arthur Potter, an FBI hostage negotiator; he's accompanied by the standard techno-geek, the mousey assistant who faithfully logs info on the bad guys, and the stunningly gorgeous ex-model assistant Angie. For fans of the Rhyme series, you'll recognize this Amelia Sachs-clone immediately...the only change is the hair color. The villains are interesting, but not enough is shared about them to keep this reader interested. Most of the book is spent slogging through countless scenes of tech-talk, political in-fighting, and the developing "relationship" between one of the deaf women and the hostage negotiator. This plotline alone strains the credibility of the book. All in all, it appears that Deaver has done his research, but the plot is hackneyed and too drawn out -- I've even lost count of the number of times the hostage negotiation team "bursts into applause" at the slightest "accomplishment" of the hero, Potter. If you like police procedurals, read A Maiden's Grave. If you want an engaging novel, you'd be better off reading the Lincoln Rhyme series. And for the ultimate hostage negotiation novel, check out Robert Crais' "Hostage" -- that was a phenomenal read!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
