Customer Reviews

Sleeping Beauty LP

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

We have read and generally enjoyed all nine of Margolin's previous outings, and find that this lawyer turned writer can craft a suspenseful story line along with the best of them. The books that have left us a little cold were ones where the author overpopulates with so many events and characters, doing justice to few of them, that hardly a reader can keep it all straight. Fortunately, in "Beauty", we have a cast of just a few main players to consider:

Ashley Spencer, a teenager who witnesses the brutal murder of her girlfriend and her father, and just narrowly escapes herself;

Joshua Maxfield, the alleged murderer who for much of the book is either a fugitive from the crime or in prison for it;

Miles Van Meter, best-selling author of a true-life account of the Spencer murders and the impact on his comatose sister;

Casey Van Meter, yet another victim who after Terri Spencer (Ashley's mother, who was away during the first attack) is killed in her sight, is struck on the head and spends years in a coma (ergo, the sleeping beauty!);

Randy Coleman, Casey's soon to be ex-husband from a mistaken quickie marriage;

and Jerry Philips, Ashley's attorney, who for a while takes almost too much personal interest in this whole matter.

Which one of these is really the killer? We're lead down many a path before all becomes clearer toward the end. Even with the big twist that gets to be a little foreseeable, a further twist right at the very end is good for a pretty shocking climax. Interesting courtroom drama helps break up the more violent action of much of the novel.

Most will find Margolin's latest a pleasing puzzler. We were not totally enamored by the telling of the story through flashbacks alternating with current time scenes where Miles is entertaining a crowd at a book signing. But the plot proceeds at a good pace, the characters are portrayed well enough, and the ending will catch many off guard. Guess that's what a thriller is all about!

Take a great mystery writer, a complicated plot, engaging characters and unusual observational insights into people, places and culture and I will probably stay up all night reading. Phillip Margolin has been on my "must read" list for a half dozen years, and "Sleeping Beauty" will keep him there a bit longer.
The characters and the story move along at the usual pace, but the plot seems to develope holes and never quite satisfies in the end. Maybe I have set my "Margolin" meter too high, but I was expecting a bigger bang for the buck. That is not to say you shouldn't read this latest attempt, it deserves the attention, and I'm sure all writers stumble occasionally, so I suggest you read it, enjoy it for what it does deliver and know that the next Margolin will most likely be racheted up a few notches.
To me Phillip Margolin is still in a league with Lehane, Stephen White, Steve Martini, The Kellermans, and about a dozen others who keep me up late at night.

Phillip Margolin has never disappointed me yet with his novels, and with Sleeping Beauty, his streak continues. In this novel things are seldom what they seem and it would spoil the read for me to reveal the twists and turns that this story takes. The straight forward story is that Ashley Spencer, a high school soccer star has a friend to her house for a sleep over following a big game and awakens to the most terrifying experience one can imagine. A masked stranger is in their room. He ties up Ashley and takes her friend into another room where he rapes and murders her. Returning to her room, he says, "I'll see you later" and she hears him go down to the kitchen. Her father, who is the only parent in the house that night crawls into her room suffering from multiple stab wounds and using the last of his energy frees fer from her bonds and she escapes out her window.

This appears to be a random event until Ashley's mother is taking a creative writing course at a nearby private school in which Ashley has enrolled and hears the instructor read a passage from a piece of writing that describes the event that her daughter has gone through and also includes a part of what happened that received no publicity. She eventually determines that no one in the class wrote the story and that it was drafted by the instructor, Joshua Maxwell, himself.

Her suspicions are aroused to the point where she confides them to the Dean of the school who checks out the instructor's background and calls the mother suggesting a meeting to discuss what she has found. While jogging on the school grounds near where the meeting is taking place, Ashley hears a scream and decides to investigate. What she sees as she peers in the window are the bodies of two women lying on the floor (the Dean and Ashley's mother) and Joshua Maxwell standing over them with a bloody knife in his hands. He sees her as she turns and runs for her life with Maxwell in pursuit. She escapes, the story is out, Maxwell is pursued and eventually arrested and brought to trial. And the story is JUST BEGINNING. Margolin uses an interesting vehicle in telling the story. The Dean, Casey Van Meter, was not murdered, but ended up in a coma. Her brother, Miles Van Meter has written a book about the events leading up to her being in the coma entitled, Sleeping Beauty. A continuing thread in this book is his presence at a book signing where he reads from the book and answers questions about it.

I will leave it to the reader to explore the intracies of this very well told tale. It is an undertaking that will be well worth the effort.

Ashley Spencer is your typical teenager. She has great parents, makes good grades in school and she is a star on the soccer team, but her perfect life is about to be shattered by a shocking act of violence.

While her reporter mom is on assignment, Ashley spends quality time with her father and her best friend until a stranger enters the Spencer home and changes things forever. The man stabs Ashley's father and then moves on to her friend, raping and killing her while Ashley sits tied up. As Ashley sits waiting for the killer to return her father crawls in to help her, setting her free to escape. Barely getting away alive, Ashley makes it to a neighbor's house where she calls the police. The police begin investigating the crime scene to discover a key piece of evidence left behind by the killer.

Ashley's mom returns to home to deal with the tragedy and to try to make a new start for her and her daughter. Terri Spencer finds The Oregon Academy a private school with a top notch girls soccer team. Once at the school, Ashley settles in quickly and soon has a good relationship with the Dean, Casey Van Meter.

As Terri settles into her new life she discovers a crucial piece of information that may lead to the capture of her husband's killer, a discovery that she shares with Casey Van Meter, but before anything can be done with the information she is killed and Casey is beaten into a coma, both victims to the same man who killed Ashley's father...a man who just happens to be a teacher at the school.

Things begin to spin out of control and the key to finding the identity of the killer, or killers lies in a true crime book called `Sleeping Beauty' a book written by Casey's brother Miles.

`Sleeping Beauty' is a twist filled shocker that's as smart as it is suspenseful. The complex plot will keep you guessing right up until the end and even then you won't have it figured out. From the gripping opening scene until the surprise ending you will be held captive by a spellbinding thriller filled with gruesome murders and sharp courtroom scenes. Phillip Margolin is a master story teller and his imaginative new novel proves he is at the top of his game. Fans of Margolin's previous novels will find this to be his best book in years.

A definite MUST read!

Nick Gonnella

Phillip Margolin has been boldly shouldering his way into the membership of 'A' List suspense authors since the publication of his classic novel GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. Arriving, of course, is only part of the job. The rest is running as hard as you can to stay there. Margolin takes another step toward firmly ensconcing himself on that "must read" list with his latest novel, SLEEPING BEAUTY.

SLEEPING BEAUTY begins with a brutal home invasion that brings unspeakable tragedy into the life of Ashley Spencer, a teenager whose idyllic life is shattered when, while her mother is away on business, her father and her best friend are murdered by a fiend who leaves no clues as to his identity. When her mother is subsequently murdered, in an attack that also leaves Casey Van Meter, the headmistress of Ashley's school, in a coma, everything points to Joshua Maxfield, a charismatic teacher and bestselling author, as the killer. Maxfield is taken into custody, but when he escapes, Ashley suddenly finds herself in terrible danger.

She goes on the run for years, only to return when a stunning secret is revealed that brings Maxfield out of hiding and back into the arms of the police. Casey, meanwhile, awakens from her coma and is able at trial to identify Maxfield as her attacker and the killer of Ashley's mother. After a riveting trial Maxfield is convicted of murder.

Miles Van Meter, brother of Casey, writes SLEEPING BEAUTY, a true crime book about the events as a tribute to Casey and her ordeal. That, however, is not the end of Margolin's tale. It is, in fact, only the beginning! Margolin takes several structural chances in SLEEPING BEAUTY, and his success in doing so without so much as one misstep demonstrates the quality of his workmanship. This is a complex tale, yet Margolin explains things so well that the narrative never falters. It is worth noting that Margolin's style is such that he is able to lead the reader through a complicated plot shifting between the book's present and past without slowing the pace of his novel one bit, making it possible to devour the tale in one sitting.

Margolin, with SLEEPING BEAUTY, continues to challenge himself and others in his field with a tightly written tale that twists and turns through the narrative to a surprising but satisfying conclusion. This is yet another Margolin novel that is not to be missed.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

I stayed up later than I should have last night finishing Phillip Margolin's latest novel, Sleeping Beauty. Margolin is another one of my "must read" authors, and I look forward to each new novel from him. And once again, I was not disappointed.

The author actually tells two stories by jumping between past and present, and allows them both to meet up at the end. Ashley Spencer is a teenager who's father and best friend are murdered by a serial killer, and she narrowly escapes. After it appears she is getting her life back on track, her mother is murdered by the same person. That's the story that occurs in the past. The current story is being told by a writer who's sister was put into a coma by the same attack that killed Ashley's mother. He wrote the story as a tribute to his sister, and he's added some new chapters after the killer was captured five years after the attacks. That is occurring in the present, and that's about as much of the plotline that I'll reveal here, as a number of twists and turns start happening that definitely keep you guessing as to the outcome of it all.

The writing is tight and emotional, and you get to know the characters very well without a loss of action. He throws in a number of well-timed plot turns that alter the entire direction of the story and how you view the players. I'll admit to a bias here as the writer is from Portland, Oregon and his stories all take place in the local area. It's enjoyable to read stories where you can vividly put yourself at the exact location where the action is occurring.

Great read, great story, and I highly recommend this one.

For years, some of the best authors around have said one very important fact about writing novels: Write what you KNOW. So, what IF someone were to draw extensively upon their own experiences and pen an enormously popular novel hailed by readers and critics alike as fantastic...and while attempting to write a follow-up fails miserably because almost everything had already been tapped when writing the first book? What IF this author's 3rd novel was a murder/mystery, and to continue to write what they KNEW, they actually committed an unspeakable act of violence in order to draw upon this experience -- JUST to write a book?

This is the incredibly creative and facinating storyline of Phillip Margolin's 10th novel. Would an author be so desperate to write that NEXT runaway bestseller that they actually might consider murdering someone JUST for the experience? As chilling as this premise is, I assure you it is one that will entertain you throughout this incredible page-turner.

The novel delves into the mind of someone such as this (thankfully it ISN'T Mr. Margolin himself) and creates quite a thriller indeed. Young Ashley Spencer is a gifted Soccer athelete whose life becomes literally torn to shreds when Joshua Maxfield rapes and kills her best friend shortly after mortally wounding her Father. She escapes, only to have this tragedy repeat itself when the same killer takes her Mothers life and nearly kills the Dean of the Oregon Academy, putting her into a coma.

Terrified the killer will stop at nothing to hunt her down, Ashley leaves the country hoping never to return unless he is caught and put away for eternity. Casey Van Meter, the Dean of the Oregon Academy, who was left in a coma following the most recent attack has a twin brother (Miles) who is determined to keep the story in the spotlight by penning a true crime account of these horrific attacks on his sister and Ashley's parents. Miles is on yet another book tour to promote the re-issue of his novel, 'Sleeping Beauty' when events take a dramatic turn and Ashley is forced out of hiding when a shocking twist to the story unfolds, bringing her back to Portland, all while knowing that serial killer Joshua Maxfield is still on the loose. The plot twists begin to really mount as the story goes into overdrive at this point. IS Joshua Maxfield, once an amazingly popular author, but now considered to be a one-hit wonder really desperate enough to risk it all for a chance to pen a new best seller...OR could he be set up by someone who wants everyone to know about their crime, all without having to suffer any of the consequences? TRUST me, I could reveal a LOT about the intricate plotting of 'Sleeping Beauty' all without really giving away the genuine story, and you would still be caught by the surprise ending -- but don't worry, I won't. I absolutely HATE it when some people review novels here at amazon and spoil it by revealing many of the surprises in some novels. Don't worry, I won't go into detail about what happens, nor will I reveal the absolute surprise ending to this incredibly entertaining story, but what I WILL do is encourage you to pick up this thriller and clear away some time on your schedule, because Phillip Margolin has the distinct talent for writing novels that while reading you promise yourself you will stop...after the NEXT chapter, and before you know it, you are finished, not necessarily because you wanted to finish, but because you simply HAD to find out how things ended. Bravo to Phillip for writing my personal favorite since 'Wild Justice'. Highly recommended.

Ashley Spencer fell asleep dreaming of the victory her soccer team had won just that afternoon. Her best friend Tanya is asleep beside her. In celebration of the victory, Tanya was sleeping over. Ashley's mother is away, her dad is asleep in his room. Then all off a sudden she's awake, an intruder is on Tanya, he binds her, then he's on Ashley. The binds her as well. Then he murders her father, well almost murders him, comes back, but before he drags Tanya to another room, where he rapes and kills her, he says to Ashley, "See you later."

Ashley hears the killer as he uses her friend, hears her screams, hears his joy, then her father, bloody and dying, crawls into her bedroom and frees her. He is finished, he says. She must run, he says. And run she does.

When her mother, a reporter named Terri, comes home they find that Ashley has been accepted into a private school run by Casey Van Meter. This is good, because Ashley needs to start over. One of the instructors there is a one novel wonder who runs a writer's group. He invites Terri to join and at the first meeting, he reads from a story he's writing and Terri is shocked, because he's reading a fictionalized account of the murders that had taken place in her house. However, she does not go straight to the police, instead investigating herself and she is killed during a meeting with Casey Van Meter. Casey survives the killer's attempt, but is left in a coma and the killer tries again to get Ashley, killing her police bodyguards.

Now Ashley is a girl on the run and she runs far away to Europe, not coming back until her friend and attorney tells her that Casey is her real mother and that her Uncle, Casey's brother, wants to pull the plug on her life support systems. They need Ashley to apply for guardianship to keep her alive. This Ashley does, but Casey comes out of the coma. And after all this time the killer comes back, trying yet again to get Ashley, but he's caught, tried, convicted and gets the death penalty.

But is that it. Not on your life. This super thriller has pages and pages to go and those pages will surly steal away your sleep as they did mine. Mr. Margolin has served up a thriller that will keep you guessing and he's peopled it with great characters who I cared about. I especially liked the tough and gritty black prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Deliah Wallace and how she interacted with Ashley. I liked the twists in the tale a whole bunch, and I especially liked the killer of an ending, one that I didn't see coming. This is just a super book.

With the help of her dying father, Ashley Spencer manages to escape from the man who invaded her home and killed Norman Spencer and her best friend, Tanya Jones. The police believe that it is the work of a serial killer, whose modus operandi is to enter the homes of families with teenaged daughters, where they are tortured and slaughtered before he ventures on into the kitchen for a midnight snack. But when the killer shows up at Ashley's new school, a private academy miles away from her hometown, Ashley knows that what happened in her home was not random. The murderer is determined to destroy Ashley and the worst part of it is that she doesn't know who she has to run from and why she needs to hide. The story jumps to five years later, when Ashley is forced to come out of hiding to return to Oregon with a truth that will shock those involved - and place her in a vulnerable position where the killer is likely to strike. Philip Margolin conjures a tour de force of character and plot guaranteed to make you squirm in your seat ( or in your bed) as you race through the pages. Readers may have their suspicions as they are introduced to a myriad of characters; the rich and powerful Van Meters, the has-been writer Joshua Maxfield who is in need of a new best seller, the unruly Randy Coleman who feeds on his wife, Casey Van Meter's wealth, and the attentive as well as attractive lawyer, Jerry Phillips, who captures the heroine's heart. But Margolin cleverly depicts these fictitious players, making them out to be believable and misleading, and readers will have to bite their nails to refrain themselves from yanking on the last page. This offering is guaranteed to bring you to an ending that is unexpected, leaving you with the fear that evil can lurk behind a compassionate and kindly demeanour.

Philip Margolin usually puts together murder mysteries that uncover the seediest members of society. For example, in "Wild Justice" Margolin enters the world of snuff videos, in "Gone But not Forgotten" he tells the tale of a kidnapper who does some very evil things to women in a dungeon-like-cellar. The man has a dark mind, but puts together great horror, mystery novels in the process.

This time around, Margolin crafts another nasty killer. The story focuses on the hard life of Ashley Spencer. A girl who witnessed the savage murder of her father, best friend and mother by a stocking serial killer (and not all at the same time.) This killer wants Ashley dead. And it's not clear why, as the story unfolds, more and more of the pieces fall into place and we ultimately learn who the killer is, and why he wants Ashley dead.

It's a great story line that works, but not to perfection. Some, okay, a lot of the pieces fit too perfectly. The author uses time shifts from the present and the past to inter weave the tale and its characters. Oddly, I had a feeling about who the ultimate killer was about half way through, (not necessarily the mark of a good story.)

It's only because the pieces fit to perfectly that the climax is a bit of a let down.

However, there are enough twists, and an original enough story line to keep you entertained from beginning to end.