Customer Reviews

The Tunnel: Drug Dealers Are Missing in Boston. It's Not a Bad Thing, But a Good Thing! But What is Making Them Disappear?

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Peter Mars has taken the reader through a series of scenarios that if real would shock any Bostonian! Having worked in Cambridge and knowing the surrounding towns that encompass to plot, one wonders what is potentailly real or not real in this shocker! Mars'30 years and experience in Police work in Boston shines in the graphic description of real life police experiences. You just know that he was there for some of this fiction! The creativeness of the expository in the various scenes as well as the main character's "first person" descriptions of a cop's feasible day to day routine puts the reader in the driver's seat of the patrol car. The two part sectioning of the book was intriguing and became a late "hook" for me. The first "hook" was one third into the book.. drama in the tunnel. Not knowing that remnant caverns of Boston's subway (the oldest in the US- the MTA, before the MBTA) existed, the author has created for the reader his imagination of what might be going on below the streets of Boston today. A must read for people that who like police action and envision justice prevailing when the legal system loopholes allow for repeat offenders to end up back on the street to prey on the public...

Mr Mars' "The Tunnel" is a suspenseful book with an exciting and plausible concept. Being a New Englander, I especially like the historic setting of the book and the history of the tunnel system that really exists! I liked the colorful characters and found myself reading faster to find out what would happen next! I also think the book strongly reflects a former cop's wishful thinking, the frustration of a job where you constantly lay your life on the line and the bad guys are let off by our inept judicial system. The book gets graphic in parts and you can't help but cheer for the cops and the way they deal with the slimy drug dealers. I eagerly await Mr Mars' next book!

It was a great book! I would have given it 5 stars based on story alone, but there are some editing problems. Not the author's fault of course, but it can possibly make it a bit harder to read than his other book "A Taste for Money." this book really gives you something to think about. While Mars' second book is about a good cop gone bad, this book makes it much harder to judge the cops either way. True, they are taking the law into their own hands, but when the law stops working as it should, is this really bad......?

It definitly is a "must read" much as I dislike cliche terms. I am not much of a "true crime" or mystery fan, but these were wonderful. Captivating, thought provoking. A good story and a question all in one. Everything a really good book should be!

I loved Mr. Mars' book. Sheesh, the good guys finally win! ... and the stories are true. Where's his new book? I want it!

It's like your riding right there in the cruiser beside the "boys in blue". No mercy for the scumbag drug dealers. You'll want to treat all drug dealers this way! Boldly written in the language of the Boston street cop, it pulls no punches and favors no one. If you like a book that holds your attention, and want to live it while you read it, buy it !!!

I found the beginning a bit erratic until I finally understood that reading it from a police point of view, things dropped into place. After I did, I could not stop turning the pages. Somewhat suspenseful and throughly holding my attention. I had to finish this book. First cop book I've ever read and not the last. Waiting for the next from Mars. The ending was completely adequate and surprising!!

Former Boston Police Officer Peter Mars has written a riveting and relentlessly authentic tale of police officers who take the law into their own hands. I read this book in two days and could not put it down. Officer Frank Conley is well-developed and the author's tight, uncluttered prose is compelling. If you like police stories that are dead accurate, provocative and, at times, somewhat disturbing, you should read this book. You will feel like you're on patrol with Officer Conley. I will be the first in line to buy the next story from Officer Mars as soon as it is available.

I found that peter mars did a great job making the book come alive. I could not put it down, i finished i three day i recomend this book to any one who likes a well written book about real live police storys.

In the class of Tom Clancy early works, The Tunnel keep you guessing and looking fowards to the each turn of the page. I found the charactors both realistic and believeble. A must read for anyone in Law Enforcement.

This truly reads like it was written by a veteran officer. The writing sounds remarkably like a report. Unfortunately, what it is supposed to be is a novel. As a novel, it is the flattest and least interesting I have found in print, and I collect vanity press novels for fun. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen, or rather, for something to be presented in an exciting manner. No such luck. The writing is determinedly passive, padded (heavy on the bureaucratese gobbledgook phrases), sprinkled with malapropisms or improper usage in the narrative, Tells too often where it ought to Show, and astonishingly bald of any descriptive or atmospheric passages. Areas where scenes take place are merely given as street names, as if every reader knew Boston so well that that there could never be any silly questions like "is this a bad neighborhood or a ritzy one?" As long as the book is only bought and reviewed by personal aquaintances of the author, this will go unnoticed. Apparently I am the first outsider to make the mistake of buying this.

The POV, if stringent, is crude. The switch from 1st person to 3rd makes me think of this as a Mary Sue, a wish-fulfilling self-insertion story. The writer wrote it as "I do this and I do that" and then decided he needed to show the bad guy being bad and inserted the 3rd person sections. In fact, because of the way the plot turns, this is not only unnecessary, but helps cut tension. Not that there is much tension anyway. "Bead-plotting" and the fact that the good guys are never really out of control of the situation, never seriously challenged or menaced, and no one gets worse than bruises from stopping rounds with their vests means that everything fizzles. Again, it's a Mary Sue trait. The cop stories are not interesting when they don't have any point for the plot or characterization. If the author wants to write a book of anecdotes, fine, but that's not what this is advertised as.

Is there still time for me to get my money back?