Coincidence [Hardcover]

David Ambrose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2001

George Daly is a non-fiction writer. On the day of his father's death he comes up with a new book idea - coincidence. He has no idea of the ways this will change his life and his understanding of reality - from the discovery of a "twin" brother to the bombshell of his wife's infidelity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ambrose (Superstition; The Man Who Turned into Himself) weaves a tale of duplicitous doppelgengers in this supernatural thriller. George is a quiet academic writing pseudoscience books for fun, supported by his rich, gallery-hopping wife, Sara. But his father's death triggers an avalanche of coincidental events from the appearance of old photographs of him with people he doesn't remember to an encounter with his own double, Larry, a crook on the run who has no qualms setting "jerk-off George" up for the hit men Larry is evading. Of course Larry, after assuming George's identity and faking amnesia, could have no idea that the female detective he's been sleeping with in exchange for information on "himself" would also have had an affair with rising lawyer-turned-politician Steve, who's having an affair with Sara. And no one, including the reader who by now will be wondering why the author has further complicated his narrative with references to Jung, Koestler and the I Ching could foresee the massive metaphysical conspiracy Larry and George are literally yanked into. It simultaneously explains their interrelated problems while confronting them both with an altogether more dangerous one. Ambrose clearly enjoys drawing twisty plots from inexplicable events, and he throws in just enough scientific explorations of synchronicity to justify the otherwise mystical explanations with which readers must content themselves. There is a surprisingly (or perhaps coincidentally) predictable ending to this unpredictable thriller, which undermines some of its punch, though not its author's cleverness. National advertising.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

David Ambrose spent years investigating the scientific basis for synchronicities and coincidences and infuses the novel with the hard science behind these fascinating phenomena. He lives in Switzerland. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd; First edition (August 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743206908
• ISBN-13: 978-0743206907
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,726,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coincidence, July 20, 2002

By 

Danielle DeFrain - FictionAddiction.NET (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coincidence (Hardcover)

George Daly has become obsessed.

He's obsessed with the subjects of a couple of old photos and with coincidences, specifically those classified as synchronicity......and both are about to get him into trouble by colliding with one another.

The photo is of himself as a young boy.....he thinks. This boy is with a smiling couple that also appeared in an earlier photo with his parents. George has an inexplicable need to find out who those people are and why he can't remember having that picture taken.

Through a series of coincidences (which, by the way, prompt him to do research in order to write a book on the subject), George discovers the real identity of the boy....his twin brother.

Larry Hart doesn't know how it just so happened he ran into George Daly, but he's glad he did. George is about to rue the day he ever began his search, but Larry is going to benefit greatly from it. George's art dealer wife, Sara, is so engrossed in herself and her own extra-curricular activities that she doesn't even realize a large part of her life has changed.....but maybe she's better off living in that ignorance.

But it doesn't end there....a sequence of shocking events, fraught with danger and revenge, followed by an incredible revelation make for an unbelievable conclusion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David Ambrose knows how to tell a story. He makes the reader not only feel the characters but also feel for what they are going through. Once those characters have gained their three-dimensional status, he throws in a mind-boggling twist that by many other authors just wouldn't be acceptable.

Rather than have this story be a singular narrative which would create confusion-causing holes, Mr. Ambrose has split it into sections. Each section is told from the perspective of one of the three main characters, so that there is never any doubt of what one may have thought or felt or been experiencing at any given time.

David Ambrose has spun an engaging tale full of interesting stories of coincidence and one man's search bringing him answers he never thought possible.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to put down!, December 5, 2003

By 

Michael A. Newman (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Coincidence (Hardcover)

I started reading this book to kill an hour and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. It was so good I just couldn't put it down.

I don't want to give a synopsis because the book is full of surprises right from the start and any detailed plot discussion would ruin it for the reader. I will say that there are many interesting actually documented coincidences presented in the book. Different characters narrate different sections of the book, which gives more than one perspective of events. Also, there are a lot of coincidences that occur in the plot that turn out to be just that (coincidences, that is) and other situations where what we think is coincidence, was carefully orchestrated by one of the characters.

Prior to reading this book, I read Ambrose's "Superstition, which was also excellent and was written in a totally different style. It looks like Mr. Ambrose is a highly talented writer with many varying ideas.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun but not unflawed, May 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Coincidence (Hardcover)

This story is an entertaining, quick read that plays pleasant tricks with your mind. My favorite scenes are the ones in which the main character encounters bizarre coincidences (he has a dream, for instance, about being in cab #444 at 4:44 pm; he wakes up and finds that it's 4:44 am). Some will find that the last fourth of the book is too much of a deus ex machina, but I didn't mind. I do think the book makes the classic mistake of a "novel of ideas," which is talking about the ideas as well as leading us toward them. (I don't want to read in a novel about Jung's theory of synchronicity; I just want to feel the thrill of synchronicity itself -- as I do in the 4:44 dream scene.) By the way, for a more powerful, better-crafted, more enigmatic exploration of similar themes (writers searching for mystic patterns in New York), don't miss Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy."