Customer Reviews

Sail

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(43)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

Katherine Dunne and her three children are taking a long over-due family vacation. It's been four years since her ex-husband died, and Katherine is afraid she is losing her kids. Desperate for help, she goes to her former brother-in-law, Jake Dunne. He agrees to take the family out for a summer trip on board the family yacht. Jake loves his brother's kids and wants to do whatever he can to reach out to them. He also still has strong feelings for Katherine, whom he has loved for years.

The Dunne's hit the high seas and immediately things begin to go wrong. Mark is caught smoking pot. Carrie hurls herself into the ocean in an attempt to end her life. All the while, young Ernie looks on as his family is starting to self destruct before his eyes. Unfortunately for the Dunne's, the trouble is just beginning. Someone wants them all dead and will do anything to make sure their vacation becomes permanent.

James Patterson fans will no doubt eat up his latest summer thrill offering. Sail is a suspense filled story, and one that will have most readers flying through the pages. This is a not a typical Patterson whodunit story keeping readers guessing until the end. The antagonist is revealed early on and the motive is never in doubt. All the tension and suspense are found in the Dunne's fight for survival and the antagonist's race to cover his tracks.

Sail held my attention, but there is nothing new or overly exciting here. This is just one more addition to James Patterson's long line of summer chillers. It's fast paced and fun, lacking any real substance or charm. The one twist we do get at the end is forced and unnecessary. Luckily for him, Patterson has reached that lofty level for bestselling novelists where it really doesn't matter what reviewers say. He will always sell a jillion copies of whatever he writes. This will certainly be no exception.

SAIL is the latest thriller to be churned out from the James Patterson book factory. I didn't have high hopes for this one. It seemed like Patterson decided to write a novel about one of his hobbies. I didn't look forward to 300 pages of a family facing troubles on the high seas. However, as the book played out, I found myself drawn into the standard Patterson plot twists and characters and winded up enjoying this novel quite a bit.

Cahterine Dunne 45 year old heart surgeon with three kids. Her cheating first husband died while sailing, and she's determined to go on an extended sailing trip to reunite with her kids, each of whom has their own problems. The novel is standard Patterson, which isn't a criticism. You get standard characterization: one kid smokes pot, one is bulemic, ex-CIA bad guys, determined DEA agent, daibolical, philandering new husband.

Catherine believes a two-month sailing trip will be just the thing to reunite her family. She's lost her kids since the death of their father. Almost immediately, the boat starts having problems. Thankfully, her brother-in-law Jake is there to help them. Peter Carlyle, Catherine's new husband is a rich defense attorney. He urged Catherine to take this trip and was very supportive. But, as soon as she leaves, we find out he isn't all he claims to be.

That's enoug of the plot. This is a good book. It actually throws a lot at you other than sailing, but covers it in Patterson's usual cursury manner. This book isn't as good as THE QUICKIE, but is much better than STEP ON A CRACK, HONEYMOON, or JUDGE AND JURY. You will find absolutely nothing new in this book. Patterson is what he is. This book just happens to be better than his others. Patterson will never recapture the magic of his early Cross books, but that doesn't mean he still can't write good thrillers.

I did enjoy this book a little but not, I suspect, for the reasons intended by the authors and publisher. In fact, I laughed aloud at several of the wrong places. Let me explain. A woman heart surgeon sets out on a sailboat with her three children and her deceased husband's brother. Her fancy dancy crimanal defense attorney husband is left in New York. Things start to go wrong right away on this junket.

The teenage boy lights up a joint in the head. The daughter tries to commit suicide. A huge storm almost swamps them. Then there's an explosion, putting them all in the drink, whereupon a shark smells lunch, before they make it to a deserted island and a giant snake attacks. I could see it all coming, like dominoes falling. I could see the writers listing all the hazards that could possibly affect this curious crew. It became downright funny.

Then toss in the fact that someone is trying to kill them--the doctor's second husband, the hotshot villainous lawyer, assisted by an ex-CIA operative. The lawyer is a piece of work, strictly one-dimensional nasty and completely unbelievable. Even his bosomy girlfriend is silly, thrown in just to have a sex scene. In fact, there isn't a character in this book that feels right, to say nothing of the events that are phony.

And I haven't touched upon the errors of fact and logic, but to take those on would be to give away the plot for those who enjoy this sort of thing. One example: the sailboat, which apparently has an inboard engine, sets out from New England and a couple of days later is in sub-tropical waters, in the vicinity of the Bahamas. Some sailboat.

Then there is the writing itself. The authors obviously don't trust their own words very much or their own readers. They use lots of exclamation points, the certain spoor of the bad writer. Then they compound this with italicized sentences and bold sentences on every page. Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway they are not. It reminded me of the movie "Betelgeuse," with all the lights and arrows to show where he was. The movie was intenced to be funny. "Sail" isn't.

Mr. Patterson and his various co-authors just keep turning these out, using the same basic pattern for every book. They would do well to slow down and try something worthwhile. But that would perhaps cut into the income. Silly me.

The only thing that will sail in this clunker is your money to the land of lost causes. I guess "Sail" sounded better as a title than "Motor boat" since the characters don't ever seem to get around to actually sailing. There was apparently no fact checking on flying, sailing, heart attacks, snakes on an island, wound care, infections, and the mysterious attraction between large tuna and soda bottles. Another author, who, like Stephen King is past his prime or hitting a dry spell and has now gone onto the list of "read the reviews by real people first before considering a purchase". Larry King wants him to write faster? If this book was written any faster it would have been put out on a Twitter.

This was a terrible book. No depth, silly plot, and phony characters. It reads like a middle schooler obsessed with exclamation points wrote it. Luckily the chapters were so short and the type was so huge it didn't waste too much of my time.

Mr. Patterson failed to entertain but did amaze me. Can't believe this wasn't written in a high school composition contest. Predictable, cliche, b o r i n g!!!! Waste of time.

At this point in his career, James Patterson has written so many thrillers that it must be hard to create a new angle. This may be why he so often writes with others, and this is one book where I think his co-author had a lot to say and I think it was well worth saying.

As a summer thriller, this book more than satisfies. It is a very good tale of survival (although the mom in the story engages in a little too much introspection and self-flagellation for my taste) of a family in crisis, each member having his or her own issues apparently arising from the fairly recent death of the father/husband in an accident connected with the family sailboat. We know from fairly early on that the family's own accident, on that same sailboat while trying to heal some of their familial wounds, is no accident, and there is no doubt about the identity of the perpetrator. That removes some of the usual whodonit type of tension and transfers it to the very compelling story of the family's survival: will they survive at all, and if they do, will they survive their family crisis or will it be even worse? Will this process be rendered better or worse by the capture and/or conviction of the perpetrator of this viciously violent crime?

The family is far from a perfect unit, but each of it's members brings some unusual abilities to the many crises they face. They are wonderfully fallible and likable. I enjoyed reading their story. As to the demons among them, they are truly ogres, and their stories were also interesting if a little too pat. I must say I am just a little tired of the lawyer always being the one with absolutely no scruples or humanity, even if he is not the only one!

All in all I don't think Mr. Patterson's readers will be disappointed in this one. It was quite a tale, well told and with enough twists of an unusual variety to hold one's interest.

I honestly expected better from this book. James Patterson is a best selling author, yet this book reads like it was written by his assistant. It was predictable and uninteresting, and I wasn't impressed by the large font and 2 page chapters that made the book appear to be longer and deeper than it actually is.

I have read many a Patterson and Patterson shared-written books and this one left me disappointed. Not even close to believeable, this story just amazes with impossibilities and were it not such sad reading, one could almost laugh at the twists. Sorry...not a good one.

Once again, James Patterson has put his name to another author's work. His name should be followed by James Patterson, Mass Publisher.

I thought the writing was as if a teenager wrote the book. The main character was kind of sily and was not very likable The only character that was likable, her brother-in-law, was killed off after the author led us to believe that he would be the hero. Toward the end of the book, it did get a little better. It is hard to believe that the bad guy (her husband) could cover up his evil side long enough to woo and marry her. There is no explanation even of how they met and got married, especially, with her working day and night at the hospital.

I think I am going to write Patterson's name off my list of favorite authors. If you really want to read a good book where you get your money's worth, try Greg Iles or P.J. Parrish.

Although I personally am not talented enough to write a book, I do expect famous authors making millions off the masses to at least find authors who have the same style of writing before putting their name on it. He should be embarrassed to take credit for this book.