Carolyn's Reviews > Third Degree

This had a slow start for me with some complaints. Let's get those out of the way so you know what you are getting into but then I will share why I think you might like this book as I did.

1. Some of the paragraphs were longer than they needed to be. If some of the set up was shortened and we could get to the good part quicker, that would have helped me get into the book more quickly.

2. Written in 2007 some parts were dated. The main character had a Razr phone. I remember those. I think if it just said cell phone we would have been good. At one point the MC burned up a note using the cigarette lighter in her car and burned it in the ashtray. She had an AOL e-mail with a back up hotmail account. And then the regrettable use of the R word. Not anymore, folks.

3. Some of the word choices were as if he was trying to prove how smart he was (the author) and I looked some of them up for examples:

Her father's peripatetic lifestyle (he was a preacher and roamed around a lot)

Lagniappe - huh? It means a little something extra on the side similar to how you go to a book store and they give you a free bookmark or at a restaurant they serve a popover at no charge.

"His orbits, almost black from lack of sleep, gave him a desperate mien."

"Stupid mating rituals of the cro-magnon man" Learning man new words. That is essentially a neanderthal but from a different era.

It was a "Kafkaesque" scene - the adjective describes a situation that is difficult, surreal, and nightmarish, often with a sense fo absurdity and beaurocracy. Doubt I will ever use that in a sentence.

OK now on to the good stuff. This book was really a page turner once it got cooking. The book starts with a wife secretly taking a pregnancy test while her husband is out in the main room tearing the house apart for some reason and is in a mood. We later learn that she was having an affair for nearly a year, she ended it 5 weeks prior when the man wouldn't leave his wife, and she wasn't sure who was the father. As the husband is tearing apart the house, he finds a love letter she had hidden in a book. He goes over the edge and having not slept for nearly two days he gets a little unpredictable, taking her hostage in their home until she will tell him who the man is.

There is a lot of action and drama which made the book something I did not want to put down. Reading 150 pages on a weeknight? That doesn't happen often! I would read one of Greg Iles' books again - once I got past the rocky start, it was very good if you like this genre.