Customer Reviews

Cul-de-Sac: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a awesome book!!!It keeps you glued from the first page to the last. I had never heard of david Martin before i picked the book up at a book fair at my work for 2 dollars and it was the best two bucks I've ever spent.....IF horror and gore is your thing. Read this book you'll love it!!!!!!!!

David Martin does it again, another homerun. Is is possible that jail can change a person? Take someone who's innocent of murder then spent several years in jail, and when he comes out, he's a changed man. This is the story of Doland Growler. Grolwer (you have to love that name) had to spend years in jail, and he was changed froever. Now that he's out, he wants to find the ones who set him up for murder and was forced to do unspeakable things in jail. But now Growler is out, and it's times to make the giulty pay.
Don't think that that the above spoils anything. What I said is mention in the back of the book. I left out a lot, trust me.
Martin gives the reader many chills with the unique murders that Growler commits. Martin also has the ability to keep the reader glued to the page, and actually forced the reader to put the book down. This book has a lot of plot twiwts and excellent characters that will heep the reader hooked to the very last page.
If you know of Martin's works, then you need to get this book, and other book Mratin wrote. Now, if you haven't read any books my Martin, then you must start it. You may want to read a book called "Lie to Me", before you read this book. One character in Lie to me, shows up here. Start this book, you won't be sorry.

Couldn't put the book down!!! I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a some HORROR....

I gave this book only two stars because I actually felt compeled to read to the end. I should have known; any book that opens with a beheading, and the victims heads being placed in the washer and dryer, is bound to be disgusting. I guess I just had no idea how disgusting. I'm not generally a squeamish person, but this was just over the top. Not to mention the plot was thin; you know who the bad guys are from the beginning, and the eventual revelation was no big surprise. I personally found Martin's writing to be overdone; his descriptions had the subtlety of a 2 by 4, and some were just plain bad. The run on sentences and lack of commas just beg for a good editor. If you are looking for some good psychological suspense, just get a Stephen King or an Iris Johansen novel; those are actually scary and mysterious, not just gross.

David Martin strikes again. I am completely in awe of his creation of Growler, a maniacal serial killer with an interesting twist. I was so caught up in this story that there was no way I could put it down and ended up finishing it in one afternoon. Martin's writing is clear, and he drew me in with all the twists and turns to this story.
Donald Growler knows he has been wronged. He has just spent several years of his life in prison for a crime he says he never committed. Now he's out, and he's in search of all the people who caused him to be locked up. I was squirming in my chair with the descriptions of some of the more creative murders in this novel. The plot twists are amazing, and there were quite a few surprises. I love that Teddy Camel makes another appearance; he was a great character in Martin's LIE TO ME (another incredible serial killer novel).
Martin is not for the squeamish! He is very detailed, and his bad guys are downright brutal. But he is a master of plot and character development. This is well worth the time to read!

From the front cover to the last page, Martin delivers a non stop, heart-stopping, adrenaline pumping thriller, that burns images into your mind, and steals your breath away. When the heads rolled, and ended up in the washer and dryer with the cycles on, I could not put it down. A superb read!

From the moment that Martin hits the unsuspecting reader with the "head" gag in the first chapter, Cul-De-Sac had me well and truely hooked. An absolutely spiffing thriller that never loses momentum, punctuated with the occasional exceedingly nasty scene, and all wrapped up with a huge dose of hilarious gallows humour, makes for an absolutely unputdownable page-turner. I can't wait for Tarantino (or possibly Cronenberg?) to make the movie!

The dialogue is right out of NYPD Blue (a compliment, of course). The discussion by a couple of the characters on whether Growler's name is pronounded Grow-ler or Growl-er is hilarious. Also appreciated by this reader is that Martin gives a plausible rationalization for Annie returning to Cul De Sac, knowing that a killer is probably waiting for her. So instead of saying to myself, "Lady, don't go in there!", I'm saying, "Yeah, I can see why she'd do that." I liked that he cared enough about the reader to realize that we'd need a reason for her risky behavior.

I have been a fan of David Martin's thrillers for years now, and Cul-de-sac did not disappoint. If you enjoy suspense, humor, and gore, you'll love this novel. I highly recommend it.

I wasn't riveted, fascinated or spell bound by this tawdry little book. I gave it two stars instead of one because I love characters that are just a little out of sync with the rest of the world. Annie and Teddy were interesting as lead characters alebit you never understood why their brief summer affair couldn't have ended with something close to reality. Teddy didn't want to marry Annie so they broke up.... how trite given the nature of their summer together. Annie finds out she's pregnant and doesn't tell Teddy at the time but years later he's apologizing for not being there for her when she was pregnant. So when do you think the author might let it slip in that Annie had told him she got pregnant that summer. The whole stupid book is full of this sort of crap. Starting things and then forgetting how to end them and what they relate to. It's so ridiculous especially the 'bad guy'. So abused and taken advantage of by everyone you start hoping he gets to kill everyone. If you want me to feel sorry for the rat finks that lied at his trial then you gotta do better than this. I hated to see the way he died given he never did a thing to deserve the horrible things done to him while in prison for a murder he didn't commitOh yeah, just to let you know, there is no big mystery here. You know who's doing what from the first chapter. What you can't possibly know is that the author doesn't have anything else to really say.