March 25, 2009

Review: Sail by James Patterson and Howard Roughan


Courtesy of Hachette Audio


Since the death of their father Katherine Dunne’s three children have been drifting further and further apart from her and each other. In a last ditch effort to bring her family closer together Katherine plans a two month long sailing trip aboard their boat, The Family Dunne, along with their uncle Jake Dunne.

Almost immediately things start to go wrong. The boat springs a leak, 16-year Mark is smoking marijuana, 18-year old Carrie is recovering from an eating disorder but throws herself overboard in a suicide attempt and 10-year old Ernie is overweight as a result of his own self-diagnosed “stress eating”. Shortly after Jake saves Carrie, the family is awakened by an approaching storm. Caught in the middle of the storm the family fights for their lives and get through it only to be faced with another catastrophic disaster.

Meanwhile Katherine’s new husband of less than one year, Peter, is betting on the fact that the family never returns and is scheming behind the scenes.

The book opens with instantaneous action and intrigue. Throughout the whole book just when you think the drama is over a new wave (snicker) of trouble rolls in. From the very beginning we learn that Peter is a villain but there’s still a lot more revelations to come and I found the action kept me on the edge of my seat.

My review is based on the unabridged audio and it was narrated by both Dylan Baker and Jennifer Van Dyck. I’ve always thought the male/female approach to an audio book would make the book more interesting and I loved it. I hope to hear more this way soon.

My vote is that this is another Patterson winner. It doesn’t have the same depth as the Cross series but it’s one of the better collaborations from him that I’ve read. I recommend this one for all action and thriller lovers.

4 comments :

Unknown said...

I have so many books of Patterson's to catch up with. I do like his thrillers on audio, they're one of those books that you think were written just to be recorded.

bermudaonion said...

I thought I'd read this one, but the description doesn't ring a bell. Sounds like I need to look for it.

Andrea said...

I have given you an award. Pick it up here!

Ladytink_534 said...

I have read only one of his books before but this one sounds interesting enough that I may just have to pick it up after all!