Customer Reviews

Into The Web

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Roy Slater, an English Professor teaching in a small California college, comes to Kingdom County, West Virginia to care for his dying father. He hasn't been back in twenty five years. The reason he left is not immediately apparent but it has something to do with the death of his brother and some local murders. He also left behind the love of his life, Lila who remains unmarried. Why did he leave? What ended his relationship with Lila? How and why did his brother die? What about these murders? Slowly and inexorably bits and pieces of these puzzles are revealed as the reader is strung along on a suspense high wire.
Tom Cook is back in what is probably his best book since the astounding BREAKHEART HILL and the Edgar Award winning THE CHATHAM SCHOOL AFFAIR. Once again he uses the technique of having the narrator hold the answers and only slowly letting the reader in on the secret. However, INTO THE WEB goes further than that. Roy Slater only knows some of the answers. He must find out others on his own. Therefore the novel evolves into an amateur detective novel about two thirds of the way through. Surprises await at every twist and turn. Nobody in the genre creates more tension in this manner. Characters are, as usual skillfully created and depiction of locale quite vivid. Thomas H. Cook is one of the finest writers of suspense fiction currently working. I urge you to read him today and INTO THE WEB would be an excellent place to start.

Few writers are as good as Cook when it comes to mysteries that involve journeying back to the past and finding hidden skeletons. INTO THE WEB is Cook at his finest in narrative, characterization, with a few surprises thrown in.
Roy Slater returns to his West Virginia home after a twenty year absence. He's come back to take care of his father, who is dying of cancer. The father is an embittered, angry, and impersonal man---one wonders why anyone would come back to nurse him. But to Cook's credit, we find there's more than meets the eye in this relationship.
Years before, Roy's brother Archie hung himself in a jail cell after apparently murdering the parents of the girl he was planning to run away to Nashville with. Roy has his own dark secrets and guilt about that night, and about Archie's subsequent suicide.
Sheriff Warren Porterfield is portrayed almost as a mythological giant, a man who got his way in the county and nobody stood in his way. His son, Lonnie, is now the sheriff and he's a carbon copy of his dad.
In investigating what really happened that night, Roy finds himself facing his long lost love, Lila, who said she never wanted him to come back, and to face his father's quest for vengeance...and more.
Roy and Jessie Slater's characters are painfully well-written, and by the end of the novel, Cook has given us two very different people, and didn't cheat to get that effect.
The truth about that night and subsequent occurrences propel Roy and his father into a deadly finale.
Gripping and quite good.

Let me start off by stating that Thomas H. Cook is my favorite author. I've read all his books and loved each and every one. They are haunting, lyrical and intelligently written.
"Into the Web" is no exception...It's a spellbinding psychological mystery with many unexpected twists and turns.
Basically it tells the story of Roy Slater who left his home in Kingdom County after a double murder that rocked the community and his family. Now after 20 years, returning to care for his dying father, he uncovers startling truths about the homicides, his family and the townpeople.
Thomas Cook has a magical way of weaving a story that builds interest from the very first page to a shocking and satisfying conclusion.
Along with his other books, "Into the Web" is a winner!

This offering from my favorite author is another work of great writing and rich characters.

This book reads as if Roy Slater was sitting across form you, sipping coffee and spinning the tale himself. It begins with an unrelated but no less shocking death, which becomes the reason for the story. Roy is the sleuth, a suspect, and the victim. So very well written.

This book is not poorly written or badly constructed, it is just sooooo depressing. The protaganist is a prep school teacher living in an efficiency apartment in California. He comes home to try and help out while his emotionally distant and unpleasant father dies slowly of cancer in a hellhole of a Kentucky coal mining county. A county so depressed that the people probably go to Hazzard or Harlan countys to see how the rich folks live. Throw in lost love and a simple brother who died too soon and you have a recipe for a less than cheery read. It just didn't let up. Too dark for me.

This book will keep you guessing. Excellent writer. I couldn't put it down.

Thomas Cook does a great job spinning this story. It keeps one guessing until the very end. It was easy to delve into each charecter as they were created beautifully. Mystery, romance, father/son relationships all contribute to a tale that is hard to put down.

This is a novel that tends to haunt you long after you have read it. At least, that's how I am experiencing the aftermath of reading it. I cannot say that the plot is a blockbuster--a 25 year old crime left with many question marks appended to it, a protagonist who is forced by the illness of his practically estranged father to return to West Virginia, from which he long ago gratefully escaped, not much caring where he went, as for the fact that he just got out of a suffocating milieu.

I was asking myself as I was pasted to the pages, unable to put this book down during a full, one-time reading, what power it contained to make it so riveting. And I came up with a twofold answer.

First, the writing often reaches the heighth (or should I say the depth?) of poetic prose. I would not be surprised if Mr. Cook does write poetry on the sly (or should I say on the side?). This is not a book just writen with the head -- there are strong feelings propelling it.

Second, no character in this book is skimmed over. Each one is viewed in depth, so much so that you feel you are in the same room with these fictional people, listening to them speak, liking or disliking them (and I must say the character of the father is one of the most unlikeable characters you will ever meet in fiction, no matter what excuses are made for his behavior).

Lastly, the ending of the book is great. When all mysteries have been solved except for the one of the long-term romantic entanglement, it seems the main character has to make a black or white decision. But the author doesn't let the reader down with the expected denoument. Oh, no, like any great mystery writer, the protagonist's dilemma is solved, thus creating another mystery, the book's goodbye to all who have given their time to read it. Remarkable!

When Roy Slater left Kingdom County to go to college, he vowed he would never return. Nobody, not his father or the woman he loves, wanted him. Guilt makes him return to care for his father who has only a few months left to live. Lila, his only love, lives in the poorest section of the country but he doesn?t expect to see her because she wrote him a note saying she wouldn?t marry him.

To temporarily get away from his father, Roy visits Sheriff Lonnie Porterfield, who is called out to look at a dead body; Roy tags along. The dead man is a tenant on Lila?s land so Roy ends up seeing her and realizes he still has feelings for her even though he won?t act on them. Roy?s brother Archie confesses to killing his girlfriend?s father and mother two decades ago and hangs himself in the cell three days later. Roy and his father believe the old sheriff Wallace Porterfield, a crooked, violent thug, knows more about the case than he lets on and they both start investigating. What Roy finds out puts him in a killing rage, and only a miracle can prevent blood from being shed.

Master storyteller Thomas H. Cook is a literary giant in the psychological suspense genre and always writes a story that enthralls the audience. INTO THE WEB is more than just a story of reworking an old crime in the hopes of getting new information; it is a story of a father and son who finally reconcile after many years of misunderstandings. The protagonist is a bit passive but he had to be written that way for the story to work.

Harriet Klausner

I am new to Thomas Cook novels, but am a complete convert after reading this, my 2nd novel of his. He is a masterful writer with elegant, but economical prose. He gets on with and is no wuss, but there's beauty and compassion in among the dire circumstances and well crafted storyline.

In this novel, he does a wonderful job developing the characters - they really come to life and seem like real folks caught in a bad reality. No superhero crimefighters or crazy pyschos here.

Granted these folks live in an insular community and the story is a bit depressing as it revolves around the difficult lives led since some murders committed years before. But it really works as a plausible story whose outcome you can't be sure of until the very end.

Now I'm off to order some more of his books! This should keep me entertained for a while.