Trouble (Center Point Platinum Fiction (Large Print)) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Jesse Kellerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2007 | Series: Center Point Platinum Fiction (Large Print)

It’s late at night, and all Jonah Stem wants to do is to get home and fall into bed. Working long hours as a medical student, he’s seen enough drama - not to mention enough blood - for one day But when he hears a scream ring out in the darkness, and an injured woman is on her knees and begging for her life, Jonah finds himself drawn into a dangerous and irrevocable situation. And this situation means trouble. Jonah’s intervention will change not only his own life, but also the lives of those he cares about, in ways he never thought possible.A heart-stopping thriller, masterfully told, Trouble is the story of what can happen when you find yourself in way over your head . . .

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Kellerman, the son of bestsellers Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, shows that his impressive debut, Sunstroke, was no fluke with this gripping psychological page-turner that echoes the best of Hitchcock. Jonah Stem, a young medical resident at St. Agatha's, a midtown Manhattan teaching hospital, heroically intervenes when he encounters an attractive woman desperately fleeing a knife-wielding assailant early one morning on a street near Times Square. After Stem kills the man in self-defense, he enjoys a brief celebrity, but his life soon becomes complicated when the woman he rescued, Eve Gones, seeks him out and the two begin a frenzied affair. Taken aback by Gones's masochism, Stem attempts to end the relationship, but soon finds himself stalked relentlessly. Kellerman artfully conveys Stem's descent into near madness, making the step-by-step degradation of a decent man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time plausible and chilling. Author tour. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Trouble opens like a Scrubs episode-you can easily imagine Zach Braff as medical student Jonah Stem, wandering Times Square at 2 a.m., his shoes squishy with, uh, emergency-room detritus following a rough night on call.... But like Scrubs, in the end Trouble is a satisfying journey into the bizarre. 3 1/2 out of 4 stars -- People, February 5, 2007

After a relatively cheery debut, the talented Kellerman (Sunstroke, 2005) travels to Ruth Rendell country, and the bet here is you won't have read a more nightmarish novel all year. -- Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2006 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 421 pages
• Publisher: Center Point Large Print (March 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585479373
• ISBN-13: 978-1585479375
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,358,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jesse Kellerman is the author of three previous novels, The Genius, Trouble, and Sunstroke. His plays have also won several awards, including the 2003 Princess Grace Award, given to America's most promising young playwright. He lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unnerving and haunting novel, January 25, 2007

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trouble (Hardcover)

Within a short time, Jesse Kellerman --- the son of bestselling authors Jonathan and Faye Kellerman --- has established a solid reputation for quality and unpredictability. His debut novel, SUNSTROKE, was an enigmatic tale played out mostly in rural Mexico. TROUBLE, his sophomore effort, is even more disturbing than its predecessor, an accessible work that treads uneasily across dangerous if familiar ground.

The book takes place primarily in New York City, though the locus of the events that propel it could occur in any large or medium-sized city. Jonah Stem is a medical student who has just begun a surgical rotation; he is so exhausted that he barely can keep one foot moving in front of the other. He's in the middle of a late-night errand when he encounters a woman being attacked on the street; his intervention is impulsive, reactive and successful. The victim is saved, and the attacker somehow winds up dead. Stem gets his 15 minutes of fame, and life goes on --- but suddenly it becomes very different for him.

Eve Gones, the young lady Stem rescues, shows up to thank him. Her gratitude takes on a more intimate form, and there are layers to her that Stem cannot imagine. As she begins to reveal herself, he decides that he wants no part of her. Unfortunately for Stem, Gones will not go away so easily. She begins insinuating herself deeper and deeper into his life, and the more Stem finds out about her, the more he realizes that he's in a situation that can only end badly. The family of Gones's attacker wants their pound of flesh as well, and when Stem discovers the terrible truth about everything that's happening, he is convinced that his future --- if indeed he has one --- is in jeopardy.

Kellerman's narrative is unnerving and haunting. While his pacing falters just a bit in spots, the quiet, disturbing unreeling of Stem's life leaves the reader unsettled from practically the first page to the last. And, as bad as Gones is, Stem isn't wound too tight either. Soon enough we learn that there is something about him that isn't quite right --- something in his personality makeup that draws disturbed women to him like a moth to a flame.

The trappings that Kellerman provides Stem with --- the loving but quiet father, the somewhat overbearing mother, the trustafarian roommate --- make him all the more realistic and the horrors he encounters all too possible. The result is a novel that is nothing short of mesmerizing. Recommended with caution, due to graphic descriptions of violence and sexual situations.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely absorbing, chilling page-turner, January 28, 2007

By 

Zachary Shrier (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Trouble (Hardcover)

Jesse Kellerman's wonderful second novel, "Trouble," is graphic, edgy, chilling, and fully absorbing -- even more so than his fine debut Sunstroke. In a sense, Trouble picks up one of Sunstroke's more unsettling themes and runs like hell with it: namely, how little we really know about the people who inhabit our lives. In the case of Trouble's hero, a third-year med student named Jonah Stem, the beautiful, sexually insatiable woman who appears abruptly in his life may not be exactly who & what she represents herself to be. Kellerman pulled rug-after-rug out from under me and never let my feet touch the ground. A tight, gripping thriller right through the end.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read this alone at night, February 18, 2007

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trouble (Hardcover)

Kellerman constructs a contemporary urban psychological suspense novel, featuring overtired Jonah Stern. He's totally plausible: a nice young man who's so deeply immersed in his studies, he's naive about life and love. As another reviewer suggests, he may have personality quirks that draw disturbed women to him.

Stern meets Eve Gones when he hears her screaming for help on a deserted street. Judgment impaired by fatigue, he rushes to help her and learns all too well the meaning of, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Readers will sense Eve is trouble long before Jonah. But once he catches on, we realize he's caught in a nightmare with no escape. It's a sub-genre of suspense: a hero finds himself in the grip of an evil person who's determined to destroy him.

What sets Trouble apart are the three-dimensional characters, the scenes from Jonah's life as a medical student, and the juxtaposition of bizarre horror with everyday urban life. We're encouraged to think about the power of accusations.

I didn't find any of the scenes implausible. Unlikely, perhaps, and definitely bizarre. But they could happen.

If this book gets popular, I'd be tempted to buy stock in a background checking service. Eve could be anybody.