Red Leaves: A Novel [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Paullina Simons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

When beautiful, star basketball player Kristina Kim is found murdered in the snow, Spencer O'Malley, the young detective who had fallen in love with her, has to investigate the crime. What he finds is a life more mysterious than her death.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After her heralded but somewhat overwritten first novel, Tully, Simons has sharpened her craftsmanship to produce this suspenseful work about four friends at Dartmouth College whose close relationship is coming apart. The disintegration doesn't appear mortal, but it is. During a cold Thanksgiving weekend and its aftermath, Kristina, Jim, Conni and Albert study, play and occasionally sleep together, passionately addicted to each other's company. When Kristina's nude and frozen body is found in a snowbank, having been concealed there for some days, young small-town detective Spencer O'Malley investigates her death. He is drawn into the group's games and lies just as he was drawn to Kristina's compelling liveliness when he met her the day before she was killed. Why did her best friends fail to report her missing? Their answers to his fervent questions reveal a network of hidden secrets and jealousies that have long existed among them. But the hardly surprising solution to the crime doesn't appear until three years later, when the full significance of the title becomes clear. The narrative has striking similarities to the events in Donna Tartt's The Secret History, but Simons is not as fluent a writer, nor does the plot carry the philosophical resonance of Tartt's more sophisticated work. Yet Simons handles her characters and setting (both the New Hampshire campus and the moneyed neighborhoods of Greenwich, Conn.) with a certain skill, creating mystery from the ordinary, protected lives of these Ivy League kids, slowly peeling away their deceptions to reveal denial, cowardice and chilling indifference. In doing so, she tells an often engrossing story. BOMC selection; audio rights to Brilliance Audio; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

At 21, Kristina Kim is a senior at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She is beautiful, pleasant, and the star player on the women's basketball team. Surrounded by her close friends Jim Shaw, Conni Tobias, and Albert Maplethorpe, Kristina has her whole life before her. But a week after Thanksgiving her body is found frozen in the deep snow near her dormitory. Spencer Patrick O'Malley, the detective in charge, coincidentally met Kristina shortly before her death and even had a date with her the week after the holiday. As Spencer conducts his investigation, he uncovers many peculiarities; for example, why did none of her trusted friends report Kristina missing in the nine days previous to the discovery of her body? When Spencer learns that Kristina died leaving $9 million to her friends, he digs deeper and finds a frightful secret. Simons's (Tully, LJ 4/15/94) characterizations are excellent, and she quickly draws the reader deeply into the nuances of the story. Highly recommended for fiction collections.?Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 556 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler Publishing (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568953879
• ISBN-13: 978-1568953878
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,138,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting novel!, July 28, 2005

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Red Leaves (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of the few books this summer where I found that I just couldn't put down. This is an engrossing novel filled with twists and turns that it leaves the reader anxious to know what happened till the final page has been turned. Even then, the story still haunts the reader.

This novel focuses on four friends ~ Kristina, a beautiful basketball player, Conni, her former roommate, Jim, her boyfriend and Albert, Conni's boyfriend. Kristina is found dead and the novel focuses on the unraveling of secrets among the four friends. It is a chilling portrayal of three human beings who are indifferent to the fact that their friend is dead. It's a creepy novel ~~ with dark undertones. The dark undertones has to do with apathy and indifference of another human being's plight in life or in Kristina's case, death. Cossetted and spoiled, these undergraduates in a priviledged college fought the investigator in the murder case in his attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Kristina's death.

This book will creep you out ~~ it will annoy you because Simons shows the worst of human nature. It will leave you twisting in your seat as you think of one scenario or another till you are ended up with surprises that you didn't think of. It is a riveting book ~~ perfect for those lazy summer days at the beach or sitting in your hammock. If you're looking for an intense suspense novel ~~ this one would be it!

7-28-05

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, subtly chilling and thoroughly entertaining, September 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Red Leaves: A Novel (Hardcover)

As most students reading books for their final English Studies I wished to get through this book as quickly as possible...and yet once started I could not put it down. It has pace and Simmons' has created thoroughly believable and recognisable characters. The lead, Spencer Patrick O'Malley, creates in himself such a sense of sympathy that it is impossible not to to relate to him and indeed the rest of the characters follow suit. Yet of all the good points of this novel the finest would have to be the ending - for in what has become a world of cliched happy endings Simmons' has instead granted us a glance into the darkest side of the human spirit.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent To The Core, June 12, 2001

By 

Heather Marshall Negahdar "Haze" (Bridgetown, Barbados) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Leaves (Bookcassette(r) Edition) (Audio Cassette)

If you've read Tully and like it,then you'll definitely cherish this lovely book by Paullina Simons. I like the way she gets her readers so emotionally involved with the characters. These youngsters in Red Leaves, Kristina, Constance, Albert and Jim felt like my family, or they could have been my children for that matter. I felt especially close to Kristina, the main character as I felt her pain and her cold lonliness. With a cleverly crafted detective storyline, it has the capacity to keep you up all night long until you've turned the last page. After you've turned that last page, you can't get those characters out of your head. If you haven't bought it yet........get it.......it's worth every penny. Thanks Ms Simons