- Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc.; New title edition (Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345439422
- ISBN-13: 978-0345439420
- Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 2.4 x 17.4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,557,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Their Wildest Dreams (Abrahams, Peter)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
“Peter Abrahams is my favorite American suspense novelist.”
—STEPHEN KING
“Mackie dreaded the mail.” From this simple beginning, Peter Abrahams opens the curtains on a mesmerizing world down on the Mexican border, a world of complex and passionate people whose ambitions will lead them on a relentless collision course, a desert world that rises to the mythic in Their Wildest Dreams. The suspense will grab you and not let go, the surprises will shock you, but in the end it will be the wonderful characters who linger in your mind.
Characters like Mackie Larkin, a suburban mother desperate for money, who finds she can earn it as a stripper; Kevin Larkin, her ex-husband whose get-rich-quick schemes left her with a mountain of debt, and who now dreams up an even better one; Lianne, their beautiful, impulsive teenage daughter, for whom almost anything, even bank robbery, is possible; Jimmy Marz, the wrangler she loves, who gets a dangerous onetime offer that could take him to the life he’s always wanted; Buck Samsonov, the charismatic strip-club owner building a southwestern empire in the lawless style of a 19th-century robber baron; Clay Krupsha, a twenty-first-century captain of detectives in a border town where no crime is what it seems; and Nicholas Loeb, a struggling mystery writer whose encounter with an unstable muse entangles him in a web of true crime more mysterious than anything he imagined.
Utterly original, multilayered, and marked by the gripping suspense, sharp wit, and fascinating psychological insights for which Peter Abrahams has been acclaimed, here is a major work—a riveting story of modern-day desperadoes living their wildest dreams.
From the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Mackie dreaded the mail. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Mackie dreaded the mail. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Character rich increasingly fast paced novel
26 Feb 2004
Format:Hardcover
Several stories of varied characters converge in a literally explosive climax in this extraordinarily well written novel. On the Mexican US border outside of Tucson, lives Mackie Larkin, a divorced housewife who dreams of owning a dance studio but after a failed real estate deal, desperately needs money just to make ends meet. Her daughter, Lianne falls for an older man who works at the same ranch her father does. Nicholas Loeb is a mystery writer who travels to rural Arizona to get hands on experience in law enforcement. Buck Samsonov is a crime lord who runs a couple of strip joints in the region. All their paths converge in this very clever crime novel. The question is who will be on top in the end.
After a slow start the plot becomes increasingly fast paced once we get to know each of the characters and their separate problems. Alternate chapters are used initially to reveal the individual characters. Part of the change in momentum occurs when the characters' lives converge making the separation by chapter no longer necessary. The characters, a major strength of the work, are all original creations. The conclusion is a bit problematic and unrealistic. However, this one is well written and very much worthy of a reader's time.
After a slow start the plot becomes increasingly fast paced once we get to know each of the characters and their separate problems. Alternate chapters are used initially to reveal the individual characters. Part of the change in momentum occurs when the characters' lives converge making the separation by chapter no longer necessary. The characters, a major strength of the work, are all original creations. The conclusion is a bit problematic and unrealistic. However, this one is well written and very much worthy of a reader's time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
bittersweet and brutal
22 Aug 2011
Format:Mass Market Paperback
RAther odd suspense/love story that is typical of Abrahams and makes his novels more interesting than the usual suspense. Mackie, a single mom, takes up stripping to make ends meet after her husband divorces her and manages to lose all their money. Her daughter strikes up a romance with a not so bright ranch hand on the ranch where her father has gotten a job. Her father ruins his job prospects, not surprisingly, but the daughter sticks with the ranch hand, despite his obvious limitation in the brains department. This is not funny but bittersweet.
The boyfriend is convinced to commit a bank robbery and in the process Mackie ends up with the money and the boyfriend ends up dead. Meanwhile, Mackie has developed a relationship with Nick, a writer, who has come to town to immerse himself in the police for some research for the book. The cops are investigating a crime ring which ends up wanting the money that is stolen from the bank.
All the lives collide when the crime boss (who reminds me of characters from elmore Leonard's books) kind of funny but also very brutal beats up Nick and Mackie's husband and kidnaps Mackie and her daughter. It is Mackie's daughter that ultimately is able to free them through using one of the tricks her boyfriend taught her (thus redeeming him and his stupidity)
The boyfriend is convinced to commit a bank robbery and in the process Mackie ends up with the money and the boyfriend ends up dead. Meanwhile, Mackie has developed a relationship with Nick, a writer, who has come to town to immerse himself in the police for some research for the book. The cops are investigating a crime ring which ends up wanting the money that is stolen from the bank.
All the lives collide when the crime boss (who reminds me of characters from elmore Leonard's books) kind of funny but also very brutal beats up Nick and Mackie's husband and kidnaps Mackie and her daughter. It is Mackie's daughter that ultimately is able to free them through using one of the tricks her boyfriend taught her (thus redeeming him and his stupidity)
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
memorable suspense thriller
3 Aug 2003
Format:Hardcover
Mackie learned what a louse her husband was after she discovered he was cheating on her and divorced her. The housing development they were creating went into foreclosure and the bank took possession of it leaving her and her daughter Lianne barely able to afford the payments on the model house. When she gets a notice from the IRS saying she owes over $100,000, she finds out Kevin did some financial maneuvering that make her liable for the bill.
Her friend gives her the idea of stripping as a way of getting back on her feet financially and the Tucson resident travels to the border town of Aqua Fria where she gets hired on as an exotic dancer at Buckaroo's. The owner of the club Buck Samsanov also owns the local bank. He has a scheme where one of his workers robs the place and he gets the money back plus the insurance. Through a quirky set of circumstances, Mackie winds up with the money, Lianne's boyfriend is dead, and Kevin is kidnapped. A crime writer looking for inspiration winds up in the middle of the whole mess and manages to make matters worse.
This suspense thriller is a memorable reading experience due to the cast of characters who are unique and believable. Peter Abrahams has a colorful writing style and his prose is a work of art even with plenty of farcical humor that lowers the tension level when the reader needs a bit of relief from the almost non-stop action. Once again, Mr. Abrahams proves he is one of the grandmasters of suspense.
Harriet Klausner
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
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.
