Customer Reviews

Left To Die

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Nothing makes me angrier than to spend my free time (which I have little of) on reading a book with no ending. I refuse to buy the next book to find out who the killer is just on principle. I didn't buy the book to be hooked into a future purchase. I wanted to read a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Don't waste your hard earned free time on this book because you don't get the ending. That will come out in a year from now!!! I think an author that pulls these tricks needs to go back to school and learn that every story has 3 parts. I will only be a sucker once!!! I will never buy one of her books again!!

Apparently I had forgotten that she gets 500 pages by writing at least 200 pages of junk. This really only highlights the fact that her limit of good writing tops out at about 300 pages. I nearly gave up on the book several times but then just started skimming everything that wasn't in quotes so I could finish it and find out who the killer is - only to find out that I would have to buy her next book in August of 2009 if I want to know. I won't be spending another dime or wasting another minute on a Lisa Jackson book.

A serial killer is stalking the desolate snowy mountains of Montana for prey. He shoots out their tires, rescues them, nurses them to health, and then leads them barefoot and naked to their deaths where he leaves them tied to a tree, to die of exposure. Leaving a calling card that includes their initials in an elaborate cipher, he has the authorities (led by a duo of female detectives) baffled, particularly as he escalates his frequency. Jillian Rivers heads to Montana after receiving strange calls and photos indicating that her deceased first husband might be alive. When her tire is shot out, she's rescued by Zane MacGregor but can't help but wonder if he's her protector or something more sinister.

I've already given up on hardbound novels by Jackson because I'm so tired of the direction she was taking with the mental hospital/convent, so I was excited to see that she had a new paperback out and no mention of convents. The plot had all the makings of a good thriller. Unfortunately, the novel is so bogged down by unnecessary details to set up the story that my attention waned constantly. I kept wondering when some dialog would be introduced into the story. There are too many characters and too many minuscule details that'll have readers yawning. I barely could tolerate one of the detectives and the other one is so poorly developed (we just know she is a workaholic who spends little time with her family). And then as I got about ten pages from the end, and the plot was so out there, I realized there was no way that the story was going to truly conclude. Jillian might have gotten closure; the readers however, do not.

With continuity and numerous grammatical errors and an odd style of writing - third person for most of the story and then first person past tense for the killer - I just kept wondering if Jackson's editor is MIA. The author's note advises readers that they'll have to wait until 2009 for the outcome of the story, which will be devoted to Detective Pescoli because she's such an intriguing character. Huh?!? I must have read a different book. I found her to be annoying. And those ungrateful kids... heck, if I had an ex willing to take them off my hands for awhile, I'd let him and celebrate with a night of passion with Nate the drifter. Barbara Freethy dragged a storyline out over two volumes with her "Played" and "Taken" novels. But where Freethy excelled by writing an intriguing plot with fully developed characters, Jackson just droned on and on and on and on. Sometimes more is just not better; it's just more. As for buying the sequel, "Chosen to Die," I don't think so - I'll just go to Wal-Mart and read the last chapter to see how it ends.

Frankly, if I wanted to read 1,000 plus pages and be bored out of my mind, I'd blow the dust off of my high school copy of "War and Peace."

© Tracy Vest, September 2008

I can't tell you how irritated I am at having read this entire book, only to be told at the end I have to wait at LEAST a year before I find out who the serial killer is! The mystery they actually solve wasn't even the interesting one. Furthermore, I probably won't even remember the particulars of the plot in a year (hey, I have things to do). Writing a book without an ending is just so obnoxious!

In closing, if you must read this, at least wait until the sequel comes out, so you can find out how the story ends.

This was the most boring book I have read in a long time. I have always enjoyed Lisa Jackson's books, but this was nothing short of empty. In addition, there was no ending....so you'll HAVE to buy her "next" book to find out what happens to the last woman captured. Well, I won't be spending money to find out. I think that's a horrible way to try to sell more books, by not providing an ending to the previous one, especially when the previous one was as dull as watching paint dry.

I am very angry. I read this book and there was no ending! You have to wait 1 year for the next book. I have read all of Lisa Jackson's books and have enjoyed them all but this was wrong. One should not write a book and expect people to wait one year to find out how it ends. She is a good enough author that she doesn't need to use this "trick" to get people to buy her next book.

Readers Beware - I've long been a fan of Lisa Jackson's - however publishing a book WITHOUT AN ENDING AND EXPECTING READERS TO WAIT 12 MONTHS before being able to finish it is a cheap shot and an insult to her readers. She literally ends this book with the killer having the victim in his (?) hands. Lisa Jackson, I'm done - you can't treat your readers this way and expect them to come back.

Read at your own risk. If you HAVE to read this, I'd suggest waiting to buy it until 8/09 when Chosen to Die (apparently not a sequel, but literally the 2nd part of this book) is published. You've been warned.

Lisa Jackson's latest novel has a chilling premise: a predator is on the loose. He targets single women traveling through Montana in the winter, causes their cars to crash, "rescues" them, and nurses them back to health, only to later leave them in the woods to die of hypothermia and starvation. Sound good? That is what I thought too. Unfortunately, this book is about 300 pages too long, and even after 496 does not answer the question of whodunnit.

The story is told in sections that focus on four different characters. Two are detectives working on the case, one is a potential victim, and there are occasional first person chapters written from the perspective of the killer. The captor's sections are the most interesting, and the only parts that I did not skim. This book is the first in a planned series, and Jackson spends far too much time trying to develop the characters of the female detectives by focusing on the boring minutia of their lives. I don't care what Regan's daughter is eating for breakfast! I don't want to know that Selena is good with computers unless it furthers the plot (which it doesn't)! The fact that Regan's son is grounded does not endear her to me!

In addition, the dialogue in this book is atrocious! The phrase "D*** it all to hell!" appears frequently. Does anyone talk like that anymore?! Jackson seems to be trying to show us how hardened these cops are through their excessive usage of PG-movie swear words. This book could have easily been saved by a good editor.

Instead of the satisfaction of a mystery solved, what awaits us at the end of the book is a "letter to the reader" by the author in which she tells us that we should buy the sequel to Left to Die in August 2009 to find out what happens next. She also plugs three other of her upcoming 2009 releases and hopes that we will "give (them) a look." I don't think so. This was the first Lisa Jackson book I read, and if the rest are like this I will save my money in the future.

I plodded unhappily through 300 pages of redundant dialogue only to find that the answer to the mystery will come with the purchase of another book in August 09. I am not a happy customer.

I have never in my life been so infuriated at a book as this one. I hate it when I watch a show on TV and find out that it's only part 1 and that I have to wait until the next week to find out how it ends. But doing it to a book is much, much worse! The ending of the story isn't even going to come out until August. Does the author really think I'm so intrigued with this storyline that I'm actually going to remember or care a year from now that I don't know who the serial killer in this book was??? No, what I'm going to remember is that Lisa Jackson wrote a half-book, and that I should be careful the next time I pick up one of her books. If it doesn't say, "The whole story is enclosed in the pages of this book," I won't be reading it.