Customer Reviews

Mortal Fear (Nova Audio Books)

5 star:		(120)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Although this book contains more prurient sex and more gory violence than I prefer in a novel, instead of putting it down in disgust, I couldn't stop reading. This is testament to Greg Iles very strong plotting skills, as the tension in Mortal Fear never abated. It is also testament to his even stronger characterizations.

The characters in this book are real and smart and likeable, even if any one of them could be the one who is killing off women from EROS, an online erotic discussion service and taking a surgical momento from each victim. Harper Cole, the Systems Operator who connects the killings and comes forward, is ensconced in the turmoil surrounding his very Southern family. They include his physician wife Drewe, who has a great deal of hostility towards EROS; his ex-cover model sister in law Erin and her surgeon husband Patrick, whose marriage difficulties are spinning out of control; and a father-in-law with friends in high places who makes Jesse Helms look like a liberal crusader for civil rights and racial relations. With his friend and fellow SysOp Myles, whose brilliance is unparrelleled in Harper's experience, there are plenty of suspects for the serial killings. Iles's writing is very intelligent and always at least three steps ahead of the reader.

This book sucked away three days of my life, which is my way of saying: read it! Although there is little socially redeeming value in this novel, it's a very smart thriller and intensely escapist.

This is my first Greg Isles book but I will be looking for more. I found the caracters and the plot mesmerizing. It caught and kept my attention from the very start. I almost felt like I was right there watching the tale unfold between Harper and the other caracters. It also made me think of the very real dangers that the internet could hold, if the information one doles out so readily on here is'nt watched over very carefully.From a little country farmhouse in Mississippi to a large internet company in New York there's romance, murders, and plenty of action to keep your attention. Just my kind of reading!

The tension was so great while I read this novel, there were times when I didn't think I wanted to finish the book. Greg Iles' serial killer is one of the most frightening characters in modern suspense writing. The killer, who goes by a number of aliases on the internet, is evil incarnate. His chilling biography alone is enough to write a novel about. It is, among many other parts of this book, a stroke of genius.

Mr. Iles has done a highly magnificent and intelligent job of creating a plot that holds you and won't let you go. As I said, there were times I didn't think I could read to the end of MORTAL FEAR--not because I didn't like the writing, but because I didn't think my heart could stand the constant tension that just kept mounting through every chapter to the very end. Reading "The Silence of the Lambs" was the last time a book had that much impact. I do a LOT of reading, so my hat is off to Greg Iles for his great writing.

Halfway through finishing MORTAL FEAR, I immediately hunted down the rest of Iles' novels which, alas, are too few. I have added him to my very short list of favorite writers, the other two being Nelson DeMille and Elizabeth George. All three writers use character development, detail and excellent plotting to create novels that are intelligent, riveting, and just plain old fashioned good reading.

This is the best suspense novel I have read in ages. If you like psychological suspense and you're familiar with the Internet (of course you are; you're here, aren't you? ) you will eat this novel! Harper Cole runs EROS, an online sex chatroom service, and begins to suspect foul play when women customers begin to disappear from the service but haven't cancelled their expensive subscriptions. He discovers one of the women has been brutally murdered and suspects the killer is also an EROS client. The dialogue is excellent, the storyline makes it almost impossible to put down, and the characters are well defined. And some of his descriptions of emotions and human nature were enough to make me stop and marvel at how good this guy is. And this happened about every 10 pages. Greg Iles has two previous novels, Spandau Phoenix and Black Cross, both with Nazi Germany themes. They are definitely on my list now!

Let me start out by saying that I read this book over a four week period. I picked it up to read while on a cross-country flight. On the morning of May 16, I put it down in order to read the new Michael Connely book. I got around to it again last Friday (June 3) and finished it. This was tough. When I picked it up again, I realized something. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. In fact, the lead, Harper Cole, may have been better off getting blown away on the first page.

OK, it wasn't terrible. But the inconsistencies just kept adding together. For example, Miles, the ultimate computer geek, is attempting to fabricate a bogus online personality. He needs to come up with a valid street address that has phone service. For whatever reason, he is unable to hack into the telephone company computer to choose one. So instead he enters Harper Cole's real address. And of course the bad guy immediately tracks down Cole's home. Oh come now. Anyone can go into switchboard.com, enter a city & state, then enter a common last name like Smith or Jones and come up with a long list of addresses.

Sorry, gang. I didn't like the book and if I had had another one available, I never would have finished it. All is not lost however. There is a local charity that accepts used books for resale. They will benefit from this one.

Thirty-something Harper Cole makes a comfortable living trading commodities from his isolated Mississippi home, but it is his second, less lucrative job that offers the more interesting perquisites: Harper is a systems operator of an exclusive online sex forum, EROS (Erotic Realtime On-line Stimulation), whose members pay hundreds of dollars a month to engage in anonymous sex chat in a hyper-private environment. As a sysop Harper can cruise the hundreds of discussions within EROS, his presence in allegedly private chat rooms undetected by the participants, and he can take part in discussions himself under assumed identities. It is an avocation his wife Drewe--a beautiful and highly intelligent obstetrician--has become uncomfortable with in recent months.

As it happens, there is much to be uncomfortable about. When author Karen Wheat, an EROS client with whom Harper is more than passably familiar, is found beheaded, Harper contacts the authorities: a number of EROS clients have gone missing, and he thinks he knows who's behind their disappearances. But Harper's noble attempt to stop a serial killer's grotesque butcheries lands him and his family in peril.

Greg Iles's Mortal Fear is not a perfect book. There are some loose threads left dangling in the narrative (particularly the "Eleanor Rigby" side story), and Harper is made on p. 439 to consider briefly an action entirely unworthy of his character. Some of the middle chapters, too, are rather slow going. But the book builds to a breakneck pace, so that in its final 200 pages you will forgive the story its flaws, cursing the interruptions of impertinent employers and offspring while you neglect your responsibilities and read Iles's exciting conclusion.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Harper Cole trades commodities over the Internet from his isolated Mississippi farmhouse. He is also an accomplished guitarist, singer-composer, and married to a successful doctor. Nights he spends on his computer, as a systems operator for an internet sex site that guarantees its affluent clients total anonymity. Harper stumbles across some facts that indicate a stranger has infiltrated the security system and is killing off women subscribers to the site. When he reports this to the authorities, Harper and his long-time friend and associate, Miles Turner are the prime suspects.

In order to prove their innocence they come up with an ingenious plan to lure the killer out into the open, but not without great personal risk to Harper and his loved ones. He has sexual secrets of his own and this puts Harper in a situation of inner conflict that reels the reader in. All the characters in this story line are great and believable.

The novel builds to a fast pace, but will appeal more to a computer literate reader, as the trap to catch the killer is "tech" oriented. The computer dialogue is intense and the killer absolutely scary in his intelligence, strength and manipulative abilities.

It has a little bit of everything - mystery, sex, humor, romance and suspense, but also goriness. The squeamish reader may cringe at the descriptive crime scenes, but it is definitely well written and may very well give a reader second thoughts about entering a chat room. An intense, good book.

This was a great trashy novel, and it really is trashy. There were many places in the book where I laughed out loud because of the terribly clichéd dialogue and general stupidity of the characters. For instance, the FBI cannot discover that a quote left by the killer was written by famous author Henry Miller. However, Harper Cole, stockbroker and porn site systems operator, recognizes the quote at a glance. In fact, every law enforcement agency in the country is made out to be a bunch of complete idiots in this book. Harper also feels the need to rehash explicit details of his sexual escapades in the name of therapy...and the reader's voyeurism! A simply summary never suffices in "Mortal Fear." We get to hear every steamy detail, even when it's completely unbelievable that Harper would go into so much detail. But that's really what's great about this book. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It's just a fun, mysterious, gory, sexy read that would be wonderful for a long plane trip. The plot is fast paced. The mystery kept me guessing. The characters aren't necessarily likeable, but they're believable in the context of the world the author creates. Just a note though-if you know anything about computers, most of the complexity attributed to them in this book will seem really silly. EROS is made out to be an amazing creation, when it doesn't seem like much more than a chat room and some message boards. This isn't "War and Peace," but I couldn't finish "War and Peace" anyway, because it got too boring in the middle. "Mortal Fear" is far from boring and I'll happily pick up another book written by Greg Iles.

I've read plenty of books, none however that grab me the way Iles books do. I've read each of his books, and none of them have lasted longer than four days in my hands. In Mortal Fear he creates a character, with amazing development, that scared me so badly, I had nightmares about this guy. When and if you read it, you will demand to be left alone for the last hundred pages or so, just struggling to get through it. You will constantly tell yourself to stop reading, but you will be unable to do so. It is incredible.

Iles is a terrific author, writing about Nazi Germany, racial tensions in the south, on-line stalkers, and kidnapping. I could argue for hours over which is his best book, Spandau Phoenix, Mortal Fear, or The Quiet Game, without ever coming to a conclusion.

I started reading this book 3 days ago. I just spent all day today finishing it. It's a great book! I was literally flying through the pages as I got closer to the ending.

I agree with one of the reviews that there were a few loose ends that I wondered about. For instance, what happened to Eleanor Rigby? That was the last thought I had as I finally finished the last page! The book was so exciting that the little flaws didn't detract from it in any way.

Harper Cole is a great main character. He's married to the almost-perfect Drewe but has a fascination for her beautiful and exciting sister, Erin. He starts working for the EROS network just for fun, he makes plenty of money in the market. Somehow his feelings for his wife and her sister leave him unsatisfied. He can't really connect with his wife. It brings to mind the old saying.."You don't know what you've got until it's gone."

Through EROS he gets involved with one the the worst villians I've seen in a book lately. They call him Brahma but who knows who he really is? When women start disappearing from the network Harper gets concerned and notifies the police. This starts a roller-coaster ride so that he sometimes wonders if he should have gotten involved. His secrets could be revealed and that would be a disaster!

One of the most interesting parts was when Brahma/Maxwell (one of his aliases) was telling his life story. He told enough that Harper, Drew and Miles (Harper's best friend) could start putting the pieces together. The man was brilliant and sadistic. Harper and Miles devise a scheme to catch him....

You'll have to read the book to find out if they do or not. It's worth the read!