Fifth Avenue

The people in this book are such nice people....NOT! There are very few books that I dislike or hate as many characters as I did this book. But that is not a bad thing. On the contrary, the characters did not seem like they were meant to be liked. Its New York City, rich drama at its worse!<br /><br />The book focuses on the Redman family, and a man name Louis Ryan, as well as many of their friends. L. Ryan hates George Redman with a passion and sets up a revenge plot to kill the entire Redman family. However, the Redmans, friends, coworkers and the Mafia throw in some twists that has you wondering who will succeed, who will live and much more. I wish there was at least 1 truly likeable character but even the "good guys" didn't catch my interest. These are some messed up people I would not want to know in my personal life. Also, the sex clubs were a bit much so some warning that those squicky scenes would have been nice. Not that what happens is entirely offending to me (may be to some though), but I could have gone without some details. <br /><br />Otherwise a good book that keeps you guessing the final outcome. A truly twisted thriller of a tale. If you are looking for something dark to read, that is also realistic, this is it. <br /><br />Won this in the Goodbooks First Reads, freely given to me. Thank you, Christopher, for hosting this giveaway for your book.

c2010. So this book started off badly for me with the heroine staring up at 79 stories of building - then a bomb goes off - and "the men on the roof were hurt." then she "hurried into the lobby, shot past the waterfall and stepped into her father's private elevator./ The building was too tall. The elevator was too slow. No matter how quickly she raced to the top, it wasn't fast enough". With this give away that the author had almost certainly never been near a real life urban bomb explosion, the story was already on a downward spiral for me. I did not have any feelings toward the characters, none for the outcome and I think the editor should have slashed more words than he/she did. I have to humbly admit that this book defeated me and it was one of those awful awful DNF - but life is really too short for this. In having a look at the "rave reviews" - who is Chris Truscott who said "Christopher Smith delivers an amazing story that's worth the advance billing. ...His writing is smooth, his observations are sharp and the plot he built is downright stunning." Please forgive me if I am wrong - but this seems to be another self published writer under Smashwords. Open to correction of course but I do think that this is a bit misleading of Amazon! Also a PM Richter had some stunning words of praise and I have not heard of that author (?) either. Again, this seeming lack of integrity with marketing just annoys the Dickens out of me!!!!Of course every one is entitled to their view point but when it is put out there purporting to be a opinion that matters....well, say no more. End of rant.

<strong>Violence in the Fifth Avenue.</strong><br /><br />Many rich and wannabe rich characters, not even one likeable one. Was hard to keep up with who is who. Murder, money, favorite child and one left behind. Years of smoldering revenge. Could have been written with less sex and sex clubs. Ending is shocking. Going to read the next one, and hoping it's better than this book.<br />Wonder what happened to Isabel, the cat?

This would be a great Lifetime movie or a made-for-tv movie or something like that. The rich, have-everything Redmans complete with the perfect daughter, the forgotten daughter are the target of Louis Ryan, the man bent on revenge. Ryan's scope is wide and involves loads of interesting (and not-so interesting) characters including (of course!) the mob! There was probably one-too-many characters - too many business people and I wish there was more of backstory to Celina (the perfect daughter) and Eric (why was their breakup so bad? Why did he still want her and why was she so done with him? What did he do?), and also some more interaction between Celina and Leana (the not-so-perfect daughter -- there was a lot of unspoken feelings there). It fell short of being great because there was too much going on and at times it got a little confusing (especially the plane scene with Jack and Diana). Plus all of a sudden there's Anne's diary! Where did that come from? Isn't that something Louis Ryan should have read all those years ago? What possessed him to finally read it now? And the killer? Really? Because that was completely likely. Couldn't it have been someone that wasn't mentioned less than 10 times the whole book?<br /><br />I wish the end didn't skip over 6 months. Plus, after focusing so much on how Leana felt like the black sheep, whatever happened to her relationship with George? The end was a little too tidy for a book that had a billion characters in it. If an author is going to raise questions (and point fingers) regarding relationships, he should then answer the questions instead of leaving readers scratching their heads. However, a book within a book -- that was kind of cool.

A friend loaned me this book through my kindle. I wish that they make Fifth Avenue into a movie or a series. Christopher Smith grabbed my attention by the end of the first page and I continued reading until I finished. His characters are multi-faceted personalities with such depth and richness that they come alive for the reader. It has power, money, glamour, international intrique, crime, murder, love and loss. All of the necessary ingredients for a blockbuster! The twists and turns are riveting and surprising. It is a great summer read!

I have to agree with <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/220272238" rel="nofollow noopener">Ruth</a>'s assessment of the opening pages of <i>Fifth Avenue</i>. I couldn't put the feeling of unreality better than Ruth, so I'll direct you to her review. I did finish the book, but never really connected, or liked, any of the characters. I felt that most of them were sketched rather than drawn.<br /><br />This was not really a financial novel, the milieu is just the background for a story of revenge, not just that between the men, but between a combination of the characters. I found the ending not particularly sayisfying.<br /><br />I downloaded this novel free from Amazon. I was hoping for a financial mystery along the lines of <i>The Samurai Strategy</i> by Thomas Hoover, and I was disappointed. I think this is a 1.5 star rating...only because the writing itself was quite competent.

I didn't like it very much...not sure why the book received such high reviews from Kindle readers???

A decent book. There were a lot of characters to keep straight. And a lot of deaths that made me mad-innocent people I didn't want to see dead. It was interesting story of revenge, though. I'll read the next one in the series because I got it free. :)

Great book to read :)

On to second one