In this affecting crime novel from Edgar-winner Cook ("The Chatham School Affair"), Eric Moore, a prosperous businessman, watches his safe, solid world disintegrate. When eight-year-old Amy Giordano, whom Eric's teenage son, Keith, was babysitting, disappears from her family's house, many believe Keith is an obvious suspect, and not even his parents are completely convinced that he wasn't somehow involved. As time passes without Amy being found, a corrosive suspicion seeps into every aspect of Eric's life. That suspicion is fed by Eric's shaky family history - a father whose failed plans led from moderate wealth to near penury, an alcoholic older brother who's never amounted to much, a younger sister fatally stricken with a brain tumour and a mother driven to suicide. Not even Eric's loving wife, Meredith, is immune from his doubts as he begins to examine and re-examine every aspect of his life. The ongoing police investigation and the anguish of the missing girl's father provide periodic goads as Eric's futile attempts to allay his own misgivings seem only to lead him into more desperate straits. The totally unexpected resolution is both shocking and perfectly apt.
Red Leaves
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"Thomas Cook writes like a wounded angel and Red Leaves is one of his masterworks. Sorrow, suspicion, fear and forgiveness hang suspended over an almost unbearably increasing tension. In Cook's hands, the crime novel, if that's what this is, moves firmly into literature." Peter Straub "Red Leaves is one of the best novels you'll read this year - gripping, beautifully written, surprising and devastating. Thomas H. Cook has long been one of my favourite writers. Red Leaves will show you why." Harlan Coben
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Shortlisted for the 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What can I say! I loved this book. It is a suspenseful novel which centres on the disappearance of a little girl. The novel is seen through the eyes of the main protagonist, Eric. Amy Giordano has vanished, presumed taken whilst being looked after by Eric's son, Keith. As the days stretch by without Amy being found, suspicion grows within what had been a harmonious family unit. Were they ever such a harmonious family or was it all just a big lie?
I have loved previous novels by Thomas H. Cook and feel he isn't given the crdit like other American novelists in Britain. This novel drip feeds you the suspense as past and present begin to overlap. This is not a book with high drama and car chases. This is a little sample of reality, of what can and does happen to a normal family when lies and suspicion threaten to explode all your ideals.
This is a very humane and poignant book. I couldn't put it down.
I have loved previous novels by Thomas H. Cook and feel he isn't given the crdit like other American novelists in Britain. This novel drip feeds you the suspense as past and present begin to overlap. This is not a book with high drama and car chases. This is a little sample of reality, of what can and does happen to a normal family when lies and suspicion threaten to explode all your ideals.
This is a very humane and poignant book. I couldn't put it down.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By RachelWalker
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
This book was truly a revelation to me. I've never read - or even particularly heard - of Cook before, and am a little surprised after reading the book. He seems to be an unsung hero of the crime genre (rather like The Fall in the world of music) critically lauded but not that popularly known. After reading this, though, you can know the crime genre is in safe hands. Yes, there is a lot of complete rubbish in the genre (and in any sphere of writing) but crime fiction, when it is written the best it can be, is as much literature as anything that might cart off the Booker. And this is it written as best it can be; this is literature - the case is proven. Red Leaves is a beautifully written, poigniant, powerful, moving book. America loves book in which their American dream comes crumbling down around the heads of noble, hard-working men (Mystic River), and this is one of those (it was shortlisted for the Edgar and the new Duncan lawrie Dagger; appallingly, it won neither and probably deserved both). An elegiac examination of a disappearance, a disintegrating family life, of dangerous, corrosive suspicion among families. It's written with an intensity and gloomy beauty that are rare, but that sets it out as among the best of fiction. The end is shocking, wrenching, and emotionally shattering. This book leaves you the way few books are able to. I'll be reading Thomas H. Cook again.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By RachelWalker
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This book was truly a revelation to me. I've never read - or even particularly heard - of Cook before, and am a little surprised after reading the book. He seems to be an unsung hero of the crime genre (rather like The Fall in the world of music) critically lauded but not that popularly known. After reading this, though, you can know the crime genre is in safe hands. Yes, there is a lot of complete rubbish in the genre (and in any sphere of writing) but crime fiction, when it is written the best it can be, is as much literature as anything that might cart off the Booker. And this is it written as best it can be; this is literature - the case is proven. Red Leaves is a beautifully written, poigniant, powerful, moving book. America loves book in which their American dream comes crumbling down around the heads of noble, hard-working men (Mystic River), and this is one of those (it was shortlisted for the Edgar and the new Duncan lawrie Dagger; appallingly, it won neither and probably deserved both). An elegiac examination of a disappearance, a disintegrating family life, of dangerous, corrosive suspicion among families. It's written with an intensity and gloomy beauty that are rare, but that sets it out as among the best of fiction. The end is shocking, wrenching, and emotionally shattering. This book leaves you the way few books are able to. I'll be reading Thomas H. Cook again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A quality read
Not a feelgood story. But a well crafted read, detailing how a small community is affected by the disappearance of a little girl. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Steve-0
5.0 out of 5 stars
Red Leaves
I totally enjoyed this book. it looks at the impact on numerous lives as a result of the disappearance of a young girl and how the ramifications of that very act places an... Read more
Published 3 months ago by donna herdsman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another gem from Cook
Very interesting and readable book. Although there is a crime (a little girl goes missing) it isn't a whodunit but an examination of the effects on the family of the teenage boy... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dons83
4.0 out of 5 stars
Understated and disturbing
It's possible that the quote from Harlan Coben ('gripping, beautifully written, surprising and devastating') led me to think that Red Leaves would be a crime novel. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Alison McVey
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not very good and rather obviousand utterly forgetable
This book is truly average and a poor version of other psychological crime novels. The plot was just about okay but the characters were poorly written and behaved in an unlikely... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Miss J
5.0 out of 5 stars
Effortlessly captivating...
Simplistic yet thought provoking. Fast moving yet will live long in the memory. I found this book amongst a pile of discarded second hand items in a hotel. Read more
Published 9 months ago by jimbobo63
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic
This was the firstbook i hsve read by this author. To be totally honest i only downloaded it because it was cheap 99p. I loved it. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Debs
5.0 out of 5 stars
*PERFECTION*
Eric Moore's teenage son was babysitting his neighbour's 8 yr old girl when she went missing that night. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Book Scout
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kept me interested from start to finish
Great read. This is a story that makes you ask what would I do, how would we cope? I found I was more focused on the plight of the teenage boy who was under suspicion than the... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Rie
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent... after the first two chapters
I initially found Red Leaves hard to get into. The first two chapters throw names and situations at you that you obviously have no knowledge of. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Kerry Wilkinson
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