Customer Reviews

Alone

5 star:		(94)
4 star:		(70)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Bobby Dodge, member of the elite STOP team in Boston, MA, which deals with dangerous police situations, has just completed a grim task: as a sniper he has ended the life of a husband Jimmy Gagnon, who seemingly was on the verge of harming either his wife Catherine or his son Nathan. And to add to Bobby's distress at having to kill another man, he is immediately attacked by Jimmy's father, Judge James Gagnon, a powerful Boston personage, for acting rashly and caving in to the manipulations of Catherine.

But what is it about the past of Bobby, Catherine, and Jimmy, and even the Judge, that has led to this point? Lisa Gardner expertly combines the unfolding of traumatic disturbances in their lives with rapid fire developments in the present. Given her history, could Catherine, one with elegant, fragile beauty, orchestrate her own husband's death? Maybe Bobby knew more about the Gagnon's then he is telling - are his actions completely innocent? Why is the Judge's and his wife's past shrouded in mystery?

This is Lisa Gardner's best book, and most of her previous books were quite good. The plot is great and it moves. Yet the characters get the right amount of attention. And there are some nice twists. This latest effort by Gardner will disappoint few.

This is a psychological crime novel about a woman whose husband is killed by a police sniper. The sniper kills the man because he appears to be ready to shoot his wife. It turns out that the woman and the police sniper have psychological baggage -- lots of it. The fact that the sniper kills the husband leads to an intense investigation, which is when all the twisting begins. The book has a villian that you just love to hate and a lovable child and puppy.

I actually enjoyed this book, much to my surprise. I am usually not a fan of "crime format" books. But the book was fairly well written, easy to read, and had some twists that made it impossible to preconceive how the book was going to end. All in all, not a bad book -- not great -- but not bad. A good book for reading on an airplane.

I will say that the twists and turns became a little confusing and it was somewhat hard to follow. Right up to the very end, I'm not sure exactly what happened. Maybe this was the author's intention; I don't know.

"Alone", by Lisa Gardner, NY, Bantam, 2004 ISBN 0-553-80253-4 (hc), 324 p., by author of 6 prior NYT best-selling novels (plus 13 others under a.k.a. Alicia Scott). Gardner at her finest renders a suspense novel entwining lives of police sniper Bobby Dodge and Boston socialite Catherine Gagnon with those messed-up lives of their ovn parents and "lustmord" of pedophilist Richard Umbrio. So yes, there's rape abduction, police homicides, and an escalating mess of murder by knife, hanging?, gun -- by chilling variant divating means.

We are immersed into finely-tuned and researched machinations of SWAT techniques, of alleged spousal & child abuse, of aftermath of incest, pedophilia and inappropriate use of financial and judicial power, and importantly a heartening and occasionally disheartening look into survival techniques used by people suffering from imperfections and fragility of the human condition and where the bottom line rings true that blood runs thicker than thieves.

Gardner's command of language, be it technical, romantic, carnal, or merely weaving fact with fiction is simply superb -- when novels get this good it is hard to say enough and I'd love to have a signed copy. Deservedly, I give it 5***** without hesitation.

but I hated this book. I always look forward to a Lisa Gardner book, but this one was a great disappointment. First off, I hated the heroine Catherine (if that's what you can call her). I realize she had a traumatic experience as a child, but she grew up to be an unlikeable woman. She manipulates, cheats, sets up an innocent police officer and is very unapologetic about it. The whole book overall is depressing. You like to see a little bit of hope or happiness in a novel, but this has none of that. The police officer is suspended, oh, and he also had an abusive childhood, and don't forget he's an alcoholic, oh, and let's not forget her childhood tragedy, and her postpartum depression, and how she was willing to just hand off her kid to a nanny, oh, and her kid is sick and her husband is abusive and her in-laws are awful...I could go on and on. I did like the hero Bobby, and I did have hope that he would end up happy, and he kind of did, except he walked away from the woman he loved and never went back. Great. And the tragedy continues. The story ends with the police still trying to get Catherine. I actually skipped parts of the book because I thought it just all seemed so unreal. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. I like heart-wrenching stories, but I just didn't care enough about the characters to shed a single tear. I'm hoping her next novel isn't this bad.

Bobby Dodge is a police sniper who is called to a hostage situation. From his vantage point he witnesses a husband threatening his wife and small child with a handgun. When it becomes apparent that the man is about to shoot the woman, Bobby blows him away, and his troubles begin. The dead man was the only son of an influential judge, who alleges that the dead man's wife, Catherine Gagnon, orchestrated the whole situation. Soon Bobby is accused of having an affair with the widow, and begins his own investigation while on mandatory leave from the police department. What he uncovers is chilling and before he knows it he's in over his head.

There's little suspense to the story, as the author basically lays everything out, and doesn't bother to try to hide much. The main character of Officer Dodge is about the least likeable person possible, although Catherine Gagnon is probably worse. Bobby constantly follows the most illogical course of action in everything he does; repeatedly meeting with Catherine, Judge Gagnon and his private detectives, breaking up with a devoted and wonderful girlfriend, etc. A bunch of psycological nonsense is thrown in to explain his actions, of course, because he hates his mother. And, most ridiculous of all, is the *exciting* conclusion, with about the cheesiest writing imaginable - as they're trying to be quiet (lots of people have been killed, some by being punched) the mother-in-law starts into lengthy monologues of what's happened. And Catherine "reeking of gunpowder" after having fired several shots (all missing wildly), covered in perspiration, her hair matted to her head, and Bobby's thinking how beautiful she is. I laughed out loud! Add to it a dose of disgusting pedophilia and plenty of smut and foul languange, and I honestly can't recommend this book. I'll give it 2 stars instead of 1 simply because the story was mildly interesting, enough that I actually finished it.

Unrelenting and depressing, this book has a rather hateful female lead and a pathetic masochistic hero. Do Not Recommend.

Usually, I give the 99 cent book a break. Because usually, it's being offered by a new/upcoming/indie or once traditionally published author, now taking their career (and money!) into their own capable hands.
But.
I gave Alone one star because from a 'best selling' author, this was a hot steaming mess.
I couldn't even finish it. She took paragraphs and paragraphs to describe the most boring details.
During the police action, I felt like I was reading a manual on tactical operations. A very dry manual that felt like a noose around my neck.
I remember reading Gardner years ago. And now I remember why I no longer bother!
Save your 99 cents!

First off, not the book to be reading when you've got a bad bug and are feeling nauseous. I threw up my Rice Crispies late this morning due to some graphic content colliding heads with my really off stomach.

If you've not read Gardner before, she's really worth it - on par with Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs, Tami Hoag and - dare I say it? - Harlen Coben. Her psychological thrillers have extremely rich characters, and rarely does she give you the pat "female victim" role. Her women fight back, fight dirty, and sometimes spend the entire book making you wonder if they're the villain in the first place.

"Alone" is about a survivor. Catherine was snatched by a pedophile when she was young, trapped in a dark hole in the ground, and abused for nearly a month. She was found and rescued at random, but has never quite since gotten over her fear of the dark. Years have passed - she has a child, a husband, a life, and now suddenly, things have gone wrong. Bobby, a police SWAT sniper, responds to Catherine's call that her husband has a gun and is threatening the family. In a split second decision, he shoots the husband to save the wife and child.

But things aren't at all as simple as they seem - and it might be that someone arranged all of it.

Solid thriller, with a mystery as tangled as you can ask for from an author that is very good at so far not growing at all stale with her plot ideas. Even better was the cameo from a "The Perfect Husband" charater, which I always like: it lends a sense of continuity and realism to the tale when you bump into other wounded people still going on with their lives.

Long story short, go get it, read it, and you'll be just as wrapped up as I was.

We are only fourteen days into the new year, but I already have read what is sure to be a contender for suspense readers' lists of the Top Ten Books for 2005. ALONE by Lisa Gardner continues her string of riveting novels, upping the ante from 2003's excellent THE KILLING HOUR.

While there are a number of memorable characters in ALONE --- including an obligatory but nonetheless frightening bogeyman --- it is essentially the story of two people whose lives are intertwined by a fateful moment and an act. Bobby Dodge is more than a Massachusetts State Policeman; he is a member of the Special Tactics and Operations Team (STOP), an elite unit drawn from all over the state to assist where and when needed. Dodge is just unwinding from a long day when he receives word of a situation involving a domestic barricade with hostages. Dodge is a designated sniper and is very good at what he does. He evaluates the situation and sees a man with a gun, and a woman and child who appear to be in immediate danger. He takes the man out, thus saving the woman and child. It is, by all appearances, a clean shoot.

Dodge's problems, however, are just beginning. The dead man is Jimmy Gagnon, the son of a prominent and powerful judge. The woman and child, Gagnon's wife and son, have a history of their own. As a child Catherine Gagnon was known as The Thanksgiving Miracle. Abducted and abused for 28 days, she was miraculously discovered and rescued by hunters. But her ordeal left hidden scars upon her that run deep and hard. Nathan Gagnon, her son, is ravaged by a mysterious malady that seems to rob his body of nourishment and that no doctor seems able to diagnose.

Shortly before the fateful night that the Gagnons entered Dodge's life --- and he theirs --- Jimmy had filed for divorce, seeking sole custody of Nathan. Judge Gagnon is now pursuing a murder charge against Dodge, inferring that he and Catherine colluded in plotting Jimmy's death. The charge seems ridiculous on its face, as Dodge had never even met these people. Yet the evidence seems to be inexplicably piling up against him. Catherine, meanwhile, is not all who she seems. Using her dark, intriguing sensuality with a sinister twist, Catherine attempts to play Dodge like a finely-tuned Stradivarius, manipulating him into helping her against forces both seen and unseen, from the past and the present, that seek to invade her life and take from her everything she holds dear.

The ending (and even the middle) of ALONE is impossible to predict. Gardner wrings every possible surprise out of the storyline, and continues to do so until practically the last page. Everyone in the book is suspect; no one is precisely who they seem to be. Impeccably plotted and superbly written, ALONE is a novel that will leave you torn between racing to finish it and lingering over its characterizations. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

I am a Lisa Gardner fan. Her stories are usually breath-stealing, on the edge of your seat suspenseful. Alone starts out great, but just never develops into a good solid performance.

Rose Gagnon and her son are being held at gun point by Rose's husband, Jimmy. The police have been called and the STOP (special tactics and operations) team are assembled to bring an end to this "supposed" hostage situation. Bobby Dodge, a member of the STOP team has Jimmy in his crosshairs and as Jimmy's finger starts to pull the trigger of the gun he is pointing at his wife, Bobby does what he has been trained to do.... he takes Jimmy out. Jimmy happens to be the son of a powerful judge who claims that Rose set up the whole scenerio just to get Jimmy killed. Bobby finds himself caught in the middle as Rose and Judge Gagnon fight it out. Also caught in the middle, is Rose's young son, who is in and out of the hospital with constant illnesses that Judge Gagnon and his wife claim are just a simple case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. Is there more than meets the eye in this case? Did Rose use the police to kill her husband. Is she trying to kill her son as well?

This book started out with a bang, like all the other Gardner novels I have read. It was exciting and fast paced. About half way through the story, however, it took a ridicuous turn. It became apparent that Ms. Gardner was trying really hard to build up the suspense and wanted to throw the reader off by adding alot of junk to the story to keep you running in several directions at once. It simply didn't work this time. The mystery and suspense and constant adding another layer to be stripped off by the reader exhausted me and took away from the story. There was just too much going on to be remotely believable and after a few chapters of being introduced to new information, i just became too tired to care.

This is definitely not one of Lisa Gardners' best efforts. I would not recommend it. There too many "good" books out there to waste your time on this one.