Friday, March 12, 2010

Book 7 – Shutter Island

By Dennis Lehane

I’ve been catching up with some "movie novels", and Shutter Island is one of them. I deliberately refrained from consuming any reviews or trailers related to the recent theatrical release, and it had paid off. Olman kind of regrets having given it such a quick, half-hearted review. But you can’t really write about Shutter Island without giving too much of it away.

Definitely the perfect book to read while you’re on vacation, especially during a long layover at the airport (which is exactly what happened a week ago). Shutter Island is tight, compelling and sucks you right into its strange, isolated world and its freaky insane asylum, Ashecliffe Hospital - where nothing is quite as it seems. You see the story unfold from the perspective of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, and it’s only quite a bit later in the novel did I start to question the integrity of his judgment.

As a gothic thriller, it has everything going for it: action, drama, mystery and suspense, with elements of the macabre and the supernatural. Good stuff!

p.s. I just noticed that Somnambulist also gave a positive review too.

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