3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fred and Jan Yager Hit the Mark Once More, June 5, 2002
This review is from: Just Your Everyday People (Paperback)
In their latest suspense-filled yarn, "Just Your Everyday People", the Yagers have gone beyond the crime novel genre to create a work with a literary theme that should challenge any modern reader. That theme is fidelity and how the lack thereof can undermine the stability of the best of marriages or the fondest of friendships. Which is not to say that the book isn't a good read. It's real page-turner too!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
neatly packed, fast paced thriller, September 22, 2001
This neatly packed, fast paced thriller is a real page turner that should distract the reader from the reality of current terrifying events. It would make an exciting movie.
Two young, surburban couples are long time friends. One pair is ordinary, naive with wholesome values--what one expects from "everyday people" The other couple conceals a sociopathic nature until a shared routine happy hour at a local bar leads to attempted blackmail, theft, mayhem and murder, drawing the ordinary couple into a chilling ordeal sure to keep the reader in suspense.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Well crafted storytelling, March 10, 2002
This review is from: Just Your Everyday People (Paperback)
Husband and wife writing team Fred and Jan Yager follow up their first suspense novel, Untimely Death With Just Your Everyday People. With Fred's background as a television executive and screenwriter, plus his degree in psychology and Jan's doctorate in Sociology, they pack enough knowledge to write a gritty teeth clenching story. Fred was also a war correspondent in Viet Nam and considerable experience as a news writer for CBS News and Fox Television. Jan has more than a dozen nonfiction books to her credit, has taught criminology at Temple University and The New School
Just Your Everyday People begins as two couples look forward to a night out drinking after the long work week ends. But what begins as a classic night out in our society soon dissolves into murder, deception, and poor choices. Julia and Paul Stanton meet their friends Lizzie and John in a bar. But when Lizzie seduces a stranger in a bizarre scheme for quick cash, their lives quickly unravel:
"He remembered floating to shore and pulling his bleeding body on to a rocky bank where he lay exhausted, falling in and out of consciousness. But where was all the rest? What else had happened? His memory was like a black hole, an endless void. The sound of a car approaching had awakened him again and he managed to crawl into the prickly bush just as the headlights flooded the bank of the reservoir."
Written tongue-in-cheek, Just Your Everyday People is the sad story of what lurks beneath apparently ordinary people's exteriors. It is also about how easily people make completely bad choices, which can escalate into tragic and terrible situations. From this vantage point, the book is completely successful. It makes the reader cringe more and more as each chapter pulls the characters further into a mire of murder and mayhem. The cover promises the reader a new appreciation of the dark side of people's psyches after reading this tale, and it delivers. The Yagers know how to entrap the reader, as well as the characters in their tales. An entertaining and eerie read, Just Your Everyday People is also well crafted storytelling.
Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer
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