7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gripping Thriller, July 20, 2004
A great book, and a real page-turner! I began reading "The Donor" yesterday on the train in to work; I finished it last night late in bed, not being able to put it down. Nice plot and very well developed characters, you really feel for the protagonist and wonder how it'll all end. The author's written some fine books in the past; this is up there with "The Dark Beyond the Stars" as the best of them. Highly recommended. One minor complaint -- if there was someway to give the proofreading one star, I would, as there are a number of typos that distract from an otherwise excellent book.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Robinson's The Donor - First Rate Thriller, July 16, 2004
From page one through to the end, The Donor is a first rate thriller and page turner that grabs the reader and won't let go. Frank Robinson's tale is believable and so hauntingly realistic that it leaves you crying out for more.
Most other thrillers have one dimensional characters, but Dennis Heller lives and breathes on every page. With Heller so well written, you live and die on each page as he makes his way to the end.
Without a doubt one of Frank Robinson's best and he has had some great books to top with The Power, Glass Inferno, Dark Beyond the Stars and Waiting.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Runaway Turkey, February 10, 2005
~REV|EW~
Last Summer, as a thriller enthusiast and novel newbie, I bought this book when it was displayed in a book store. It was a chilling ten days flipping through near 400 pages full of chases, betrayal, and conspiracy...yes, I'm a slow reader, thank you. A thrill ride that it was, somewhere along the line, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was forced to take that ride. It wasn't my conscious, it's the book.
Here's how "The Donor" and the thrill begins. It was at night, and college boy Dennis Heller and his drinking buddy Graham were having a blast when they drive back to their campus, until Graham accidentally crashed into a telephone pole. Dennis was unconscious, and later he was sent to a small hospital...OF DOOM (*dramatic effect*). He was operated and well-prepped, but when he overheard the nurse and the heavy spanish-accent doctor from the side, he knew they have no intention to make him leave. So, he escaped the conspicuous hospital and was founded by a couple who took him to a different hospital. The doctor there told Dennis that the doctors that operated him from the previous hostipal took away his liver without his consent. For that fact, he changed his idenity and live with the couple, hoping to avoid the black market people that're after his organs, but they won't leave him alone after these people killed the couple. He's not only on the run again, but he needs to figure out who's responsible for this mess before they take him to the final operating room.
And that's where the thrill ends.
"The Donor" isn't a bad read, and there are few more thrilling scenes than the ones I mentioned, but by the time I finished it, it didn't blew me away more than it tested my weary patience. The interesting concept with this novel is that it follows two character perspectives: one on Dennis, and one on Robert Krost. Krost is another colleague who's searching for clues as to why his hateful rich daddy Max, who had a fatal illness, be suddenly in tip-top shape. Too bad his father's always one step ahead of Krost's mission. The clues he find would eventually cross paths between him and Dennis's situation.
Krost's perspective of the story is necessary, but why did it have to be so unnecessarily slow? The genre on his side of the story is mystery, and mysteries are lengthy and collective, so I spend most of my reading time exhausting myself hoping to get back to Dennis's side of the story. Mystery and thriller usually coincide with a great deal of balance, but more mystery here means less excitement, so I had a problem with the book's balance issue. The dialogue here didn't help the matter either. Though I'm new at novels, I didn't find most of the characters' lines to be very convincing in their situations. The dialogue's also corny, like when one of the sub characters said that Krost's father had the Paschelke's disease. Paschelke's?
With everything said and done, there's nothing terrible about this title. "The Donor" has a fresh story, the two character perspectives were set up well, and the experince was as intense as a needlephobiac on a blood drive. But at certain parts, "The Donor" can also the equivalent of being in a waiting room: slow, tiresome, and hoping to get out as soon as possible. But then again, I'm new with novels, so my judgement is raw.
F|NAL WORDS: A cut-up for its genre, but not exuberant for a second read.
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