Customer Reviews

Reprisal

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is largely a review of the other reviews on this page. They complain that Smith's novel, "Reprisal" wasn't a mystery. Well, it wasn't supposed to be a mystery. It had poetry in it. Oh, my goodness! Imagine, someone forcing you to read a poem! Unconstitutional, certainly.

This book is about an extraordinarily disturbed human being. The fact that her identity isn't a mystery is irrelevant. What she does, and what is done to her in reprisal, is the subject matter of this excellent novel. I recommend it.

Joining her family at Asconsett Island, Massachusetts, Joanna Reed, a noted poet, looks forward to the vacation. However, her idyllic summer abruptly ends when her spouse dies in an apparent drowning accident. Joanna cannot accept that her husband, a professional sailor who always used a life jacket, did not have one on him when he drowned. Her father soon dies in a fire. She argues with the local sheriff that both so-called accidents seem suspicious, but he figures she is just grieving.

A summer school roommate of Joanna's daughter, Charis Langenberg enters the distraught woman's life as a compassionate friend. However, unbeknownst to Joanna (but not to readers), Charis has killed the two men. When Joanna's daughter dies next from a roof top fall ruled a suicide, a mentally collapsed Joanna knows she must uncover the malevolent spirit destroying her family one person at a time.

REPRISAL is a well-written mystery that leaves readers wondering about the connection between the killer and her ultimate victim. The audience knows from the start that Charis is the killer, but Mitchell Smith hooks his fans by getting them to realize how cool and smooth the sociopath Charis is in her endeavor to get inside Joanna's life. Mr. Smith delicately provides glimpses into the deteriorating mind of Joanna as one tragedy after another is officially written off as an accident or suicide. Though the drug scene subplot seems to never reunite with the main plot, no one will doubt that this is a worthy thriller along the lines of Hitchcock's Frenzy.

Harriet Klausner

I've read a couple of other books by Mitchell Smith. If memory serves correctly, I read Daydreams, Stone City, and Karma. Stone City was excellent (about a small town History Prof in jail for drunk driving, who must discover which of his prisonmates is a serial killer who's offing the prisoners) and the other two were good. Unfortunately, this latest book is something of a departure for him, and mostly a disaster.

For one thing, while it's supposed to be a suspense novel, there was, strangely, no suspense. It wasn't that I guessed the ending so much as I didn't care. The plot involves a main character, Joanna Reed, who writes poetry and teaches at a small liberal arts college in New England. At the beginning of the book her husband is killed. We know he's been murdered because it's narrated for us, and we know how the killer did the deed. The killer is a young woman named Charis, and though we know how she did it, we're not supposed to know why. The problem is that there are only a few possibilites as to motive, and one becomes likely and obvious rather quickly. Charis moves on to kill the remainder of Joanna's family, one by one, and then tries to befriend her. This goes on for the best part of 400 pages.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to make the story worthwhile. The characters are somewhat interesting, but the suspense is robbed from the story. One side plot has Joanna (the widow) becoming convinced that fishermen must have killed her husband because he saw them smuggling marijuana. This is interesting, except there's not much suspense---we know they didn't kill him, and we know they won't kill her (because the book's about halfway over at that point, can't have a book without a main character). As a result, it winds up being a pointless plot device that goes nowhere.

I can't recommend this book, and Smith goes on the list of "maybes" for now.

Seldom does a book come along with the potential to grip you from the first page to the last and keep hanging on after you're done. Well, here it is. Mr. Smith is a craftsman's craftsman. His insights and understandings displayed in taking the story from his mind and relaying it to the printed page is brilliant.I'll not iterate a synopsis of the story here. Get it and see for yourself. Oh...By the way...BRACE YOURSELF!!

I borrowed this paperback and am glad I didn't pay for it. It's 389 pages and here is the VERY simple plot:

Joanna's husband drowns, her father is burned to death in his cabin and her daughter kills herself.

That's really ALL that happens for the first 300 pages, but we also have to wade through pages and pages of Joanna's wandering the streets of the town, meeting characters that have NOTHING to do with the plot, scenes and events that go on for chapters and do nothing to move the plot forward.

A drunk man breaks her window. He repairs the window. She asks --- and asks -- and asks the police to investigate. People drop food by to help her in her grief. "Please stay for tea." "I can't, I have to catch the ferry back." "Are you sure you won't stay for tea or coffee?" "I can't--I must catch the ferry."

And so on. And on. And on. And the scenes in the cave are the same....pages and pages pages of climbing up and down sheer cliffs. And the "climax" could have been ghoulish and haunting...but it, too, is dull and flat.

I have no idea where the editor was with this book but I think it was basically a 100-page novella that simply went on too long--so I started to skim hoping something would happen, but it's a book filled with filler.

After spending the day reading this novel, as the story progressed, all I could think of was wanting to read more of his novels. We all know that variety is the spice of life, and after reading previous reviews, this is shown to be true with me.

Admittedly, I didn't understand the use of "peeing", like "all women always have to pee before they go anywhere", but I felt the story to be fast-paced, pretty incredible, but very believable when you know the true stories of some of those very mixed up people that walk our streets. I felt that in places he became a bit "wordy", but felt that it might not be for possibly more intellectual people than myself. I am not much of a fan of poetry, especially literary poetry, and could have done without some of those references personally.

I thought it to be a good day of good myteries, and definitely something that I see Hollywood making a movie of. Very enjoyable and I plan to purchase more by this author.

I think Mitchell Smith is a fabulous writer and I've read every one of his books. This isn't his best work (I strongly recommend his others), but the story is compelling and interesting. And Smith always creates intriguing, multi-dimentional characters. I think Smith is a bit of a rara avis, and his books appeal to people who appreciate a deeper insight, a different point of view and a lot of character analysis. And his writing is rhythmical, but every book makes me gasp at least once with surprise. I think the characters in this book are less sympathetic than some of his other work, and the plot a little more obvious. Nonetheless, it's solid work by a great author - but read his other work for a real treat.

Simply one of the worst books I've read in a long time. Smith's writing style is cumbersome, him making use all too frequently of fractured sentences. Don't be fooled by the so-called suspense or mystery as to the Charis character's motives....you can see this one coming after a couple of chapters (if not sooner). I mean come now...how many motives can there be for a this Charis woman of whom we have no backround suddenly start killing Joanna's (...)? And what's with Smith's odd fascination with women peeing, both him writing it and the characters talking about it? Who cares? Skip this one and move on.

This guy is a fabulous writer, but not a great story teller. His "Joanna" is a poet, and some of her (his) poetry is quite arresting, particularly the piece about the wind and the sea. The problem is, I didn't buy some of the major turns in the story, and I thought the plot was a bit thin. Still, if you appreciate terrific writing for its own sake, give it a shot.

This is the worst book that I attempted to read in about two years. The author is very wordy in telling the story. The characters in the books were not set up well at all and therefore I could not connect with them. I read word for word only 41 pages of this book and skimmed about three places in the book and felt secure that I knew everything that happened. This is the first book that I have tried of Mitchell Smith and will not try another. There are too many good authors out there to waste my time here. I suggest that you don't waste yours.