Third Degree: A Novel by Greg Iles Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Third Degree: A Novel
Book Review: Third degree bomb
Summary: 1 Stars
Until this book I was an enthusiastic Isles fan. I would buy his latest book as soon as it came out with absolutely no reservations. No more. This book is a disservice to all his loyal fans. We should be able to get our hard-earned money back on this stinker.
He stretches the accusation & denial theme to excruciating lengths. He builds no sympathy or empathy for any of the characters. We simply don't care. It is like watching a TV show of COPS where they show a domestic confrontation; yeah, there is some heated emotion on both sides, but we really don't know or care about the combatants. Same thing in this book. I had no problem, halfway through, with considerable skimming without missing anything, putting the book, and myself, out of our mutual misery, by pitching it into the trash. I would not even give it away, for fear of someone thinking: "He reads this crap?".
I don't entirely blame Isles. There must be considerable pressure on authors to crank out a new one every year. This problem has periodically befallen many authors that I have enjoyed over the years. The publisher really should have deep-six'd this one. Publishing something this pathetic merely alienates the loyal fan base and makes future purchases more uncertain. I will assuredly wait for many reviews on his next book before making a decision to plunk down my hard-earned cash the next time.
Book Review: Twenty-four hours of non-stop thrills
Summary: 3 Stars
I just finished Third Degree and my feelings about this are mixed. I have been a huge Greg Iles fan. But this book is different to say the least. To begin with there are really only three characters whereas as some of Iles' books have many, many characters. The subject matter at first does not seem to have the depth of many of his other books, e.g. "True Evil". And there is not as much sheer terror as you may find in some of the earlier books. But this is well written. The subject at first seems to be marital discord and infidelity. One of the main characters has had an affair and within the first few pages learns that she is pregnant. Her lover cannot leave his wife without risking losing his handicapped son to his worthless wife. The lover who is pregnant is also the special ed teacher who has the handicapped child in her class. Her husband is a doctor whose partner seems to have taken the business down a path that has brought a federal investigation down on their heads. So where does the trouble lie? Iles throws a very unusual twist in the last 100 pages that ties everything together. I liked that. But you also have scenes where you go from a tense scene in a suburban home to a battlefield in Afghanistan just by turning the page. Too confusing. And when one character sets a helicopter down on the sidewalk of the house it is too contrived. All the action takes place in less than 24 hours and almost all of it is within the confines of the house. But this part is well constructed and works. I recommend that you read it if you are an Iles fan. But if you are not, start with his earlier books first because if you begin with this one you will not know how great a writer he can be.Book Review: Unbelievable
Summary: 2 Stars
I am a big fan of Greg's books.I own and have read every book he has written.This book however was not very good.The plot was fine,but you really need to suspend reality to believe the various twists and turns.Just not realistic.Because of this the book tends to drag in places.I normally read his books in one or two nights,this one took 5.Hope is next is betterBook Review: Unforgiving ... In more ways than one.
Summary: 3 Stars
Laurel Shields's day turns into a nightmare from the moment she got out of bed. First, an E.P.T. Pregnancy test turns out positive, her husband had never came to bed and seems frantic while trashing the great room. Obviously, he's looking for something. What, she doesn't know. The problem is: she doesn't know who the father is. Her husband Warren's, or Danny McDavitt, the man with whom she'd had a year-long affair with that recently ended.
Even though she feels a migraine coming on, she still goes to the school where she teaches special needs children. Her migraine becomes full-blown when it's Danny who shows up for the parent-teacher meeting, not his wife.
She returns home for medication for her migraine only to have her husband confront her. Seems he found a letter, hidden in one of her favourite classic books, from an unknown man. She denies it, but he doesn't believe her. Now a gun comes into the picture, and Warren is now holding her hostage, determined to find out who she was having an affair with.
Meanwhile, Warren has a secret he's been keeping from Laurel. He's sick, and there's nothing that can be done about it. And he's known about his condition for a little over a year. And to boot, the IRS is coming to audit him and his partner, Kyle Auster. Seems Auster has been defrauding the government, and while Warren kept his business out of it, he'd started partaking, when he found out about his condition.
Things escalate from there.
This is the first Greg Iles novel I've read. Some reviews are saying it's by far not his best work. What do I say to that? Thank God! Maybe I'll give him another go.
It felt like a bad scene from a made-for-TV-movie, where everything gets out of hand in a big hurry.
Yes, Laurel finds out she's pregnant. She's positive that Danny is the father. Meanwhile, while Warren holds her hostage, all he wants to know is for her to admit to her affair and who the man is. But she denies it - denies it right up until the end - even when the proof is flashed between the three of them.
The whole scenario, within a what, 8-hour span, was blown way out of proportion. You get to understand why, because of steroid use and unexplained bouts of anger and violence are a side effect. But until you find that out, it just seems to drag.
It gets to be repetitive, and in some places, information, details and explanations are drawn out and are unnecessary. Bad enough that I started skimming pages to get passed explanations that had absolutely nothing to do with the situation. For the first time I read anything by this author, that, from me, is considered a bad sign.
And the characters... good lord, where do I start? I was upset with Laurel right from the beginning. No matter how bad a marriage is, there is no excuse to stray. If you aren't in love anymore, it's called DIVORCE! Sit down and talk to your spouse. Lack of communication upsets me greatly - because there is no excuse for it (I do hope that I don't offend anyone ~ that's my opinion, with a story of fiction or not, cheating on your spouse, to me, is unexcusable)! Warren: I can understand his excuses for not telling anyone about his cancer. I'm sure I'd feel the same way. But again, if he doesn't want anyone to know, that's fine, but as his wife and mother of his children, she had a right to know what was going on. And then he drags the children into the middle of their fight - lucky I can't jump into a book; [...]
Vera and Auster are completely selfish with utter lack of any morals whatsoever. [...] I hate finding it in a book, fiction or otherwise. Some of the cops shouldn't even be cops, let alone part of the county's SWAT team. Danny seemed to be the only one worth his salt. He tried to talk Warren down, tried to get him to understand that, no matter what Laurel did, whether she cheated or not, it's still no excuse for the way he's acting. Tried to get him to stop. Even though he was lying to Warren himself, that was the smallest of indiscretions that didn't bother me. He was trying to stop anyone else from getting killed, period.
The biggest problem, for me, with this book was the repetitiveness and the unnecessary details. It made the book drag. It wasn't until the second half of the book where the story really started to get interesting.
Book Review: Very Bad Plot---Sluggish Characterizations
Summary: 2 Stars
I have read all of Greg Iles books and except for Sleep No More, which I found boring, I have loved them. In fact, Mr. Iles is one of my favorite authors. Third Degree, however, is a disaster. It gets two stars only because of Mr. Iles excellent style. The plot, which has been overworked in many other books, descended into cliches, hyperbole, and even soft porn. The characters were unbelievably shallow. And frankly, I'm tired of the unwarranted praise heaped on the state of Mississippi. Please Mr. Iles, change the venue for your next one. This book tarnishes the integrity of Mr Iles. I won't bother summarizing the story line---other reviewers have done that. If you have read and liked other books by Mr. Iles, skip this one. If you have not read others, do not begin with this one. In other words, the literary world would have been better off if this book had not been written. Sorry Greg.