This one gets three and a half stars as a summer read that runs just a bit too long, like a group vacation where you're tired of the company a day or two before time to go home.
That in fact is one of the sequences in this tale of four couples, each brought by circumstance or quirk to Nantucket Island, where they form a tight-knit group -- socializing together, often vacationing together, trading off child care, party planning, and bed partners in more or less random fashion.
Then a sudden tragedy leaves an unmendable breach in the group, and layers upon layers of deception and betrayal begin to unfold.
Hildebrand juggles six main voices in the tale, which eventually gets so tangled that it seems the threads can never be pulled out again. The ultimate resolution, when it comes, is about 50 pages too late, as readers will have already gotten there, eaten the hors d'oeuvres, had too many martinis, and gotten tired of waiting for the rest of the meal to arrive.
(It's also about the fifth book I've read in which the author does not have a firm grasp of the differences between rifles and shotguns and the characteristics of their respective cartridge loads.)
However, if you're looking for a read to keep you entertained over a long lazy weekend, you could do worse.
That in fact is one of the sequences in this tale of four couples, each brought by circumstance or quirk to Nantucket Island, where they form a tight-knit group -- socializing together, often vacationing together, trading off child care, party planning, and bed partners in more or less random fashion.
Then a sudden tragedy leaves an unmendable breach in the group, and layers upon layers of deception and betrayal begin to unfold.
Hildebrand juggles six main voices in the tale, which eventually gets so tangled that it seems the threads can never be pulled out again. The ultimate resolution, when it comes, is about 50 pages too late, as readers will have already gotten there, eaten the hors d'oeuvres, had too many martinis, and gotten tired of waiting for the rest of the meal to arrive.
(It's also about the fifth book I've read in which the author does not have a firm grasp of the differences between rifles and shotguns and the characteristics of their respective cartridge loads.)
However, if you're looking for a read to keep you entertained over a long lazy weekend, you could do worse.
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