| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Samantha "Sam" Greene is fifteen months separated from her philandering husband of twenty-some years, Terry. Together, they'd raised three children: Laura, Jamie and Trisha. Sam had always thought hubby to be just an entrepreneur managing his nightclub, modeling agency, and courier service. Now, Terry is convicted of murdering a small time drug-dealer and is sent off to Her Majesty's Prison for life. It isn't until Terry asks Sam to take over the reins of his business that she shockingly realizes the extent of his underworld activity. But, faced with legal fees, mortgage payments, Jamie's university tuition, and 24/7 care for her debilitated mother-in-law, Sam is forced to oversee dealings in police payoffs, black-market liquor, cannabis smuggling, and the importation of counterfeit currency. Oddly, she proves surprisingly adept at it. And, when Terry is unexpectedly released from the gaol on new evidence, he finds out how talented she really is. Oh, does he ever.
There are no heroes in lilly-white hats in THE STRETCH. Though he truly loves his family despite his cheatin' ways, Terry's a charming rascal capable of heavy-handed brutality to maintain his criminal empire. On the other hand, Sam proves she can be just as unscrupulous, though she operates with finesse and, um, compassion. In any case, it's Sam that the reader roots for, certainly not the unsavory copper, Detective Chief Inspector Frank Welch, who made the case against Terry and is now out to get his missus. By default perhaps, the only truly admirable character of any importance seems to be Andy McKinley, the unfailingly polite, dependable, and circumspect bodyguard that Terry assigns to drive his wife on her appointed rounds.
The Gerald Seymour novels are consistently engrossing because of the moral gray areas in conflicts at the civilized world's grittier margins in which his protagonists dwell, and in which battles there are no clear winners and losers, only Pyrhhic victories. Here, in THE STRETCH, Leather presents an unremarkable, basically law-abiding citizen driven to extremes of antisocial behavior in order to protect the wellbeing of herself and her family. Which one of us might not do the same if backed into a corner? If that isn't a gray area, I don't know what is.
Sam, you go girl!
Fortunately, books do not go away, they stay for latecomers and for return visits. So I foresee a wealth of exciting reading in store, probably the eleven other thrillers in reverse order , starting with the Bombmaker. I'm off then, to find a bookshop locally with the full range in stock and, if unsuccessful, will surf to the Amazon web site and buy off the Net.
Michael J. Franklin
The central character - Sam Greene - is one of those laughable cliches; a moral, loyal wife who seems increasingly stunned by the revelations about how vile her husband is. Come on. She's been married to the guy for twenty years plus; she's a villain or has wilfully turned a blind eye, but for the sake of empathy, she has to be an ingenue. Think Carmela Soprano with a cockney accent and without the nuanced acting skills of Edie Falco to bring her ambiguities to life.
Life's against her - the bank want to foreclose the mortgage; the nursing home want to chuck her mother-in-law out; her daughter's being battered by her merchant banker husband. When she starts hitting back, using that old 'if I had some muscle behind me, then they'd all pay' fantasy, it's deeply, disturbingly enjoyable.
The dialogue is seriously clunky; every criminal stereo-type in the world of crime fiction is dragged in - up to and including the IRA in 'Long, Good Friday' mode and all the coppers and prison officers are corrupt sadists, but it works. It is utterly addictive. I started reading it and was so pleased with it, actually got the audio book for a long car journey. (This had the added humour of Diana Quick trying to do all the accents - lamentable.)
With the Shepherd books, Leather has made it to the top echelon of British crime fiction, but they are a bit soulless compared to this tosh.
I would thoroughly recommend this book and hope and pray it gets made into an ITV series with Cherie Lunghi in the lead; she's made for it.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
