Never Enough [Hardcover]

Harold Robbins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 2001

David Shea, a high powered Wall Street investment banker, has a past that wont be denied. As a teen, he led a group of four friends to beat a local bully to death and let someone else take the rap. David has managed to avoid every bad break, but in a life of big money payoffs, potentially lethal pitfalls, and legal wrangling, fate is bound to get the upper hand at least once.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Biz! Booze! Broads! It's difficult to envision the sort of trashy story lines that made The Carpetbaggers and Stiletto such memorable hits getting any sleazier, but this nuanceless book achieves the impossible. The fourth in the Forge line (The Secret; The Predators; Never Leave Me) of posthumously published Robbins novels (Robbins died in 1997) finished by "a carefully selected writer" follows the story of four boyhood pals from dead-end 1970s New Jersey who recreationally beat a local loser to death one drunken Saturday night. The ringleader, a "cheat" named David Shea, gets do-gooder friend Cole Jennings to take the fall for him. The novel meanders aimlessly through the subsequent maturation of Dave into a scheming inside trader and Cole, who served three years' probation for involuntary manslaughter, into a well-meaning but weak-willed lawyer; the two team up to run crooked investment deals while pursuing leisurely wife-swapping and generally screwing everything in sight. While Cole and his wife, Emily, manage to weather the storms of such a lifestyle, Dave runs through several wives, one of whom he lands in prison, another of whom he pimps to lure shady Chinese investment capital. While there is just enough trace evidence of the original author's love of business scams in the plot (including Dave gambling on a thinly veiled version of the AOL-Netscape merger), the author's ghost is obliterated by the publisher's ghostwriter. Lines like "Jenna was probably the only girl in the dorm wearing rings in her nipples, and the least sexually experienced on her dorm floor" should have (most) readers dropping the book in disgust, and shoddy editing will discourage the few that remain. Let's hope this will be the last of the post-Robbins Robbins novels; the dead should be allowed to rest in peace. Major ad/promo.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Here is another novel published by the estate of Harold Robbins (who died in 1997) based on story ideas he left behind. Although a ghostwriter penned this latest installment in a long line of novels by the perennially popular writer, this title does manage to remain faithful to Robbins' unique mode of storytelling. Populated almost wholly by powerful, wealthy, oversexed, and, of course, beautiful men and women, this rather formulaic but nevertheless amusing tale follows the exploits of one such male character, David Shea. A high-powered investment banker, Shea manages to go through three wives and many, many illicit affairs as he scratches and claws his way to the top of his field. Outside the twisted life of the main character, though, readers will find a mostly unexciting plot revolving around insider trading, a story line that exists only to tie together all of the trysts, sexual kinks, wife swapping, nymphomania, and other wild activities that exist in the world of a Robbins novel. But his fans will eat it up, and librarians should stand ready. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (October 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765300001
• ISBN-13: 978-0765300003
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,094,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Never Read It, June 30, 2002

By 

D. Sandini "pdx_runner" (Portland OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Enough (Hardcover)

I read quite a bit, and really like books about Wall Street and the insiders game there. I can't remember ever starting a novel and just not being able to finish it. This book is boring. The characters are flat, and the sexual; references are just not exiciting. The plot: completely predictable. I've never written a review here but I felt compelled to save a few people some money. To borrow from an old Monty Python joke:

This is not a novel for reading ... this is a novel for lying down and avoiding.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I am waiting for the sequel to conclude this story!, September 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Never Enough (Mass Market Paperback)

The book, I think was a great read, however, it was heavily flawed. The first obvious flaw was that the summary that appeared on the back cover was not a reflection of the story. The piercing and rings were grossly exaggerated and a little too much to handle at times. The main character, David Shea was allowed to be able to get his way with cheating and scheming at all times and that begins to be unrealistic.

I was not a fan of the main character Dave Shea but I really fell in love with the Cole Jennings character. He was the good guy in this story. I enjoyed reading about the maturity of his family. I completely disagree with the editorial reviewer that wrote: "Lines like Jenna was probably the only girl in the dorm wearing rings in her nipples, and the least sexually experienced on her dorm floor should have (most) readers dropping the book in disgust ..."

Lines like that kept me reading the book! For once a Robbins novel portrays a beautiful woman, (in this case a child really) who knows she is beautiful and does not allow herself to be sexually exploited. I would love to see a sequel to this book that continues the story of Jenna's rise to fame and power and/or a legalistic show down between Giuliani and the fictional character Cole Jennings over the fate of Dave Shea. So Mr. ghost writer get going ... I can't wait for this sequel!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What kind of an ending was that!, December 19, 2002

By 

Julie Waechter (WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Never Enough (Mass Market Paperback)

I kept reading this book, thinking that there was going to be some point to it, but most of the characters and the story was left hanging. I was very dissapointed. I kept thinking I must have missed a page and lost the character there. Unless there is a sequil to this book, I wouldn't waiste my time reading it.