Customer Reviews

Beachcomber

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There was a time when I could pickup a novel by Karen Robards and, without perusing it, know that I could be assured of a terrific read. No more. The penultimate book I read by Ms. Robards, ("Island Flame"), was somewhat disappointing, but I remained a loyal fan. What's one mediocre novel after so many good ones? A friend gave me a copy of "Beachcomber" last week. Well, this novel is so far below the author's considerable talents that I am beginning to wonder if she has hit a major rough spot.

The plot and characters remind me of the satiric comedy film starring Michelle Pfeiffer, "Married To The Mob," (It came out about 10 years ago & is quite good), except this is not supposed to be either satire or comedy. The characters are caricatures. Our heroine, Christy Petrino, has been raised in south Jersey, in a neighborhood inhabited by the mafia...mob...organized bad guys. Her deceased father was a minor mobster. So is her mother's boyfriend, Uncle Vince, and most of their friends and associates. Wanting to get away from all these friendly family criminals, Christy studies law and when she passes the bar, she gets a terrific job with DePalma and Lowery, a top Philadelphia law firm. She and Michael DePalma, (her boss), fall in love, become engaged and then she discovers he is a "made man." Oh, and the firm is also a mob cover. Such a smart girl...what a coincidence! So she quits her job and breaks off with Michael, who she thinks might kill her for "knowing too much." Ahhh, trust and love! This lady is not too on the ball! Anyway, Christy goes off to vacation on Ocracoke Island, the Outer Banks, to get away from it all. The cottage on the island where she stays belongs to, you guessed it, her mobster relatives. And her next door neighbors - more of same. Her Uncle Vince has assured her that she will be safe from DePalma and associates if she only does them one little favor. She is to drop off a briefcase, contents unknown, to an island motel. She agrees, and after doing the deed comes upon a gruesome murder - which appears to be one of many. A serial killer is on the loose and is aware she might be a witness to the crime. By the way, there's a big, hunky surfer dude next door to her cottage, who just happens to be an FBI agent monitoring her every move - so he can catch the recipient of the briefcase and Michale DePalma. He gets to watch her live her life through a hidden camera. What a way to get one's kicks!

This romanric thriller is all too predictable from the start. The characters are one dimensional. The dialogue is too funny, at times, to be taken seriously. I didn't feel any real heat or chemistry between Mr. FBI or Christy...but maybe I was too bored by the time they met.

I don't mean to be harsh. Ms. Robards has supplied me with hours of entertainment and reading pleasure over the years. However, I will be more careful now when buying her books. If anyone wants to read Robards at her best, try "Dark of the Moon," "Tiger's Eye," "Hunter's Moon," etc.. There are so many good ones. This is not one of them.
JANA

There is no question that Karen Robards is a talented author. She has written some good historicals and some good contemporaries, and she has written some bad ones.

The last few books that I have read by Robards have been bad, bordering dreadful and, sadly, BEACHCOMBER is not an exception. It seems as if, as an author, Robards is cashing in on a well-earned reputation.

The plot of BEACHCOMBER is simplistic...the story itself is short...and the outcome is, bluntly, creepy. In fact, the outcome actually is lazy, relying on a creepy twist to bring the story to a quick end.

The characters never get developed, so the reader has no reason to care about the resolution.

Consistent with everything else about this novel, the sense of place--something which Robards has conveyed beautifully in other novels--is so sketchy that it could have been phoned in to the editor.

For a skilled author, this is a shabby work. Anyone who likes the writing of Karen Robards should seek out some of her earliest books, rather than wasting time with BEACHCOMBER.

Ms. Robards is at the top of her game with her latest novel packed with a touch of humor, plenty of steamy romance, and eerie suspense. Philadelphia attorney Christy Petrino is hoping to get some semblance of normality back into her life after she learns that her former fiancé Michael, head of her law firm, is using his business as a front to lauder mob money. With a promise to mobster Uncle Vince to make a delivery of a briefcase at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, Christy hopes to free herself and her mother and sisters from the mob's undue influence.

Poor Christy soon realizes that not only is the mob after her, but a serial killer wants her dead after she sees his latest victim along the beach shortly before the killer slits the victim's throat. With the help of buff beach neighbor Luke Rand (who is secretly an FBI agent), Christy manages to escape the deadly clutches of the killer in several pulse-pounding episodes. Feeling guilty for using Christy as bait to snare Michael, Luke tries to avoid his attraction to her while attempting to get along with his fellow agent and polar opposite, nerdy Gary.

Christy's assertion that someone is watching her is never ending as she feels that she can't even trust the local sheriff to protect her. Feeling safe only in Luke's arms, the two embark on a sizzling affair that threatens to go bust when she discovers his true identity. Fast-paced thrills and chills with sensual romance will keep readers glued to the pages, despite Luke's endless assertions that he can't understand why other bikini clad women don't attract him as Christy does.

Christy Petrino was living a dream life with a great job with a prestegious Phildelphia law firm and engaged to her sexy boss, Michael DePalma. Then her loser ex-brother-in-law shows up at her door one night scared for his life claiming that Christy's boyfriend is head of the Phildelphia mob and has put a hit on him. After doing some digging and realizing what Frankie said is true, Christy breaks off her engagement. On her way to cry on her mother's shoulder, Christy is abducted by mob goons and told if she doesn't do one "favor" for the mob, she and her mother and sisters will be killed. Christy is to take a suitcase to Ocracoke Island, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and wait for instructions.

Luke Rand has been tracking the Philadelphia mob for years and has had an eye on Christy since she started getting friendly with DePalma. With a sealed indictment about to handed down against DePalma, DePalma disappears and Luke follows Christy to Ocracoke Island thinking that DePalma will show up to pick up his fiance.

After delivering the suitcase as instructed at 1:00 in the morning, Christy is hurrying home along the beach when her sixth sense tells her she's being followed by someone wanting to do her evil. As she runs to get away from whoever is following her, she trips over a woman who is barely alive. Christy runs screaming for her cottage and runs smack into Luke who is exiting her house after planting a bug. When Christy's screaming finally alerts help, it's to late for the woman on the beach, whoever was following Christy, slit the woman's throat. The local press realizes that there have been several women disappear from the area lately and that they all look alike (like Christy) and puts two and two together and realizes there is a serial killer on the lose who is dubbed the Beachcomber.

Although he had originally never meant for Chirsty to see him, now that she has, Luke pretends to be a lawyer on vacation and sticks pretty close to her in order to protect her from whomever is trying to kill her, a serial killer or a mob hitman, and to find out information about Michael DePalma. The longer Luke is around Christy, he slowly comes to realize that she is being forced to aid the mob and he begins to fall in love with her.

This is a great book. The romance between Luke and Christy was fun to watch develop. The two story lines about the mob and possible serial killer were interesting. I can usually figure out who the bad guy is pretty early in this type of story but I have to admit, I was blown away when the killer was revealed.

Christy Petrino was raised in a Jersey mob family. She went to college, became a lawyer and tried to get away from that life, only to discover that her fiancee, a lawyer as well, didn't. Determined to escape, she is told that if she will make a midnight delivery on a deserted beach in North Carolina's Outer Banks, where the mob guys have homes, she and her family will be safe.

She makes the delivery, but is followed by a serial killer who has her marked as his next kill. Unknown to her, FBI agent Luke Rand has rented the place next door and has bugged her house, so when the killer comes for her, Luke hears and saves her, and that isn't the last time Luke comes to her rescue in this spicy thriller with a super twist for an ending that I couldn't put down.

FBI agent Luke Rand has a geek for a partner and a job he's not too happy with. He has to bug the beachfront home of pretty young Christy Petrino, the fiancèe of a major figure in a crime family. Just as they were about to serve said fiancè, he disappears. So the best hope of finding him is to follow Christy.

When Christy goes out for a late night walk on the beach to drop off a package, that Luke is convinced is a delivery of some kind for organized crime, he has Gary, the geek partner, shadow her while he bugs her house, but Christy senses that she's being watched, gets scared, runs home, trips over a body on the beach. It's a woman, she's still alive, she begs for help, Christy sees someone coming toward them, it looks like he has a gun. She flees, catches Luke as he's leaving her home. She thinks he's the bad guy, she screams, her neighbors come over to help and Luke is caught, however he claims that he was just looking for his cat.

And that's just the beginning of this great read about a woman unfortunate enough to get born into a mob family and to have fallen in love with a mob lawyer. A lawyer, herself, she thought her fiancè wanted out of the "life" as badly as she, however she finds out just how wrong she'd been and than her troubles begin. She's not only targeted by her fiancè, but a serial killer too, who had been stalking tourists that look a lot like her, and then of course, there's the FBI after her as well.

Luke, gradually pieces it all together, finally believes in her, but not before he falls in love with her. Okay, we have romance in this thriller, but it doesn't steal away from the fact that this is a darn good read from a darn good writer.

This was a great story. Lots of humour. Luke scrambling to keep his cover secure & only digging himself deeper was great! Enter Marvin, the feline "catnap" victim used by Luke to explain his sneaking around in the middle of the night. Marvin had no desire to be a house cat, especially Luke's house cat since he actively disliked Luke. Luke's partner/roomate Gary was a closet chef who no one would suspect to be an FBI agent.

Christy is appalled at the dumb mistakes she's made which led to her hiding out on a small island practically being a bag man for the mob. Which is sort of where my problems with this book start.

Every year we spend two weeks on the tip of Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. We've also spent quite a bit of time on Ocracoke Island. As this is protected seashore, development is limited to Ocracoke Village which has a year round population of about 600. It would be kind of hard to hide the amount of Mafia involvement that's in this book. The village is intentionally kept quaint since that is one of the main tourist draws. There is certainly no wrecking yard on the island or anything in the way of gaudy.

At one point Christy was worried about her car being pushed off a cliff. Since the island sits at or below sea level, there aren't anything remotely resembling cliffs, (for that matter in much of any place south of New York) unless you count the sand dunes which are about ten feet high if a hurricane hasn't been through recently.

One scene had the lead characters discussing "walking forty miles" to get out of the National Forest. The island is 15 miles long and less that a mile wide. Forty miles would put you somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. There is also no National Forest since the major vegetation is sea oats.

You can't see the ocean from the bottom of the Ocracoke Lighthouse since that's one of the few places there ARE trees. There's definitely no snack bar.

I like Karen Robards books and enjoyed this one. If I wasn't familiar with the area I would have given it a five. But the inaccuracies and obvious lack of research were too hard to overlook. It didn't help that we'd just returned from there when I read this book.

That said, this book is still a keeper and I'll look forward to Ms. Robard's next.

I have been anxiously awaiting this book for months. When I read it, the ending left me disappointed. I don't want to give anything away to those who still want to read it, but I felt like I was so anxious to finish the story, and then I felt incredibly bored with it. I usually love books by Karen Robards, but this just isn't as good as her others.

Christy Petrino grew up as a mafia princess. The daughter of a mafia soldier, she vowed to not follow in her mother and sister's footsteps by getting involved with a made man. Instead she goes to law school and takes a job with an old friend from the neighborhood. Soon the two are engaged to be married until Christy discovers that his law firm is a front for mob activity. She wants out of the firm, out of the relationship, and out of the "family." Her "uncle" Vince agrees under the stipulation that she drop off a brief case for him at a motel in the North Carolina Outer Banks.

While dropping off the case, Christy feels that she is being followed and quickly flees, stumbling over a dying woman in her quest for safety. She makes friends with Luke Rand, the surfer dude next door who is actually an FBI agent on a stakeout to determine her involvement with the family. Unsure whether she's an intended victim of the "Beachcomber," a serial killer preying on unsuspecting tourists in the Outer Banks, or whether the mob's out to get her, she and Luke work together to investigate. Fighting growing feelings, the two begin an intense sexual relationship despite danger being at every turn, outrunning the mob and a sadistic killer.

Robard's pulpy beach read was a huge disappointment. Never mind that you had to suspend belief throughout most of the implausible storyline. After investing so much time reading the novel, a last minute Haiku ending with the most improbable of suspects ends the story abruptly. Even the scorching love scenes cannot redeem this lackluster story.

Lots of stuff thrown into the mix. Kept you on the edge of your seat. They were right, this was a fun summer beach read. That is exactly where I finished my copy.