Customer Reviews

Good People

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The basic premise of Good People centers on the question 'How far would you go to keep hidden the fact that you found $370,000?' When Tom and Anna Reed find $370,000 they develop a simple plan regarding their find. Their plan is to keep the money hidden and wait to see if anyone comes to claim it. If not, they plan to keep the money and use it in ways that will change their lives. What the Reeds don't realize is that their simple plan has led them to cross some very dangerous men who won't stop until they get revenge no matter where they find it. Let me be very clear about the fact that Sakey's third book, Good People, is a very fast-paced, exciting, entertaining read. What the premise of the book is not, however, is original. That is, it is very similar to the book written several years ago by Scott Smith called A Simple Plan. As I said, Good People is a book that is suspenseful and worth reading, especially by those who have never read (or seen the movie) A Simple Plan. In comparison, however, I think readers (and/or viewers) of A Simple Plan will find, as I did, that Good People pales somewhat in comparison.

Good People is not a genre I read often but I tend to mix a thriller in from time to time and when I do I want a real page-turner: a Laura Lippman or a Harlan Coben. A story that keeps me thinking, guessing, and most importantly keeps me up all night reading. Good People, unfortunately, is not that book. Here's the premise: Chicago couple Tom and Anna Reed have been trying to have a child for an extremely long time and have hit the expensive stage of the fertility process: IUI [intrauterine insemination] and IVF [in vitro fertilization]. Anna and Tom find nearly $400K in hidden money in their tenant's basement unit. Not surprisingly, this hidden stash leads to more trouble than the couple ever expects when slowly the money's links to drug-deals, thieves, and other unsavory characters are exposed. How much is the money worth to them? While Sakey has a decent concept he fails to develop the characters of Anna and Tom enough that I cared why they wanted/needed the money to face so much danger and to deceive each other and those around them. Thousands of couples cannot have their own children. I did not feel so sorry for them that I was thrilled with their decision to keep this money. Adopt like other people and stop being so selfish. I did not buy into the entire morality tale that Sakey tried to build around this supposedly "good" couple finding a stash of tainted money and going to extreme lengths to keep it. These "good" people turned out to be just as calculated as the "bad" guys. Good People starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. This is not what I want in a thriller.

Since Marcus Sakey is a local thriller author (Chicago, IL), I decided to read Good People. Available at my public library, I was excited to listen to the audio version of this fast-paced thriller. Though my iPod mixed up some of the tracks in this book, I listened to the majority of the story in chronological order.

The premise of the book is interesting: What happens to everyday Good People when they fall into sticky situations?

------

Here's the official synopsis:

"A family, and the security to enjoy it: that's all Tom and Anna Reed ever wanted. But years of infertility treatments, including four failed attempts at in-vitro fertilization, have left them with neither. The emotional and financial costs are straining their marriage and endangering their dreams. So when their downstairs tenant, a recluse whose promptly delivered cashier's checks were barely keeping them afloat, dies in his sleep, the $400,000 they find stashed in his kitchen seems like fate. More than fate: a chance for everything they've dreamed of for so long. A fairy-tale ending.

But Tom and Anna soon realize that fairy tales never come cheap. Because their tenant wasn't a hermit who squirreled away his pennies. He was a criminal who double-crossed some of the most dangerous men in Chicago. Men who won't stop until they get revenge, no matter where they find it."

------

Interesting, right? What would I do if I found $400,000 in my imaginary tenant's kitchen? Those were the thoughts constantly running through my head.
What would YOU do in that situation?

Many contemporary thrillers seem to lack depth. Not Good People. Sakey wove his theme through the narrative in a not-so-subtle manner, but it worked. After each chapter, I imagined myself as one of the characters in yet another conundrum from my bad choices. Now what would I do?

Point of view in the novel is another noticeable technique. As writers, we are cautioned against head-hopping between the characters in a given scene. Sakey knows that "rule," but he broke it marvelously. Sometimes, I was jolted out of the story to switch perspectives from Tom to Anna. I still could follow the story.

Thrillers should have that page-turning quality to them. That's one of the telling characteristics. Sakey delivered. I could hardly stop listening to this book long enough to catch up on my favorite pod casts. I was obsessed with the story till the last page.

Give it a read (or a listen). Let me know what you

Tom and Anna Reed are the "good people" of the title. They are going about their lives, frustratingly trying to start a family by any means possible, but so far unsuccessfully, despite infertility treatments and four failed in vitro procedures, leaving them grimly unhappy and heavily in debt.

Jack Witkowski, his brother Bobby, and their buddies Will and Marshall are the bad guys, petty and not-so-petty criminals who pull off an unexpectedly big score. Their lives intersect with that of the Reeds when the latter accidentally but fatefully stumble upon the nearly $400,000 cache of stolen money. The Reeds think to themselves: "It's not your money. It would be wrong." Then "Whose money is it? Why not mine? Why is it wrong?"
Uncertain what to do, but desperate and out of their depth, they think "If they went to the police, they risked everything. If they didn't, they risked their lives."

The detective who first investigates the crime, Chris Halden, sees solving it as a huge feather in his cap and boost to his career. "And all he had to do to get there was bring in a drug dealer . . . , four hundred grand in stolen cash, and two civilians dumb enough to try to keep it."

My stomach muscles clenched as the run-up proceeds to the inevitable confrontation. The pages are filled with nerve-tingling suspense, as should be expected from the man whose book last year, "The Blade Itself," was equally taut and well-written. It must be something in the waters of Lake Michigan and its environs, but we have read some wonderful novels by Chicago authors of late, e.g., Sean Chercover, Libby Fischer Hellmann, and Michael Harvey, and to that list must be added this extraordinary writer, Marcus Sakey.

I found myself torn between being unable to stop reading, mingled with anxiety at what would happen on the next page. Ultimately, it was no contest: I could not put this book down. Highly recommended.

I'm a fan of Marcus Sakey's crime fiction debut THE BLADE ITSELF, but I've been a little disappointed by his subsequent output. I think GOOD PEOPLE, his third novel, is a decent effort, but suffers from the lack of a sympathetic main character.

GOOD PEOPLE deals with a yuppie Chicago couple that accidentally discovers $400,000 in cash in the room of their recently deceased tenant. Tom and Anna Reed are heavily in debt due to failed attempts at in vitro fertilization, and decide without much hesitation to keep the money without telling anybody. Predictably, their dishonest behavior comes back to haunt them, as they are forced to confront a series of criminals who are also interested in getting their hands on the cash.

The basic plotline of GOOD PEOPLE (ordinary person tempted by a great sum of discovered money) isn't particularly original, and explores territory that Scott Smith explored to much better effect in his great novel A SIMPLE PLAN. Like Smith, Sakey is trying to tell a dark, moralistic tale about greed, but he lacks Smith's ability to create memorable, compelling characters.

For example, the husband-wife couple in this novel, Tom and Anna Reed are more self-absorbed than likable, and I found many of their decisions more stupid than understandable. For the most part, they have the depth of a character in a Grimm's fairy tale, and little more. The supporting characters are similarly two dimensional, which leads to a rather unengaging read in spots.

I understand that Sakey is trying to tell a dark morality tale in GOOD PEOPLE, but even tragic stories should have flesh-and-blood characters that the reader can relate to. The lack of such characters in this novel ultimately drain this work of a lot of its potential suspense and moralistic force. The result is an okay read, but not much more.

I like Elmore Leonard, and bought this on the strength of the cover blurb. Made it sound like the next great thing. The book starts out strong with a good hold up. Nice and gritty, good writing. Then settles into a very protracted middle section about an upper middle class couple who finds some of the loot. What do they do with it? Could be interesting, but trust me, its not. It just drags on and on. The bad guys are just thugs. The couple is stock- could have been taken from any generic medium-budget hollywood film of the last 10 years. The predicament never really develops. The writing is competent. I guess the most telling thing for me was realizing about 2/3 through that I was hoping the couple would just die so the book would end. Sounds cold, but there's nothing interesting here. Like a rejected CSI script. Elmore Leonard could write this in his sleep, but still wouldn't.

In GOOD PEOPLE, Marcus Sakey skillfully manages the difficult task of creating and maintaining a narrative line whose tone is both ruthless and tender. The novel is a tightrope walk between extremes: good and evil, temptation and redemption, safety and danger, security and risk, duplicity and trust, and greed and compassion. Tom and Anna Reed are the young couple at the heart of the novel who discover just how dark that heart can become when they find and then try to hold onto close to four-hundred-thousand dollars that turn out to belong to some very bad men. Just how far Tom and Anna are willing to go to keep the money and still lay claim to the book's title makes Sakey's novel a page-turner as well as literary character study with not one but two twist endings. Highly recommended.

I couldn't help myself. It felt so familiar. Pelecanos had a similar set up for a recent book. Nothing really held me back, so skimming this one got it done. Give me something to pause at. Great opening, then that fast slide.

This was a surprise! First time reader of this author and very pleasantly surprised. I will now order more of his titles!

Sometimes it is the simple plot that grabs you the most effectively. I love complex ideas in novels, ones that present challenging twists and turns that keep you thinking and keeping track of the who, what, when and where. It's difficult, however, to beat a simple, direct idea that is so sharply focused with laser intensity that it burns itself into your brain so deeply that you can't get it out of your head. That is what one encounters with Marcus Sakey's new book.

GOOD PEOPLE has a simple enough premise. Four bad guys --- Jack, Bobby, Marshall and Will --- are involved in a robbery that quickly goes bad. Bobby winds up dead, and Will cuts out on his partners with the money. Will subsequently overdoses on drugs and dies in his rented duplex. His landlords, Tom and Anna Reed, find his lifeless body and discover the money. They keep it. And all hell breaks loose.

Let's start with Tom and Anna. You know them. You may even be them. They are overextended, up to their eyeballs in debt and barely hanging on, and undergoing extensive fertility treatments that have failed four times and make sex an obligation rather than a recreation. Sakey nails them so well, so painfully, that you almost feel like an intruder in their lives. When they find the money --- and the method by which this occurs is worth the price of admission all by itself --- it's like manna from heaven.

And the way the Reeds convince themselves that no one will ever know is note for note pitch-perfect. They report Will's death to the police but don't let on about the money, following the old theory that telling just enough of the truth will keep them safe. They pay off their debts, try another baby-making round, and still have plenty of benjamins left over.

There is only one problem. Someone does know about the money. Jack and Marshall are still out there, and both of them --- especially Jack --- are seething over what was done. They are looking for Will, turning over every rock they can to find him. And when Tom and Anna get a bit of unwelcome publicity about the gruesome discovery of the dead body on their property, Jack quickly figures out that while Will may be gone, the money isn't and that, in all probability, Tom and Anna have it. Jack wants the cash but is also looking to vent all of this serious anger he has over what happened. Tom and Anna are as good a target as any.

All of this would be more than enough to land GOOD PEOPLE on the top of your "must read" pile. But what is really striking is the manner in which Sakey documents step by step the Reeds' slow slide into disaster. One minute they're like Uncle Scrooge, rolling around in their money yelling "Wheee!" The next minute, not so much. By the time they realize that maybe they should get straight with the police (or with Jack, or with somebody) and turn the money in, it's way too late. And it doesn't take too long to get to "way too late." But even more than this, the book raises some subtle questions about greed and, more importantly, appreciating those blessings that one has --- and how easy it is to lose it all.

GOOD PEOPLE is a great story, well told on its own terms, but it is also beneath its surface a brilliant cautionary tale that will quietly resonate with you for some time after you finish reading. It is simply not to be missed.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub