Rebel Island - Dark Publications

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Product Description
A triple-crown winner of mystery’s most coveted awards, Rick Riordan brings his Texas-style take on the crime thriller to an island paradise where ex-P.I. Tres Navarre finds himself stranded with a killer as unstoppable as a force of nature.

Tres Navarre and his new wife Maia came to celebrate their honeymoon. But no sooner had they arrived on Rebel Island than a reminder of Navarre’s past showed up dead in room 12. Suddenly Tres finds himself flashing back to the grim childhood summer that changed his life. When a second corpse turns up, it’s clear that the past isn’t dead and buried—yet. What dark secrets were kept that long-ago summer and who is back to avenge them? These are questions Tres must answer as a monster hurricane hits, trapping them on a flooding island, and as the hotel’s remaining guests are being brutally murdered. Tres knows better than anyone the dangerous line between vengeance and justice—and this time he may have to cross it.

Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Claustrophobic tension makes for a solid Tres mystery September 16, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Rick Riordan is proving himself a master of what I've come to think of as the "claustrophobic thriller." "Cold Springs" particularly impressed me with its psychological pressure-cooker of emotions and repressed secrets. "Rebel Island" takes that a step further, with almost all the action in the story taking place inside a crumbling old hotel in the middle of a hurricane. In that sense, this story is like a classic English country-house mystery, where you know from the start that "one of us in this room is ... The Killer" (dum dum dum!). As Riordan's fans will expect, though, the author gives the genre a distinctive South Texas twist that makes "Rebel Island" one of the best Tres Navarre stories in some time.

One of Riordan's storytelling distinctions has always been the twisting plot, with suspicion pointing first one way and then another. As bodies turned up in these pages, I started making a list of who I thought the killer was. By the time I finally twigged to the right answer (satisfyingly close to the end of the book), I had identified and rejected three other candidates. And even then, the author had one or two final surprises in store.

Now that Riordan has been doing it for a couple of novels, I'm more used to his new convention of only narrating some of the story in Tres' first-person view. As with "Mission Road," this technique not only lets other characters participate in the story more fully (always in third-person), but also gives us a glimpse inside the mind of the still-unidentified killer. As I've noted before, telling the story this way necessarily means we get less of Tres than we might otherwise like, but it does help increase the tension and make the story more well-rounded.

In addition to being entertaining and well-written mystery novels, each of the Tres Navarre books has chronicled important changes in the character's life. The changes that have occurred between the last title and this one, however, are perhaps the biggest yet. Tres' long-term fans won't find many of the familiar characters that have made up his supporting cast to this point. As always, though, the case here ends up tugging on significant strings from Tres' own life. It's satisfying to know Tres is not static for Riordan -- the character continues to evolve and mature, and there's still more for readers to learn about his past, as well as his future.

After this fast moving (I read it in an afternoon and a morning) and satisfying story, I am once again looking forward to whatever the author has in store for us next.

5 out of 5 stars

an exhilarating tale September 4, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

San Antonio based private investigator Tres Navarre radically changes his life as he retires and marries his eight month pregnant girlfriend Maia. Tres' older brother wheelchair-bound Garret persuades the newlyweds to go to Rebel Island on their honeymoon; Garret and some long time pals will be at the Texas Gulf Island where the two siblings spent family vacations.

At the Rebel island dock, Tres meets rumored cold blooded killer U.S. Marshal Jesse Longoria, who believes the sleuth is on a case. They last met at the grave site of the former sleuth's best friend when Jesse wanted to insure Ralph Arguello was dead. While Tres and Maia settle into their suite at Rebel House Inn, a shot is fired. They along with Garret and the manager investigate only to find someone killed Longoria. Tres makes inquires and follows clues even as others are murdered and a hurricane heads towards the island.

Although hurricanes attacking the Gulf have flooded the mystery genre since Katrina, the latest Navarre thriller is an exhilarating tale as the audience learns about the lead protagonist's salad days and his current relationships. As he digs for clues and finds hidden tunnels and passageways, the killer steals the show as the villain seems always one step ahead of Tres. Readers will enjoy Rick Riordan's terrific murder caper, Texas style.

Harriet Klausner

3 out of 5 stars

Tres Is Back But Something Or Someone Important Is Missing October 4, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I have been reading Riordan's Tres Navarre novels since the publication of "Big Red Tequila". Obviously, I like them enough to remain interested but after reading "Rebel Island", I have concluded that I miss some things from the past. I miss Tres' wicked almost irreverent sense of humor and wise cracking that was so prevalent in "Big Red Tequila" but has since become less and less visible. And I clearly miss Ralph Arguello whose absence leaves a huge void in the psychological and moral development of the novels.

In "Rebel Island", Tres, his wife, Maia, and brother, Garrett , are trapped in a dilapidated hotel by a powerful hurricane. It is a classic "we're trapped in this place and one of us is a murderer" story that quickly prompts us to start imagining who each character might "really" be in order to guess the ending. Along the way we get mysteries from the past interlocked with the mysteries of today. We also get an old hotel blown apart, hidden passageways, mysteries in an old lighthouse, red herrings, and, of course, trapped guests who are never who they claim to be.

While the mystery was entertaining enough, it never really grabbed me...I never reached that "gosh, I can't wait to turn the page feeling". Maybe this was due to the failure of Riordan to fully evolve the characters--I just didn't care about them. Some come and go so quickly only to resurface later that you need a score sheet handy.

I will stick with Tres Navarre a bit longer but I find the things I miss overriding the things that are left. For example, is anyone else getting tired of Garrett's schtick? He adds little beyond exasperation to the storylines and I'd gladly trade 2 Garretts for one Ralph.

1 out of 5 stars

dumb November 10, 2007
2 out of 7 found this review helpful

I'm sorry, but I never felt any of the people on the island were in jeopardy. The author jumped from one head to another in chapters, so it took a few minutes to figure out "who" was talking. Very annoying. I almost stopped reading when Trez found a wooden carving of a woman in a man's room and he remembered the face....from 20 years before! PLEEZE. A lot of this dumb book just didn't make sense. I keep wondering how Garrett lost his legs! No, I will NOT read previous books to find out. There were a LOT of loose ends like that thoughout the book. Yuck.

3 out of 5 stars

Not bad, but not great. September 27, 2007
*warning--spoiler about previous Riordan novel included in this review*

Rick Riordan is an excellent writer. His Tres Navarre series is one of my all-time faves. This one, however, isn't at the top of my list when it comes to this series. It's not a terrible book; it's just not quite as engaging as the others in the series.

This one takes place on an island as a hurricane roars through. The mystery is complex enough, detail-wise, but I kind of knew who the "villain" was about halfway in. The characters I already liked were all there (Tres himself, his wife Maya, his brother Garrett), but this book kind of suffered from the loss of Tres' best friend, who (spoiler!) was killed in the last book in the series. I miss Ralph (Ralphas) and the way his interactions with Tres really spiced up the previous novels. Ralph could always be counted on to really pump up the moral grey areas. Adios, Ralphas. You are missed more than you can imagine.

In this book, Tres has retired from his previous job as a PI and is teaching full-time at a local university. The action of this novel throws him back into investigatory mode, but it seems that while it comes naturally to him, he isn't really into it. As a result, neither was I.

Oy.

Well, I still really enjoy Tres. Hopefully he'll be a bit more thrilling next time around.

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