Customer Reviews

Escape

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Ok, this isn't wonderful, but it's certainly better than the last four (2004 Hoax, 2005 Fury, 2006 Counterplay, 2007 Malice.) The first 15 Karp/Ciampi novels - ghost-written by Michael Gruber - are among my favorite reads. If you haven't had the pleasure, run right out and start at the beginning. It was gruesome to see the series change when Tanenbaum got a new ghost. The errors alone were staggering - Butch forgot where his children were born; the dog changed breeds; Lucy became stupid.

This, as I said, is better. The plotting is much better (it had reached a subterranean nadir in Malice) and the settings are more carefully drawn. Here we get a lot of preaching, but the number of coincidences is down to a manageable level and Lucy is of average intellect. Sadly, everyone sounds the same, sort of mid-Atlantic bland. Gruber had a gift for languages that the new ghost has noted, but can't emulate. Butch says "Guck!" something Gruber's Butch would never have said; VT sounds the same as Guma except for vocab; and Father Jim is now being called by his last name. But there is some interesting play with Arabic and Swahili, and the stuff on Muslim saints is good. The minor characters once again have charm - Moishe and Goldie, especially, also Miriam.

But for all the book's bloated length, we don't get to dwell in people's lives; we just hear about them. We hear that Marlene cooks, but we don't see it. We hear that Lucy is spiritual, but it's like being told she's left-handed. I miss the immediacy and the detail of the early books, but at least these characters are on the same page.

So if you share my fantasy that Marlene and Butch and the kids are really out there somewhere, cut off from us by new narrators, this is a much less painful way to keep up with the dear folks. It's a good beach read.

Here's hoping for more next time.

After reading all of Robert Tanenbaums books I was waiting for Escape in anticipation of another great story , however am very disappointed. Although the attempt was to write a book with up to date real world situations there was way too much time and importance wasted on the Islamic world and culture so the reader was lost in the suicidal "jihadi" followers. Not much of Butch and Marlene and family. The book was way too long and the story line hard to follow.

Tanenbaum has created the perfect summer thriller. A shadowy WASPish group, together with an even more shadowy Islamic terrorist cell conspire to change the world as we know it. Aided by former Harlem gangsters and a Chechen amazon warrior the plan cannot fail.

Of course on the othe rside we have the courageous District Attorney Butch Karp, and his private eye wife Marlene and their twins, his daughter Lucy, an undercover translator, his memory-impaired father-in-law and a baker who survived the Nazi death camps to produce the "finest cherry cheese coffee cake in the five boroughs." If that weren't enough they are aided by a couple of saints-one Christian and the other Muslim.

In spite of the fact it sounds a bit like Mom and Dad Save the World, and the outcome is never in doubt, it is cleverly plotted and thoroughly entertaining.

First if you are fan of Butch and Marlene read the book. I have read all of the Butch Karp books, this is not the worst, not is it the best. It is more about Butch than Marlene and Marlene does seem to be coming out of her psychotic state, thank goodness. We also get some good insights into Butch's view of justice and it makes it interesting and educational. Interesting to read how Butch walks a fine line of his view of the law and some of the actions in this book.

It brings back many familiar characters but again, they are at best two dimensional. The characters and plot development are not strong. The extremists are not well fleshed out and many of the issues are too black and white. You come to know a couple and want to know more of them.

Perhaps it is time for Mr. Tanenbaum to come up with a new genre of villains, the Jihadi's are becoming too predictable. It is interesting that he has added more of the plutocrats as villains so perhaps he can continue in that vein?

There is some good news - while it is hard to get going it does eventually reward your patience and involve you and then races to a conclusion you will enjoy. It is set up for another novel in the series and that is good news. As for this one perhaps you can wait for it to come to the library or when it hits paperback?

I used to like this series. Like some other former fans, however, I find that the plots and particularly the characters have gotten more improbable and may I say ridiculous in the more recent books.

This one has to be near the top of the stupid scale, with two unrelated story lines, one a bunch of Muslim (of course) terorists and the other a mom who killed her kids.

I guess it's OK if you don't think about it much, but when you start considering the characters it gets downright silly - a guy that lives under the New York subway system with an army of disfigured outcasts and kills bad people but the New York DA is OK with it because the guy only kills bad people and after all, he is also a friend of the DA's daughter who speaks 60 languages and is also friends with a former Vietcong general who is part of the Vietnamese mob in New York but again the DA is OK with it. Not to mention the other loonies that show up and despite being generally insane are able to help solve the case and save the DA's often threatened family. Oh, yea, I almost forgot the Russian mob guy who is somebody's cousin or something, but that's OK with the New York DA, who otherwise can't stand criminals and only wants to bring them to justice. Only thing missing in this one is his wife who tends to kill people, but that also is OK with the New York DA. Save me from reading any more of these. Please........

Just to update, I finally finished it and the wife shows up in the last 50 pages or so to save New York - yet again. Ugh.

Lot of action, and characters. Presented the world we live in today, in a scary but realistic fashion. It was hard to get started, Butch, Marlene and family were not the main focus of the book. Escape does not meet the expectations for Karp family fans. Need more of Marlene, her dogs, and amazing children. Not a keeper, I was anxiously waiting for the book, disappointed.

New York District Attorney Butch knows the world is watching because whenever a mother kills their young, the homicide becomes headline news. The mother in this case, NYU Political Science Professor Jessica Campbell has some notoriety for her protests starting in 2001 with chaining herself and her three year old daughter Hillary to the gates of Trinity Church. Her defense for killing her three preadolescent kids (Hillary, Chelsea and Benjamin) is the God order insanity plea that he directed her to "send her three children to Him". Karp has to prove she knew what she was doing in spite of her claim and the public's general belief that the murdering of an offspring denotes insanity.

At the same Butch mounts the prosecution's case, Islamic terrorist The Sheik has trained an American jihadist unit all willing to die for Allah to deliver a major terrorist attack on Manhattan that would cripple the global economy. Butch his still somewhat shook wife Marlene Ciampi, their daughter Lucy and a few other dedicated people try to prevent the planned tragedy.

ESCAPE is a fast-paced thriller that obviously moves on two subplots with the connection tenuous through the Professor's admiration of Islamic extremists willing to suicide for their belief in Allah. The legal case re the prosecution challenging the defense's insanity plea is well done, fun to follow and fits the role of Butch. On the other hand a band of superheroes led by Butch and Marlene against dedicated terrorists seems off kilter as one wonders where NYPD, Homeland Security, and the Defense Department are with so much at stake. Still this is an exciting tale if you let your imagination accept a DA and his team as professional field counterterrorists.

Harriet Klausner

Butch Karp was one of the most original characters in popular fiction for a long time. His family and their adventures were things to look forward to every time a new story was written. What is left of these characters and the plots that involve them is honestly a travesty. Neither writer is as good on their own, and I don't even bother to buy/read these novels anymore. I would give it zero stars if it was possible. I punched in 2 stars by mistake and can't seem to change it.

If you are new to this series, don't waste your money on this book. Go back and read any of the first 15. Mr. Tannenbaum doesn't write his own books and the person who made him a major author was Michael Gruber... who left the writing partnership at that point. This is the last time I will ever read this series. The main characters this time out are vapid, empty versions of themselves or otherwise do and say things totally out of character. The new ghostwriters simply don't have the talent to tell a story in an interesting way. It reads as though they have to fill pages with words to get paid, and the result is a book crammed with sensationalistic swearing and lots of action that half the time doesn't make sense. I give it 5 SNORES.

To kill in God's name, do the killers legitimately believe this or is it just a convenient excuse? "Escape" follows attorney Roger 'Butch' Karp as he deals with a murder case and a terrorist plot. Jessica Campbell murders her three children, claiming God told her to do so. Karp must prove that it was nothing more than an excuse while figuring out the route of a terrorist plot from an extremist known as 'The Sheik'. The two plots mix as he's faced with zealots on both sides and he is left to deal with God's supposed will. "Escape" is a gripping thriller, sure to please readers.