Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An unnerving and haunting novel, January 25, 2007
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.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Completely absorbing, chilling page-turner, January 28, 2007
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.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Did we really need another novel about somebody's psycho girlfriend? , April 30, 2007
There are two problems with this novel. The first is Kellerman's writing style. He may be the son of Jonathon and Faye Kellerman, but he writes like he is the offspring of Dean "I never met an adverb I didn't like" Koontz. Kellerman's writing `tries too hard'. He writes sentences that are loaded with adjectives, adverbs, awkward similes and obscure references. Kellerman's bloated writing bogs his story down.
The predictable ending to this novel is made even more anti-climactic when Kellerman jumps forward in time, out of the action and into an epilogue where he explains what happened `after the fact'. What little suspense he had managed to build is completely lost.
The second problem with this novel are the characters, particularly Eve Gones, Jonah's psycho girlfriend. Good suspense novels require a good villain and while Eve is indeed sinister, unfortunately she is also tedious, pretentious, and annoying.
This is a problem. The villain can be a lot of things (creepy, disturbing, cruel, demented, evil) but most of all, they need to interesting, not irritating. Eve's lengthy, self-indulgent, and painfully trite monologues are nothing short of torture to read. And Jonah's complete inability to deal with Eve's increasingly bizarre behavior is just as frustrating for the reader.
Reading this novel is like banging your head against a wall.
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