Cold Springs (Mass Market Paperback)

by Rick Riordan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Aptly subtitled "A Novel of Secrets," this dark, probing tale examines the destructive ripple effects of a child's death on those around her--especially after doubts arise whether it was accident, suicide, or murder. In the harrowing opening pages, 16-year-old Katherine Chadwick ODs on heroin while babysitting little Mallory, daughter of her parents' best friends. Then the tale leaps forward nine years: both couples' marriages are in ruins; Katherine's father, once a schoolteacher, is now a bruising "escort" for a reform school in the Texas outback called Cold Springs; and his next assignment is to capture none other than Mallory, now 15 and in trouble.

Texas native Riordan, whose Tres Navarre series has earned acclaim and awards, evokes the landscapes around Cold Springs with vividness and authority, and also brings that sensibility to the book's Bay Area scenes:

Chadwick ... stepped out into the growing gloom of the evening. Down the block, he could hear the lowrider cruising, its stereo setting off car alarms all across the neighborhood like a bloodhound flushing quail.

But it's the book's complex plot and richly realized people--most notably its troubled teenagers (Riordan is a middle-school teacher)--that give Cold Springs substance and heft. You may need to persist through some tangled exposition in the first 75 pages or so, but the payoff is well worth it. The long climax offers a stunning series of cascading revelations, including a final kicker that changes everything. Riordan is the real deal. --Nicholas H. Allison --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Riordan is a middle-school teacher in San Antonio, which explains why this unorthodox suspense novel-Riordan's first break from his Edgar-, Shamus- and Anthony-winning series about private detective Tres Navarre (The Devil Went Down to Austin, etc.)-centers around two very different kinds of schools. One is Laurel Heights, a private middle school in San Francisco, where a dedicated staff deals with the needs of the privileged children of the affluent. The other is Cold Springs, a survival school in the mountain country of Texas, where a former army Ranger rescues teenagers who have slipped over the edge. Linking the two schools is Chadwick, a huge man who looks like George Washington; he teaches history at Laurel Heights and then becomes an escort at Cold Springs (run by his old Vietnam buddy) when his own teenaged daughter, Katherine, dies of a drug overdose. Chadwick, who blames himself for Katherine's death (he was about to leave his wife for Ann Zedman, the woman who runs Laurel Heights), is a complex and interesting character, and the pressures on him are believable and absorbing-especially when Ann's daughter, Mallory, becomes a Cold Springs candidate. Riordan tilts the playing field by introducing a truly dysfunctional family, the Montroses, and tracing a string of murders related to Katherine's death. Knife-throwing, wild shooting and hairbreadth escapes up the ante, sometimes to the point of overkill, but Riordan is so good at moving his story along-and showing how fragile children's lives can be-that most readers will forgive him his excesses.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553579975
• ISBN-13: 978-0553579970
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #127,870 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't stop reading. Don't relax., May 31, 2003

By	Andrew S. Rogers (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cold Springs (Hardcover)

I really like Rick Riordan's Tres Navarre books. Tres is a great guy and a great character. Even in the deepest mysteries or most desperate straits, he always strikes me as someone who's basically in control, and a fun guy to hang out with.

The characters in "Cold Springs" aren't like that.

If the Navarre stories are fast-paced and entertaining, "Cold Springs" is edgy and uncomfortable. All of the characters are tense and troubled. All their lives are dark and desperate. And with one or two exceptions, none of them were ultimately particularly easy to be around. Even Chadwick, our hero, is battling too many demons ever to feel comfortable with. In fact, I never felt comfortable in this story at all, never able to relax, and never certain about what might be around the next corner.

I loved it.

"Cold Springs" has all the intricate plotting we've come to expect from Rick Riordan. Suspicion points at one character, and then another. Nobody seems trustworthy, not even our hero. But when you finally reach the resolution, most everything falls into place. As you read this, keep in mind the subtitle on the front cover: "A Novel of Secrets." Secrets are always being revealed -- right up to the very end.

Riordan's plot is complex and winding, but his characterizations deserve praise too. As I read this, I was reminded of Tolstoy's famous opening line, "All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Here, every miserable, troubled person is miserable and troubled in his or her own way, and each of them, including the several teenagers, is true to life (or at least convincing to someone like me who has mercifully avoided that kind of misery in my own life). And unlike the Navarre books, this story is told in third-person, and from multiple viewpoints. Riordan thus not only had to create characters whose actions are believable, but whose thoughts and emotions are believable too. That's much harder to do, and my hat's off to him because I think he pulled it off.

Rick Riordan has done a great job. He's one of the few authors, and certainly the only novelist, for whose next work I'm always impatient. Though "Cold Springs" paid off the wait, it also whet my appetite for whatever's coming next. But first, I need to sit back and let the tension ease out a little bit. This was a nerve-wracking ride, and I think I need a rest.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Riordan Read, May 8, 2003

By	Cowboy on the Ocean (West Texas Native) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cold Springs (Hardcover)

WOW!! Riordan has done it again. I was skeptical at first to get Cold Springs, Riordan's first book away from the Tres Navarre series. However, now having read Cold Springs, I feel that it may be Riordan's best book to date. Once you pick it up you won't want to put it down. If you like Rick Riordan's previous books or are just looking for a good suspense/thiller novel then get this book!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone., October 27, 2003

By	Beth Tindall "bethlyn" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cold Springs (Hardcover)

Fabulous book. Action packed enough to satisfy thriller-readers, with enough psychological studies to satisfy people who like character-based books, with twists and turns galore to satisfy people who are trying to figure it all out. I changed my mind every couple of pages on the "who did it" -- even though I got one part of the "why done it" right. Not a laid-back meandering book, even though some of the language is very descriptive and poetic. Something for everyone.

Beth