Sleeping Beauty (Mass Market Paperback)

by Phillip Margolin (Author) "The bellman Claire Rolvag was looking for was standing next to the box with the keys of guests who parked in the hotel garage..." (more)
Key Phrases: soccer clinic, Van Meter, Joshua Maxfield, Terri Spencer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The criminal at the heart of bestseller Margolin's unsatisfying 10th thriller is particularly heinous. Late one night in Portland, Ore., he assaults teenager Ashley Spencer, rapes and kills Ashley's friend Tanya, a sleepover guest, and stabs Ashley's father to death. Ashley miraculously escapes, but her brush with terror is far from over. A few months later, just as she and her mother, Terri (out of town on the night of the attack), are beginning to re-engage with the world, the killer strikes again, murdering Terri and leaving another woman, Casey Van Meter, in a coma on the grounds of Ashley's new school, the exclusive Oregon Academy. Ashley doesn't witness the crime, but she sees Joshua Maxfield, the school's writer-in-residence, at the scene, clutching a bloody knife. Wondering why her quiet, loving family has been targeted by this madman, she goes into hiding in Europe, returning to Portland years later to bear witness when Maxfield is finally apprehended and tried. But is he guilty? And what was the motive for this crime spree? The search for answers generates a modicum of suspense, but the book never really commands much interest, thanks to clumsy plotting and even clumsier prose. Much of the story is revealed in flashbacks, framed by scenes from a reading in a Seattle bookstore given by Casey's twin brother, Miles Van Meter, who has written a bestselling true-crime book about the case and his comatose sister (and yes, it's as contrived as it sounds). Margolin (The Ties That Bind, etc.) has imagined a particularly lurid and sensational crime, but he fails to realize virtually any of its inherent dramatic potential.
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.

From Booklist
Ashley Spencer and her best friend, Tanya Jones, both high-school soccer superstars, had just gone to bed at Ashley's house after a postgame pizza party. Their rest was disturbed by an intruder, who slaughtered Ashley's father (her mother was out of town) and proceeded to rape Tanya. Then he inexplicably stopped for a snack, giving Ashley an unexpected opportunity to escape. Although she avoided physical assault, the haunting memory of her father's cries, Tanya's sobs, and the clinking of fork on plate as the intruder raided the family refrigerator have left Ashley emotionally numb. A transfer to a prestigious prep school with a good soccer program seems to be helping, freeing Ashley's mother, aspiring novelist Terri, to take a writing class with best-selling author Joshua Maxfield. When Maxfield's novel appears to be based on the Spencer family assault, Ashley and Terri find that their nightmare is not yet over. Margolin knows how to put together a high-concept thriller, piling plot twist upon plot twist and keeping the narrative pounding ever forward, even, on occasion, at the expense of believability. This time he pulls off a genuinely surprising ending, too, making up in part for the torment he heaps upon poor Ashley, who undergoes more trauma than any teenager should be forced to endure, even for the sake of a good story. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060083271
• ISBN-13: 978-0060083274
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #861,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tenth thriller's plot almost too twisty to believe, April 22, 2004

By	Gerald M. Bull "Jerry Bull" (Fairview, TN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sleeping Beauty (Margolin, Phillip) (Hardcover)

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!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but falls a bit short of ther usual 5 stars, April 4, 2004

By	W. P. Strange "Bill's shelf" (Williamstown, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sleeping Beauty (Margolin, Phillip) (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enough Twists in This Tale to Keep You Guessing All Night, September 26, 2004

By	Tracy Oshima (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sleeping Beauty (Margolin, Phillip) (Hardcover)

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.