Customer Reviews

Spencerville

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Having just finished reading Spencerville, I can now easily understand why most DeMille fans rate this as their least favorite of all his books. While I'm not saying it's a bad book, because it most certainly isn't, it just doesn't meet the exalted standards that followers of this author have come to expect. With a story involving a love triangle, there was just not enough "meat" there to warrant 481 pages.

To net it out, Keith Landry has been an Army intelligence officer working for our government for the past twenty-five years. With the culmination of the Cold War, many employees in his position are forced into early retirement whether they like it or not. In his case, he didn't like it. With angry and hurt feelings, he heads home to his family's farm in Spencerville, Ohio, which also happens to be the home of his high school/college sweetheart, Annie Prentis. Problems start to arise when he and Annie meet up again, especially since she is now married to the Chief of Police, Cliff Baxter, who also happens to be a former classmate of Keith's. In addition to running the police department, Cliff also runs Annie's life and is depicted as a husband who is not only unfaithful and possessive but verbally, emotionally and sexually abusive as well. It's about time for DeMille's "knight in shining armor" to step in.

While this is definitely not a five star book, I don't think I could ever give a DeMille book less than four stars as his writing and storytelling are so superior to other authors when weaving a tale of espionage, cat and mouse escapades, murder and mayhem or a love triangle such as in Spencerville. Don't get me wrong; this is not your usual love triangle. Since it's told by DeMille, the players are experienced both at subterfuge as well as mind games with the common thread being "the love of a good woman." It gets very scary for awhile since Cliff Baxter is the type of irrational man that just might do anything and Spencerville is just the type of small town where a man like Cliff just might get away with it.

This is the sixth book I've read by this author and I'm glad there's still a few more out there for me to conquer.

There are books that take time to read, books you make time for and books you steal time for. "Spencerville" is in the latter category...it never left my side from the minute I started it and kept me up late.

Great characters, very deeply drawn...both the heroes and villains. I felt I got to know them all. The plot is straight forward, but the journey to its conclusion is fast paced, tense, filled with twists and turns and makes you turn the pages rapidly.

There is enough wry humor, sarcasm and cynicism from the protagonist (Keith Landry) and his allies to allow the reader a chance to relax from the nonstop action...refreshing and almost necessary in a book this lengthy.

The major bad guy (Cliff Baxter) is truly despicable, but devious, dangerous, deadly and cunning (and he wears a badge). It is quite easy hoping he gets what's due him.

I have now read all the novels of Nelson DeMille. Only "Cathedral" was a disappointment. Every other one I highly recommend and still think "The Charm School" is my favorite.

I had never read any of his books before and was anxious to see what his writing is like as I had seen the movie, "The Generals Daughter" made from one of his books and had enjoyed it. He is a tremendous writer. He gets his characters right and when you are reading the book, you are right there riding right along with them. You can feel the anger, hurt, joy, etc. that the characters are experiencing. An intelligence officer, Keith, is returning to his home town now that they don't need him anymore and have retired him. He is returning to the farm he grew up on and to the memories of his true love Annie. Annie is married to the sheriff of the town now and they have two grown up kids no longer at home. Her life is not enjoyable. Her husband is a womaniser and sociopathic. He is jealous and has her watched constantly because of his jealousy, keeping her in a vacuum. As long as he is in office, she feels fairly safe because she knows he doesn't dare cause any negative publicity of his actions. She is still in love with Keith, and doesn't know if he is alive or not until he shows up. Her husband finds out that Keith has returned and develops a jealous and manic rage against Keith because of Annie and Keith's relationship years ago. It is a book that you keep reading straight through because you want to know what happens. Excellent writer and book.

You know. Reading some of the reviews of Spencerville, I'm surprised DeMille had the guts to ever pick up a pen again. He's a sexist. He's cruel to women. His hero is an idiot, blinded to the emotional superficiality of the woman he pines for. And the villain, Cliff Baxter, is a bad, bad man. We can hope he's worse than DeMille is in real life.

All of this criticism of the whims and vicissitudes of the FICTIONAL characters reminds me of, to name a few, Hemingway, Dumas, Ludlum, Chandler and Michner. I think Michner wrote 750,000 pages without treating women like anything but fleshy Tonka toys.

So I like DeMille. And I read to be entertained. Wilbur Smith. Dennis Lehane. Robert Parker. Francine Matthews. Elizabeth George. All of these people create events that I have never seen replicated in my life, with heroes and heroines who do things I could never do. That's why, I think, it's called fiction.

I like Keith Landry and I like Annie Prentiss because they both made mistakes. Landry thought that if he helped clear the woods of dragons, someone would care. There are men like this. I have been lucky to know a few. I suspect DeMille is one of them. And Annie never realized that she didn't have to SETTLE on anyone who came along. Prince Charming may only live in Reader's Digest or Redbook or Cosmo, but there are some good guys out there and Keith Landry was one of them. And he came back for her.

Golly. I must have been completely misled. I think that's kind of inspirational. We make mistakes, we have the courage to ask for forgiveness, and the people we choose to be with have the fortitude and the wisdom to forgive us. Then we move on.

So it's a love story. Maybe that's where DeMille let us down. He didn't tell us that he was going to write about would-be-heroes after the war was over. After Vietnam was shown for the charade it was with 60,000 dead and 10 times that number emotionally crippled. Maybe he should have warned us that he, having served in Vietnam, like the aforementioned Dumas, was writing "Twenty Years After."

Billy Marlons belongs on The Wall, with the footnote "for wounds suffered 13,000 miles away and 20 years ago."

And the Porters were idiots who smoked too much grass, but that's what happens when you do a lot of herb. And Charley Adair was like the soothsayer, reminding us of conscience and ethics, and the sacrifice of both and the relentless search for a second chance.

I'm still a fan. A little romance never hurt anyone. You critics, lighten up. His best effort? No. An excellent read? Yes.

Compared with Plum Island and The General's Daughter, this book seemed to not even have been written by the same author. I only finished it because I kept hoping it'd get better. What wife would stay with a man like Cliff for 20 years? And the hippie couple -- what were they all about? Oh well, I'm still a DeMille fan, and I'm buying The Lion's Game in January 2000.

An interesting work, but many of the other Demille novels are better. Lots of action in the beginning and end, the rest sort of draws a long line.

Still, good reading for a long air flight.

Having read with great enthusiasm Demille's By The Rivers of Babylon, The General's Daughter, Charm School, and Plum Island, I eagerly jumped into Spencerville expecting an exciting story of intrigue and espionage mixed with sardonic comedy, with vivid character development and great use of dialogue (Demille's greatest writing asset). Three hundred pages into the book I decided that what I had found was a pleasant walk through the woods with just a bit of intrigue, not much espionage, not much humor, fair character development, and less than great dialogue (yet, still better than many books of greater popularity). Unlike other Demille books, the reader does not know whether to cheer for the hero or question his motives and tactics. Nevertheless, a satisfying read for Demille devotees.

A story you might read in a Harliquin romance novel, but with a guy twist and DeMille witty sense of humor. Not my favorite DeMille book but certainly better than a number of books by other authors that I have struggle to get through.

This was the fourth book I read by Nelson DeMille and this all in a 6 months frame. I fell in love with Nelson DeMille as an author when I read his novel Plum Island in June. Since then, I read The General's Daughter as well as Word of Honor and both kept me reading until the wee hours of the morning. When I got to Spenceville, I was captivated with it at the beginning, but as the story went on, I found myself somewhat bored with the all too "predictable" plot. It was still a cute story but a little too "feel-good" ending for me. The characters are easy to identify with but it is hard to create any real "attachement" to them because of their "whishy-washyness". This is not to mean that I hated the book and do not recommend it to anyone but simply that if you too are a DeMille fan, you may not want to keep this one for last. It is really light and an easy read.

I really enjoy DeMille's work and this was no exception. The story here is a bit lighter and more of a smaller scale, then some of his other books, which isn't to say there isn't jealously, rape, stalking and murder, but that it mostly follows the action of the protagonist trying to win back his old flame and rescue her from the clutches of an evil and demented husband.

For people that like the "damsel in distress" type story, with plotting, action, revenge and love, this is definitely a winner, it's kind of a romance for the male market, not that woman wouldn't enjoy it too. It could actually make a decent flick, the bad guy is pretty straight forward and the good guy is pretty straight forward and it isn't long before you're rooting for the good guy to win the girl and kick the bad guys rear. The aren't a lot of twists and turns or mysteries here, it's pretty predictable, the good guy just screws up enough to give us drama.

In any case, while I give it four stars because it's a lessor story than some of DeMille's bigger novels, it's still a very fun and quick read and I give it a strong recommendation to those that like this kind of story. If you're unfamiliar with his work, check out "The Gold Coast" which is a classic and very much worth reading.