Sail - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Since the death of her husband, Anne Dunne and her three children have struggled in every way. In a last ditch effort to save the family, Anne plans an elaborate sailing vacation to bring everyone together once again. But only an hour out of port, everything is going wrong. The teenage daughter, Carrie, is planning to drown herself. The teenage son, Mark, is high on drugs and ten-year-old Ernie is nearly catatonic. This is the worst vacation ever.
Anne manages to pull things together bit by bit, but just as they begin feeling like a family again, something catastrophic happens. Survival may be the least of their concerns.
Written with the blistering pace and shocking twists that only James Patterson can master, SAIL takes "Lost" and "Survivor" to a new level of terror.

Customer Reviews: Read 139 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Lacking any Real Substance or Charm June 9, 2008
118 out of 126 found this review helpful

Katherine Dunne and her three children are taking a long over-due family vacation. It's been four years since her ex-husband died, and Katherine is afraid she is losing her kids. Desperate for help, she goes to her former brother-in-law, Jake Dunne. He agrees to take the family out for a summer trip on board the family yacht. Jake loves his brother's kids and wants to do whatever he can to reach out to them. He also still has strong feelings for Katherine, whom he has loved for years.

The Dunne's hit the high seas and immediately things begin to go wrong. Mark is caught smoking pot. Carrie hurls herself into the ocean in an attempt to end her life. All the while, young Ernie looks on as his family is starting to self destruct before his eyes. Unfortunately for the Dunne's, the trouble is just beginning. Someone wants them all dead and will do anything to make sure their vacation becomes permanent.

James Patterson fans will no doubt eat up his latest summer thrill offering. Sail is a suspense filled story, and one that will have most readers flying through the pages. This is a not a typical Patterson whodunit story keeping readers guessing until the end. The antagonist is revealed early on and the motive is never in doubt. All the tension and suspense are found in the Dunne's fight for survival and the antagonist's race to cover his tracks.

Sail held my attention, but there is nothing new or overly exciting here. This is just one more addition to James Patterson's long line of summer chillers. It's fast paced and fun, lacking any real substance or charm. The one twist we do get at the end is forced and unnecessary. Luckily for him, Patterson has reached that lofty level for bestselling novelists where it really doesn't matter what reviewers say. He will always sell a jillion copies of whatever he writes. This will certainly be no exception.

4 out of 5 stars

A good thriller from Patterson, better than I expected June 25, 2008
31 out of 34 found this review helpful

SAIL is the latest thriller to be churned out from the James Patterson book factory. I didn't have high hopes for this one. It seemed like Patterson decided to write a novel about one of his hobbies. I didn't look forward to 300 pages of a family facing troubles on the high seas. However, as the book played out, I found myself drawn into the standard Patterson plot twists and characters and winded up enjoying this novel quite a bit.

Cahterine Dunne 45 year old heart surgeon with three kids. Her cheating first husband died while sailing, and she's determined to go on an extended sailing trip to reunite with her kids, each of whom has their own problems. The novel is standard Patterson, which isn't a criticism. You get standard characterization: one kid smokes pot, one is bulemic, ex-CIA bad guys, determined DEA agent, daibolical, philandering new husband.

Catherine believes a two-month sailing trip will be just the thing to reunite her family. She's lost her kids since the death of their father. Almost immediately, the boat starts having problems. Thankfully, her brother-in-law Jake is there to help them. Peter Carlyle, Catherine's new husband is a rich defense attorney. He urged Catherine to take this trip and was very supportive. But, as soon as she leaves, we find out he isn't all he claims to be.

That's enoug of the plot. This is a good book. It actually throws a lot at you other than sailing, but covers it in Patterson's usual cursury manner. This book isn't as good as THE QUICKIE, but is much better than STEP ON A CRACK, HONEYMOON, or JUDGE AND JURY. You will find absolutely nothing new in this book. Patterson is what he is. This book just happens to be better than his others. Patterson will never recapture the magic of his early Cross books, but that doesn't mean he still can't write good thrillers.

1 out of 5 stars

Characterization and dialogue very cheesy. June 10, 2008
17 out of 23 found this review helpful

This is the first James Patterson novel I've read, so take that into account when reading this review. Having said that, though, I can't really imagine this ever getting published if it didn't have James Patterson's name on it. Sure, it's entertaining enough to keep reading to see what happens next, but the characters are so one-dimensional it makes me cringe. And some of the words and mannerisms coming out of the "teenagers" mouths are so out of touch with today's youth. One of them actually says "up yours!" and means it, and another one shakes his fist in anger, and another actually says "Jesus H. Christ." It hasn't been that long since I was teenager, but I don't think teens today act like that. There are lots more examples, but you get the idea. It's as if your grandpa is sitting at the coffee table telling you a story about a group of kids. There's just so much disconnect that it's not even funny, just embarrassing.

Later in the story, one of the characters even jokes about the daughter's suicide attempt, and she laughs it off, but I don't recall her ever really getting over it in the first place. And that's not something I think anybody would ever laugh off.

I'm a sucker for good characters driving a good plot. This is a good plot driving poor attempts at characters that act how the out-of-touch author thinks they'd act.

Pick it up when it gets to the dollar bin.

1 out of 5 stars

wasteful June 11, 2008
17 out of 31 found this review helpful

Considering the amount of paper and other resources that went into printing this book, we should weep. Beginning with the "cast of characters", this was a poor story, poorly written and poorly edited. Neither entertaining nor thrilling, when the publisher sees the name James Patterson as author, it should be an automatic pass vs. an automatic royalty.

5 out of 5 stars

Moves Quickly With Trademark Killer Twists June 13, 2008
15 out of 23 found this review helpful

James Patterson and Howard Roughan have produced another winning beach read guaranteed to keep the pages turning. SAIL is a stand-alone novel instead of one of his series (Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club), and has the added facet that everyone is at risk in this one. Nobody has to come back for the sequel, and some of the characters don't.

Cardiac surgeon Anne Dunne has been stressed out by the twists and turns her life has taken. Her husband has died and she barely held it together. Then she got swept off her feet by Peter Carlyle, a dashing attorney. They've been married for a couple years, giving Anne time to heal some of her hurts and get her feet solidly back on the ground.

I like Patterson's books for the sheer velocity of the story. He doesn't provide more than a skeletal background for his principle characters, but that's all that's needed to understand the machinations he puts them all through.

Although a lot of Anne's emotional turmoil is glossed over in the novel, I still felt her pain and uncertainty. But there simply wasn't time to dwell on Anne's loss because things constantly happened in the book. The authors introduced one vicious turn after another, and the Dunne family became more and more endangered.

However, the furious plotting robbed the characters a little. Anne organized the sailing vacation for her three children because she felt the family was falling apart. Everyone who has a busy family has felt that stress. Oldest son Mark has a drug problem, Carrie is suicidal, and Ernie has become strongly anti-social. These issues were introduced in a straight-forward manner, then resolved almost instantly. I feel I missed out on some of the character growth and interaction with the headlong pacing of the book, but I couldn't stop turning the pages, which is exactly what the authors designed the book to do.

I really liked the character of Jake Dunne. He stepped onto the page and became real to me at once. He's the solid kind of guy that will always see things through no matter how messy they get. But, like all of the characters in this novel, he has his secrets too.

Peter Carlyle, Anne's new husband, turns out to be one of the blackest hearted villains I've seen in a while. He's only out for himself. His relationship with his much younger girlfriend Bailey really sets the tone, and readers will learn to hate this guy, and fear his single-minded determination.

The international hitman Carlyle hires nicknames himself The Magician because of the ease with which he can make people disappear. He's cool and calculating, and fills the story with menace.

Lost at sea, injured and dysfunctional, the Dunne family's struggles will pull most thriller readers through to the end in a single sitting or two. They won't be able to put the book down as the authors pile on one surprise after unexpected twist after impending doom. SAIL runs before the wind as a perfect beach read now that summer is upon us.

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