Customer Reviews

Deadline

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a solid thriller featuring Dalton Walker, a prize-winning reporter who gets a job with a local newspaper. His first assignment is to interview one of the Rockettes from Radio City Music Hall, Diana Yoder. She comes from an Amish background and the editor thinks her story would be a great human-interest piece--what with all the inherent conflict. What he finds out is the reason he was assigned this is that she does not give interviews. The editor has made her reporter-shy. Meanwhile, and eight-year-old girl has died in a fire. The police wait for her family to come forward to claim her body--but they never do.

Others have said that this is not up to the author's later works (e.g., Booked to Die; Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime), and this is true. But a John Dunning novel always has a lot to offer. This is not a pedestrian novel. Unlike most mysteries/thrillers, but like other Dunning novels, the focus is more on characterization and detail than on any unanswered questions. This makes for a slower read, but a nonetheless engrossing one. When Dunning writes about something you can be sure he has researched it. The evocation of Amish life in this book is like none I've read since James Michener's The Novel.

There is plenty to enjoy here. Dalton Walker is a character I would like to revisit.

If you like Dunning's later works you will enjoy this one. It was like reading Grisham's first piece "A time to kill" after some of his later ones...a bit rough, but clearly the author we have grown to love. This story is a great read if you like exploring both the physical and psychological worlds.

Deadline is early Dunning at his best. The story is tight and fast-paced; it kept me reading late into the night. If you're a fan of the _Bookman_ series you'll enjoy _Deadline_.

This was written well over a decade before Dunnings masterful Cliff Janeway novels. The prose is leaner and the plot is not as intricate here in Deadline. It is obviously a story that was written in the early stages of a careers arc. All of that aside, Dunning hands us a great protagonist in the form of Dalton Walker. Walker is a somewhat disillusioned newspaper reporter who has a nack for writing tear jerker prose. Through a series of events, stemming from the death of a little girl, Walker is drawn into a heinous plot that threatens his life.

The peripheral characters don't ring as true as Walker here. Dalton, an FBI agent does come across as a whole person, but the women (who play primary parts here) are left as simple. And the reasons for why they do what they do are unfocused. I think that even in the Janeway books, Dunning does not strongly deal with the female persona, so this might be one of his achilies heals.

The Janeway novels do feel like a 1950's throwback. Deadline does so as well. This is a noirish book that will satisfy you and not leave you cursing the author as so many of todays writers do.

This book had no characters that I could relate to. I was bored and kept expecting it to get better. The hero waws so focused on "the story" that it seemed unreal. It did not have a satisfactory ending.

John Dunning has a great way with words and has created another good page-
turner. Though not as good as his prior books, it is still a good read. The
story is about an FBI cover-up involving ex-1960's radicals.

I loved this one. A refreshing read. Go And Buy This One and Keep It As A Treasure ...

John Dunning, as usual is great. Every one of his books seems to be better than the last.