3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good story but wooden dialogue., 3 July 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Still Water (Paperback)
When I picked up this novel, reading the jacket immediately put me in mind of the better written Snow falling On Cedars. The plotlines are similar - dead fisherman, wrongful accusations, island community - but they are both very different in content.
Still Water is essentially the struggle of a young lawyer to defend the woman he loves (from a distance) from the political machinations of the island's money man, and also the fisherman who consider her femininity to be out of place amongst the fishing fleet. There are one or two fairly juicy characters and the descriptive text of the island, the orca pod and the struggle of the community to survive the diminishing harvest of the ocean is excellent.
But the dialogue...Mr Harrison could do with taking himself down to his local and listening to conversations. Matt Jones (our hero) is about as interesting as a slab of wet fish. His heart's desire (Ella Young) does have a spark about her but there is nothing to suggest that the pair of them will rip their clothes off any minute!
As I said, the storyline is very good, but ultimately simple. All the characters have English foundations for their surnames - can you imagine a group of 10 Americans where no-one is Polish, Italian, Mexican, etc? This reminds me of essays I used to write at school where everyone had 5 letter names (Jones, Smith, Evans) because they were easy to write.
Oh and I think Mr Harrison deserves a mention for his use of the word 'related'. If there were awards to be given out for usage of this one word, then he is a worthy winner. There's at least one use on each page and I counted 4 in two paragraphs at one stage.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Page Turner To The Very End!, 17 Feb 2006
This review is from: Still Water (Paperback)
I was a little apprehensive about reading this book. It looked to have a strong romantic element and I'm not interested in purely romance novels. Fortunately my concerns were unfounded and what unfolded was a page turning thriller.
Matt is a lawyer on a small remote Maine island. Ella, the woman he is falling in love with, is suspected of being involved with the disappearance (murder?) of a local nasty piece of work. Throw in the fact that Ella is running for major of the island and there is a political corruption dimension also.
There are touches of Grisham here with lots of strong, well developed characters. The local island fishing setting is fantastic and well researched. You really do get a feel for this small, remote island and how the people make their living. As the story unfolds you are left guessing the involvement of characters and the ending is ultimately satisfying and unforeseen.
9/10 for this well developed story that I read within 24 hours. I look forward to tracking down Stuart Harrison's other novels.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Almost as good as 'The Snow Falcon' (his previous book), 25 April 2001
This book makes for an interesting read. Harrison's style is very distinctive, describing each character to a deep level. However, the story is not that intelligenet, and the beautiful description of the animals and people that got him the rightly deserved acclaim of 'The Snow Falcon' is slightly lacking here. So, all in all not as good as 'The Horse Whisperer', 'The Snow Falcon' or 'The Loop' (all following the same scheme), but still, worth reading.
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