Not My Usual Type Book

books:


	• Killer Weekend Ridley Pearson G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2007 - 326 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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A Very Busy Weekend

Sheriff Walt Fleming has a lot going on in his life. He is going through a divorce. One of his deputies is sleeping with his wife. He is trying to keep his troublesome nephew from going to jail. There's a cougar attacking people. And a part-time resident, New York attorney general Elizabeth Shaler, has returned to Sun Valley to officially announce her candidacy for President at the prestigious C3 weekend conference, a who's who convention for the elite of the communications industry. The Sheriff is helping coordinate security for the attorney general. The Sheriff's father is in town to provide unwelcome advice.

And, oh yeah, there is a murderer on the loose and Sheriff Fleming also believes an assassin may be in town to kill Ms. Shaler.

There is a lot going on in "Killer Weekend"...too much I would say. There are too many plots and subplots for Mr. Pearson to tackle in a book that is padded out to just over 300 pages. There is a lot of action, but there really isn't a character that I cared for or felt like I knew. The shear number of subplots took away any chance Mr. Pearson had of developing a character that I cared to root for.

I have to admit that the final 60-70 pages, though implausible at times, were a fun roller coaster ride.

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Uneven, but readable

Walt Fleming is a small-town sheriff, but Quantico-trained and unusually competent. We're given to understand this in the prologue to Killer Weekend, when Walt pieces together clues anyone else might have overlooked and saves the life of Liz Shaler, the Attorney General of New York State, who maintains a second home in Idaho's Sun Valley. Eight years later Shaler is set to announce her candidacy for the presidency at a conference at the Sun Valley Inn. The event would be a logistical nightmare for Walt and his staff under the best of conditions. But he has reason to believe that Shaler is being targeted by an assassin who will make his move when she makes her announcement.

Pearson tells his story from Walt's perspective as well as the assassin's. Milav Trevalian is himself supremely competent at his job. One admires, despite the nature of the task, his painstaking preparations for the kill. Interestingly, he turns out to be a relatively likable character, both because of his professionalism and because, despite his resumé, he shows moments of humanity. Indeed, his humanity turns out to be his Achilles heel.

Unfortunately, Trevalian's motivation is never explored. We never learn why Shaler is in his crosshairs or what the stakes are for him personally. There are other loose ends. Walt's brother is dead, for example, and Pearson hints at deeper issues connected with his death, but we're never told the story. Finally, the book's prologue--in which Walt saves Shaler's life for the first time--makes promises that are never fulfilled. Pearson puts the proverbial gun on the mantle in act one when he describes the means by which that night's intruder enters Shaler's home. Readers expecting that gun to go off by the book's end, however, will wait in vain.

Pearson's principal characters, both good guys and bad, are interesting enough to make us want to read on. The story becomes more complex the deeper into the book we get. The writing doesn't distract from the plot. And the short chapters go by fast enough. Killer Weekend never quite becomes an edge-of-your-seat thriller. But it's a near miss.

-- Debra Hamel

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Not My Usual Type Book

But it was given to me. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was fast paced and well written. I had a hard time putting it down. I hope this is the start of a great series.

Big Meet

Ridley Pearson's KILLER WEEKEND has a pace that is fast and furious, but maybe just a little two many side issues. Sheriff Walt Fleming has the dubious job of protecting a potential presidential candidate, Elizabeth Shaler from being murdered. Walt as a curious rookie cop had saved her life five years before so they had a history that makes her vulnerable to the pressures of big time wheeler and dealer money to finance her campaign.
She is a show piece to a conference of the smartest money men in the nation, but the author never gives a clue as to why the complex effort is made to kill the woman, the reader is left wondering is it someone from her past, her politics or just plain cussedness.
A good read and maybe if he uses these characters again we will learn more about them.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

The #1 New York Times bestseller returns with a completely new setting-the magnificent natural beauty of Sun Valley, Idaho-and a heart-stopping story in which a local sheriff struggles to protect a controversial politician from the elegant plan of a hired assassin. Eight years ago, in Sun Valley-snowcapped playground for the wealthy and ambitious-all that stood between U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler and a knife-wielding killer was local patrolman Walt Fleming. Now Liz Shaler returns to Sun Valley as the keynote speaker of billionaire Patrick Cutter's world-famous media and communications conference, a convergence of the richest, most powerful business tycoons. The controversial attorney general is expected to announce her candidacy for president. It's a media coup for Cutter-but a security nightmare for Walt Fleming, now the county sheriff. As the Cutter conference gets under way, authorities learn of a confirmed threat on Shaler's life, and various competing interests-the Secret Service, the FBI, Cutter's own security forces -begin jockeying for jurisdiction. Amid the conference's opulent extravagances, Walt is suddenly shaken by an apparent murder, his nephew's arrest, and a haunting legacy from his family's past. The clock ticks down toward Shaler's keynote address as we track the chilling precision of her assassin's preparations.

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