Customer Reviews

Shutter Island

5 star:		(349)
4 star:		(145)
3 star:		(76)
2 star:		(56)
1 star:		(49)

 

 

Fear, obsession, paranoia...Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" is the stuff nightmares are made of. It is noir psychological suspense at its finest.

An isolated island, a raging hurricane, a locked room, secret codes, a mental hospital, rumors of mysterious medical experiments frame the story.

It is a scary, deceptive, disorienting, complex story grounded in the reality of the times...cold war USA in 1954 ("I like Ike").

Mr. Lehane weaves many threads throughout the unpredictable plot. The set up is thorough and the characters are fully developed. The twists and turns play havoc with your mind.

The unexpected is the norm...a couple of times I was able to figure something out a page and a half before it was revealed, but that was rare. The ending is unguessable.

Immediately upon finishing, I reread the prolog and final chapter...and will read this book again. I have not been so dumbfounded by an ending since William Diehl's "Primal Fear."

"Shutter Island" is etched in my memory.

First there were the noir detective books. Then "Mystic River", which was 70-80% different. "Shutter Island" is a 100% switch from either of those. I was fortunate enough to purchase mine at a book signing where Lehane answered questions for about an hour. He has taught writing extensively and is a very patient, cordial and articulate inverview (not all writers speak well). Lehane said something that helps understand all his work, but especially this one. He said his stories are about people who strive and strive for what they want, only to wind up with what they need instead, and is makes their soul whole. "Shutter Island" is a very tight (we know what the main character, Teddy, knows - period), freightening story. Still, Lehane laces his outstanding literary skills and fantastic story line with his usual humorous passages, and his wonderful, punchy descriptive metapors. "Shutter Island" is not literally a haunted castle story. All the characters are "real" (human) and there are no ghosts or other-world beings. But it is absolutely, positively the best haunted castle tale I have ever read. This book goes on my list of all-time favorites.

"Shutter Island" is the first book by Dennis Lehane I've ever read. I heard about this book from a movie Website. Apparently Wolfgang Peterson (director of Air Force One, and In the Line of Fire) has optioned this book to be turned into a movie. Reading this book, I can say it would make a FANTASTIC movie. But I digress...

Dennis Lehane's prose is very well paced; secrets behind every corner. Plot twists abound, but I can't say the whole book surprised me because I thought of just about every scenario Marshals Daniels and Aule could get into. At first I thought the premise of two US Marshals looking for an insane, escaped murderess on an island during a hurricane was a little to zany to work, but man, I'll tell you, the whole book is so well done! And I was TOTALLY satisfied with the denouement.

The dialogue really grabs you. Its funny at times, heartbreaking at others and completely true to life. Kudos to Dennis Lehane! Now I'm gonna have to go back and read his previous works, and I can't wait!

Readers approach an established author with expectations. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Those expectations help keep readers familiar with the author, while recommending the author to friends and attending book signings --- all of those good things. So what does one do when a favorite author not only steps away from established characters, but also takes a familiar genre... and tinkers with it a bit, and thus transforms it into something else?

This is precisely what Dennis Lehane does with SHUTTER ISLAND, a book very different from what he has done in the past and also different from what others laboring mightily in the mystery and suspense idiom have done. Lehane made his bones with five novels featuring the duo of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. His last novel, MYSTIC RIVER, was a departure from those characters but still covered the same territory that Lehane has demonstrated an intimate familiarity with, that being modern-day, working class Boston, through the prism of the detective novel. SHUTTER ISLAND is a totally different animal.

SHUTTER ISLAND takes place not in 2003 but in 1954 and not in Boston but in view of it --- in Ashecliffe Hospital --- located on Shutter Island, an island with a history dating back to the Civil War. The tale is told through the eyes of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, the son of a fisherman, a man whose life has been marked by tragic violence and sorrow suffered in quiet silence. When we meet Daniels, he is on his way to Ashecliffe Hospital to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, one of the patients. Her disappearance is significant because Ashecliffe is not an ordinary hospital, but a treatment and holding center for the criminally insane. The island is accessible only by ferry and there is simply nowhere that Solando could have gone.

However, as Daniels and Chuck Aule, his newly acquired partner, begin their investigation, it is immediately apparent that all is not right. The doctors who run the hospital are not entirely cooperative, the assistant warden seems to be more obstructive than not and the warden is an enigmatic character who, within the brief period in which the reader makes his acquaintance, is quite frightening. But to say that nothing or no one on SHUTTER ISLAND is as it or they seem to be is an understatement. And when Solando reappears as suddenly as she vanished, it is a signal that the mystery is only beginning. But SHUTTER ISLAND is more, far more, than a mystery novel. The last chapter of this book will cause you to read it again and again, and then reread the entire novel. All is revealed, yet all remains obscure.

SHUTTER ISLAND is a genre-bending novel that is as absorbing a book as you are likely to read this year, combining the best elements of Agatha Christie, Eric Ambler, Philip K. Dick and Dennis Lehane. Readers will be discussing this novel --- and its ultimate revelation --- for quite some time. Very highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Shutter Island came to me by accident; I ordered a different book, the bookstore sent this one, then discovered their mistake and told me to keep it anyway. So I read it - and became instantly engrossed, as well as an instant fan of Dennis Lehane.
The plot revolves around the investigation into the almost magical, surely impossible disappearance of a woman from a heavily guarded hospital for the criminally insane. Set in the milieu of the 50s, that decade of The American Dream, there's an inherent innocence at play in the background, a sense of truth, but something dark and maybe deadly is going on. Then comes the threat of a hurricane and a prison riot...
It'll keep you up all night, no lie.

Shutter Island sits off the coast of Boston and is home to Ashcliffe Hospital for the criminally insane. Teddy Daniels, U.S. Marshall, and his partner, Chuck Aule, arrive on the island to help in the search of a missing patient. What actually goes on at Ashcliffe? Unconventional psychiatric treatments? It's difficult to review this book without giving too much away. Several other reviewers have said they were unprepared for the shocking ending. So I prepared myself by paying close attention to all the clues. But it wasn't enough. As I finished this book, sitting in a well air conditioned room, I actually broke out in a sweat. That has never happened to me before. What a stunner! Some reviewers have said they thought Lehane's previous novel, Mystic River, was better. I just can't imagine that. So, I'll put Mystic River on my must-read list. It's going to take me awhile to get over Shutter Island, though.

Lehane, long a favorite author of mine, has completely outdone himself with "Shutter Island." This was one of those rare books that avid readers pine for...the ones where the last page comes far too soon.

Taking a dark and surprising twist on the standard mystery/thriller, "Shutter Island" lures you into its story, making you believe you're in for a pleasant and well-written mystery. Somewhere around 2/3's of the way through, you begin to realize that you've been taken to a place you never expected, like the middle of a creepy, dark woods, and left to fend for yourself. To say what this book is about would be to spoil it for anyone brave enough to venture in....so I'll leave it at: READ THIS NOW! You won't be sorry!

If you read this book, please, please, please don't think too hard about it. Don't think about the mystery, don't think about the possible solutions to what's going on, because you've read this book before. Or you've seen it on TV or at the movies. Or both. Quite possibly hundreds of times.

The entire weight of this novel is balanced precariously on a thin, weak cliche. Once you see the cliche, the entire thing comes toppling down. Maybe you won't see it. But I would suggest not reading the back cover of the book, or any of the review blurbs, in which the answer is as made as clear as day. And again, don't think too hard when you're reading it, or the whole thing will crumble.

The book starts out on such a strong, strong premise: missing persons report. An inmate - er, patient - has vanished from her cell in a hospital for the criminally insane. Which is located on an island. In an old army fort. And oh yeah, her room was locked from the outside. And there's a hurricane coming. And rumors that the hospital staff is conducting unethical treatments on its patients...

Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. I was sold. I ate up the first 150 pages, loving every single minute. But there was something itching in the back of my brain, similar to how the protagonist feels a nagging understanding for a secret code he is given early in the book. That he knows the answer. About halfway through the book (literally the halfway mark), my suspicions were confirmed without a doubt (it's right there on the page). Honestly, I don't know how you could miss it, but based on the number of 5-star reviews, quite a lot of people did.

Once you get what's going on, you realize in dismay that the remaining 200 pages are essentially filler until the grand exposition-ladden ending. And frankly, even if you were taken in by the plot, I simply don't see how you feel rewarded by what you finally learn. It's the kind of thing that has been done countless times in far better movies and books, to the point where it's barely one step above

And even if you don't catch what was going until the end, I'm not sure how you can't feel the book is a cheat. I've never read anything else by Lehane, but I give him the benefit of the doubt that he usually does better than this. This seems like the type of thing that he tossed off in a month or two of writing. It's a lazy, lazy solution to what was a brilliant problem. I think Scorsese is going to get trounced by critics when this finally comes out.

This kept me up at night reading because it was such a twisted and gripping psychological thriller. When I finally finished it, I had to read a Dave Barry humor book to shut my mind down so that I could get some rest! This is a complete masterpiece, all coming together in the end for a biting twist that makes complete sense and leaves the reader feeling haunted. Anything having to do with a psychiatric hospital of the 1950's is bound to be scary, but this goes beyond your wildest expectations.

This is an intense read--Lehane had my heart rate up for the last 1/3 of the book. The dream sequences were very vivid, and this was the first time that I really felt an author had actually captured the non-linearity of a dream in text form.

On a side note, the name Shutter Island is fictional, but when I made my Mom read this, she said Lehane is describing Thompson's Island, off the coast of Boston. She used to play in the abandoned forts there as a child.

Dennis Lehane is a master of writing and surprise. He is one of the best writers of today- his possession of language and description surpass none. His new novel "Shutter Island" is one of the best. Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, U.S.Marshalls, are asked to go to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Mentally Insane to find an escaped patient/killer, Rachel Solando. Ashecliff is on an isolated island off the coast of Boston. From day one none of the staff are very helpful- always below the surface is a subtle message- we don't care, we are going through the motions from those who inhabit this strange island. The worst hurricane of the season occurs, and Teddy and Chuck going nowhere with this investigation, fear for their lives. Will they get off the island, will they find the killer, what is going on in the tower, and why does Teddy have such a hard time forgetting his dead wife? Will any of these questions be answered? Unless you have a tortured, twisted mind- the ending will clear the air. prisrob