Most Helpful Customer Reviews
106 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Follow John Corey into the Mysteries of Long Island, March 1, 2000
This is the first DeMille book I have read and I loved it. I have subsequently read "The Gold Coast" and "The Charm School" both of which I enjoyed but not as much as I enjoyed reading Plum Island. First of all, the setting. DeMille describes a charming east Long Island that I never paid much attention to (I travel through Orient Point a half a dozen times a year). We receive an interesting portrayal of the quaint villages, the local flavor, and the snotty wine growers. DeMille also gives the reader a dose of the history of the area describing the early times when pirate landed on its shores. Then there is Plum Island itself which I will gaze at more closely now each time I pass it on the ferry. The characters are well developed. John Corey, the lead character, is this off-duty detective who gets caught up in this mystery. He's brash, sometimes rude, prefers a good beer to a vintage glass of wine and is very likeable. The other characters, including the minor ones, are defined enough to feel like you know them. The plot. I won't give anything away. ..just a good mystery that leads you down a few different directions.
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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Novel, Corey is a Trip!!, January 23, 2002
Plum Island is my third Nelson DeMille book and like the previous two I've read (Gold Coast and Charm School), it's a little long winded, probably 100 pages longer than it needed to be, but the primary character, John Corey is his best character to date. I agree with other reviewers that he is arrogant, but he is pretty funny with his sarcasm, which makes him tolerable when the story drags. The storyline, which deals with the murder of employees of Plum Island, where work is done with hazardous materials (including anthrax) is obviously very timely today. It makes a lot more sense today than in 1997 when this book was first published. You get to learn a little about this stuff, so DeMille's research doesn't go to waste here. I found fault with DeMille's decision to let Corey figure out who the criminal was midway through the book and then spending the rest of the book showing how he gets this person. It would have been nice if he threw in a plot twist somewhere later to shake things up and add some suspense, but it's a good book that will lead me to read The Lion's Game (another Corey book) in the future.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun read, January 27, 2004
By A Customer
This was fun. The main character (John Corey) is an over-confident wise-guy detective who thinks he's God's gift to women. His arrogance is funny. The pace of the book is very good. It's 500 pages, but it's still a quick read. There were a few flaws, but they were minor. Corey is meant to be recovering from a gunshot wound (through the lung?) but throughout the book he exerts himself way beyond what he should be able to do. DeMille fails to explain the origins of a vital letter at the end. Some sequences are not believable, like the speedboat ride through a hurricane, where the characters are still able to carry on a light-hearted conversation despite being blasted with smashing waves and hurricane winds. Overall, it was well worth the read. I laughed out loud several times. This was my first DeMille, but I'll be looking for more.
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