Customer Reviews

The Broken Hearts Club

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This book has a decent premise, and I love the detective character, but it needs some work.

First of all, I agree with one previous reviewer -- the "secret" of the book is revealed literally half-way through the read (way too soon). This makes every move by the detective and other characters look so stupid it's not even funny. You really want to like the detective, but after reading him do some really dense things, you lose interest.

I also have a fundamental problem with the book and it's secret. I think the author really needed to get himself a better editor, because there are many inconsistencies that need to be resolved.

Speaking of editing, the book is chock full of poor grammar and missed/mis-used punctuation.

I'd wait for the next book or if you want to read a thriller, get Mark of the Assassin by Silva or something like that.

This is a book whose premise had potential to be a suspenseful, gripping novel. However, none of that potential is realized. Instead, it is badly written, filled with graphic sex and descriptions of the wealth Voort and his well-to-do partner. I found myself not caring about any of the characters. There's a twist in the middle that makes reading the rest of the book almost irrelevant. I'm always looking for new authors to add to my reading list. Based on this, Black isn't going to be one of them.

The characters are preposterous. The novel begins with a collection of broken-hearted men who are preposterous. They are involved with a crime investigated by a millionaire NYPD detective who has has a tall, thin, beautiful, blonde girlfriend with white-blonde pubic hair. You buy that?
P.S. This is not a debut novel. This is an author who had a mid-list crisis and has been repackaged. Good luck, Ethan.

This novel is not particularly distinguished-- the characters and settings are a bit too generic-- but what really got to me was the psychology. It is just bad. The details of the mental disorder that the killer suffers from are straight from a bad made-for-TV movie and have no relation to reality at all. He even gets the name wrong, using a distorted form of the old label for this disorder. To me, a good novel must first and foremost have decent psychology behind it, or else it doesn't work. Even comic book and fantasy stories must be grounded in good psychology in order to work and create a connection to the reader. To fudge on this undermines the story in a big way. Maybe he could have gotten away with this if he had gone into the mind of the killer a little more, but he doesn't, probably so he could create some half-hearted red herrings in the first half of the novel.

Also, what I found even more bizarre than the events in the book was a three-page interview at the end between the author and his fictional detective (!?!?!?). If an author wants to generate interest in a character, why not do it in the context of the novel itself? Thumbs down for me.

Broken Hearts Club was an exciting book with a strange twist. Maybe they do not wait till the end to reveal some light but I thought that only made you wonder even more what the suspect was going to do. My only dissapointment was an open ending of sorts that makes you wait for the next book. I will be waiting.

Although I tend to agree that the characters are a little on the unbelievable side, I found the book entertaining and well written. In other words the plot overcame the shortcomings. A nice twist in the middle of the book did not detract because Black keeps the pace up right until the end. He handles multiple perspective well, keeping you up to date and never losing sight of the main characters. A real page turner - I read it in two sittings.

I found this book to be very riveting, but I found thatrevealing the secrets of the killer halfway through this book sort ofruined it for me. I like a book that keeps me guessing to the end. For awhile I thought "oh, these clues are so obvious" then the author just tells you the big secret and then I found myself just reading to the end only to see how the author finished it not because I had to know. The ending did seemed hurried to me after the build up in the beginning and I agree with others that the characters were not very endearing. I also found that the sex scenes went a little to far. I would like to read another book by this author.

A quick and moderately entertaining read, but nothing more. One must suspend belief from the very beginning of this novel. The main character and his partner are millionaires who continue to work for the NYPD out of the goodness of their hearts. Their women friends are all 6 foot tall blonds with busy careers who find time for exercise and, of course, always sport thong underwear and have insatiable sexual appetites. And, as mentioned in other reviews, the real plot twist is revealed in the middle of the novel--making one wonder why they should bother finishing it at all. If you read quickly and are not too particular, this is a nice diversion. If you only read 5 books a year, pick something something else!

The Broken Hearts Club is a small group of men who have broken up with their girlfriends and just can't seem to get over it. They meet every Thursday night with their psychologist in the back room of a restaurant where they discuss their failed relationships and try to offer each other support and understanding.

One night, after a particularly emotional meeting, the unthinkable happens and one of the men decides it's time to confront the woman who caused him so much heartache. The result is a most brutal murder and you get the sense that a monster has been unleashed on the streets of New York City.

Taking the case is Conrad Voort, a millionaire homicide cop, and his equally affluent partner Mickie. Their investigation begins perfectly normally although they are hampered by a distinct lack of clues apart from the letters BHC gouged into the victim's kitchen table. On the part of Voort and Mickie we are taken through the standard police procedure of tracking down known friends and enemies and paper trails. Progress is slow until victim number 2 is found.

Meanwhile, we're made privy to the build-up to each murder as we sit in on each meeting of the Broken Hearts Club and the emotion that starts to simmer as each man recounts his tale of woe at the hands of a heartless woman. The inevitability of the trip to each woman's apartment each week is terrible in the knowledge of how the visits will end.

As I said earlier, the premise of the book is good, but there are problems that I found annoying at first and then later had me just plain frustrated. To start with, Black has decided to include graphic sex scenes between Voort and his girlfriend which, while it doesn't offend me at all, was completely irrelevant to the story. Sex scenes are fine with me if they're in context with the story but the detail used here was reminiscent of some of the stuff found in Penthouse Forum - and about as believable too.

I felt coincidence played too large a part in the investigation, so much so that I found myself rolling my eyes as yet another improbable lead resulted in a home run for the police. I put this down to clumsy plotting and was just a little disappointed that it seemed unlikely that I was going to be wowed by the police work. The disappointment flowed through to the ending which I felt was built on glaringly obvious plot holes in an attempt to force the feeling of tension so much so that rather than build tension, I found that I was frustrated to distraction by the contrived nature of the final showdown.

THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB is Ethan Black's debut novel, but apart from an interesting opening premise, it is hampered by clumsy plotting, needlessly graphic scenes and a twist that was revealed way too early in the book. All in all I was disappointed with THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB. The idea of a wealthy homicide cop who has the means to circumvent authority has the potential to be quite refreshing compared with the majority of stories featuring over-worked underpaid cops who deal with personal issues that invariably lead to broken marriages and drinking problems.

Dr. Bainbridge assembles a group of men who all suffer the same thing--they've been dumped by women they loved, and they meet each week to discuss their heartache. But then women begin to die in horrible ways. Is there a connection? Nick Voort is the extremely wealthy and well-dressed NYC detective assigned to try to crack the case of these gruesome but seemingly related deaths.

That sounds great except there isn't a great deal that's original about this story. The killer is typical thriller fare, the detective is tough with a sensitive side, and everything seems to pull together despite some rather large plot holes. Along the way, the reader is privvy to Voort's love life, a great deal of rather graphic, steamy sex--which might possibly be the best parts of the novel--and the inner workings of the killer or killers. Black also describes in great detail the expensive clothes worn by most of the characters. This along with my inability to buy into the idea of not one but two very wealthy NYC detectives who are supersleuths really annoyed me and made me want to throw the book across the room at times. I was also disappointed in the television version of the psychology used within the books; it seems to be pulled from every trite movie-of-the-week and pulp thriller that's out there.

So, why do I give this a higher rating than 1? I actually enjoyed reading the novel for the most part. Sure, it's not very original, but this is good summertime reading, and it helps to kill a few hours. I was able to read the entire book without giving up on it, so that scores some points in my opinion. Give it a try, just don't expect anything remarkable or original.