Customer Reviews

Beach Road

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(41)
1 star:		(91)

 

 

James Patterson has teamed up once again with Peter deJonge with BEACH ROAD. Seems they should have stopped after THE BEACH HOUSE which was much better than this attempt. BEACH ROAD left me shaking my head and wondering "What's the point?"

The story focuses on Tom Dunleavy, who played professional basketball for one game and then was injured ending his basketball career. Now Tom is a disgruntled lawyer who is more interested in making baskets with wads of paper than making a living or even being a viable part of society. He spends his free time drinking or playing pick-up basketball games on a local court constructed on a multi-million dollar estate in the Hamptons. Seems the owner doesn't mind anyone and everyone using his court overlooking the ocean. Things that make ya go hmmm...

During one of these games, Dunleavy's all Caucasian team goes up against a kid, Dante Halleyville, who is the up and coming star of the basketball world and his friends, all African-American. Dante's opted to go to college for a year instead of jumping into the NBA draft (a promise he made his grandmother), so he's hanging out in the summer waiting for college to start. Tempers and egos get out of control which results in Dante and one of Tom's teammates squaring off. Next thing everyone knows, Dante's best friend, Michael, has a gun. Tom defuses the situation and it appears the situation is over and soon to be forgotten.

However, when three of Tom's teammates turn up dead that night, from an execution style killing on the basketball court, the first ones the police are looking for are Dante and Michael. Next thing we know, Michael has been killed, and Dante is running scared. Tom talks Dante into turning himself in, and when he's arrested for the four grisly murders, Tom reluctantly agrees to represent him.

Tom talks Kate Costillo, a hotshot corporate lawyer, into helping him. Seems they have a past and Kate is anything but trusting of Tom's motives but she's drawn back to her small town and the convictions that Dante needs help proving his innocence.

I'm not sure what Patterson and deJonge were trying to accomplish, but it didn't work. The book is written from various perspectives - each chapter is written from a different person's view and it gets very confusing, especially in the beginning when the cast of characters are being established. Often I had to look back at the chapter heading to see who talking. Not only are the main characters given chapters, but sub-characters such as Loco, a local drug dealer; Connie Raiborne, a detective, and others who all have little relevance to the story. Their perspectives were a bit boring and unexciting.

I could have gotten past the bouncing of narrations if the ending hadn't been such a let down. The "twist" at the end was anticlimactic and not even entertaining. For the highly educated, the streetwise, and others in this town to be so fooled by the villain was a joke. For this villain to fool everyone for many years was not believable. Instead of the ending bringing everything together, it blew it all apart.

Another complaint is the trial of Dante. Only a few pages were given to his legal team trying to prove his innocence, when racial tensions were mounting in this small town. Nothing of substance was at the end, just glossing over major issues.

I anxiously awaited the release of BEACH ROAD since I enjoyed THE BEACH HOUSE so much and was thoroughly disappointed. Maybe Patterson needs to stick with writing with Maxine Paetro (The Women's Murder Club series) - they are a much better team and produce great stories!

The ending is the worst I've ever experienced. Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you if you still decided to read this book.

The ending is totally implausible for many, many reasons. I mean, it's ridiculous to the point of being a satire of a mystery. I just couldn't believe James Patterson allowed this to be published.

The rest of the book is obviously hastily thrown together and definitely not up to Patterson's previous standards.

My first thought when I finished "Beach Road" was, "I want my money back."

This is absolutely one of the worst "beach reads" I have ever read. His characters are pseudo-Nelson DeMille (DeMille wins). His twisted ending would have been fine if it had been part of "Atonement," where it worked so brilliantly. But this is a pathetic, name-dropping, inside-joke-attempt to a clever read that fails. A rush to a surrealistic ending that would have never even made the first draft of a Hitchock screenplay. I pity all the people that took this book on their vacation. My recommendation, skip this entirely and go to anything Nelson DeMille has ever written. Start with "Gold Coast." A truly superior look at the real and beyond the norm
authentic Beach Road of the Hamptons.

Pulp fiction is what it is, a fun, cheap escape. It's cotton candy for the soul and something many of us can use every now and then. Patterson and De Jonge use their craft and deliver a cheaply fun read, then ruin it with the ending. Of all the arbitrary plot twists, this one takes the blue ribbon. Patterson and his co-author devote an entire book to developing the protagonist--Tom Dunleavy. We get to know his character and personality. At the end, the authors turn on a dime, take away every single thing they've told us about Dunleavy and expect the reader to be gleeful, or at least sensationally scandalized, with this "brilliant" turn events. Even without the disastrous ending the book was mediocre escapism--with it, it's a slap in the face. You have better things to do with your time.

Even before I got to the ending I didn't think the story made any sense. Way too many gaping holes in logic and believable behavior. Then I finished it and nearly threw it in the fireplace. HOW STUPID! It would have been more believable if aliens had been introduced at the end.

I'm with the reviewers who thought this book was ruined by the ending. I'm all for twists, but this was completely ridiculous and incongruous and dumb.

The book tells the tale of Hamptons small-time lawyer Tom, who had a brief career as a professional ball player. Apparently sometime in his youth, he dumped the woman he truly loved, Kate, who became a hard career lawyer in NYC. We know she's hard because she smokes, and has no friends, but in the end, they band together and find true love while defending a young black ball player from a multiple murder death-penalty charge.

It's twisting and turning and super derivative, but mostly it's satisfying. Until the last few chapters, when the writers throw in a major monkey wrench that turns the books into a joke.

I felt as if the entire reading experience was false, and a waste of time. Badly done. Cheap.

Patterson's books may not be the best, but they ususally don't make you feel this cheated.

This book has a shocking, last minute twist a la Sixth Sense. The surprise in the movie, Sixth Sense, however, works. Your view of the story is suddenly turned on its head and you're left wanting to go back to look for the clues that you missed before. In the case of this book, the twist was completely unbelievable and even felt a bit obscene. To make it every more frustrating, I thought the book was actually a good read, and I kept reading thinking the mystery's solution would be revealed and the intriguing questions would somehow be tied up. Instead, the ending left me rolling my eyes and feeling duped rather than entertained. This Beach Road leads to nowhere.

I have been a James Patterson fan for years, however this book was a huge disappointment. Soap operas are more convincing and realistic than this book.

One-dimensional characters, a ridiculous plot and an ending that made no sense and seemed just slapped on to add a shock to an otherwise dull book. A real stinker. Skip this one.

If this book isn't the worst book I've ever read, I can't remember what was. I have read many of James Patterson's books and found this one beyond lacking. If you're looking for suspense and surprise, don't waste your time.

To start with, the writing was adolescent at best, and I think I actually said at one point "I could do better than this." The characters were hollow and poorly developed. The chapters were short to the point of brusqueness. There was no real attempt to make us truly understand the characters or their motivation.

As mysteries go, this wasn't terribly mysterious. A murder, a wrongfully accused black boy, an attorney and his former girlfriend defending him, even the curmudgeonly old friend were significantly less than original. The blatant name dropping of people like Steven Spielberg and George Clooney, to name but a few, was embarrassing.

As for the twist ending - it was completely unbelievable. When a character who is giving insight throughout the book, all thought and action giving no clue as to who this person was, it felt like the author was not just reaching, but leaping to the most ridiculous conclusion they could think up just to come up with a "surprise" ending.

I'm not sure what the co-auther, Peter De Jonge, brought to this book, since there was so little substance anyway, but next time James Patterson thinks about co-authoring a book with him, I suggest he think again.

Not sure why this was a "hot" summer read, best-seller, etc. and obviously the author doesn't care whether he's ridiculed as long as they are raking in the cash, but I only gave it one star because I had to give it something; otherwise, I'd give it no stars.