Sail; You'll Easily Breeze Through This One

I've read a few James Patterson books. They are usually a good read. This one is too but, it's quick, mindless, silly in a place or two and doesn't carry much depth of character.

Plot

The plot is rather simple and has all the pieces of a book that could be a solid read. A professional woman, a heart surgeon, lost her cheating husband in a scuba diving accident. They had three children. She remarries but her time invested in work does little to keep them together as a family. Each child has their own personal problems to be worked through and the family unit is breaking apart.

The mom decides that a two month sail with just her, the three children and the brother of her lost husband as captain will help bring the family closer together. As the sail begins we find out that there's more to her new marriage and her relationship with the brother-in-law to be discovered. We follow the Dunne family, yes, that was the name, through adventures of the sea and perhaps murder!

pops thoughts

As I read the book I found myself quickly turning the pages and following the story as I was trying to see where it was going. That was the strong part of the book, the mystery? The characters however were not the kind that had the reader rooting for them. With all the twists and turns I didn't have a relationship where I knew or deeply cared for the people in the story.

To boost our interest and knowledge of the characters the authors open up the book with a list of the "crew" and give a short four to seven sentence description of each of the stories main characters and their relationship with each other. This failed to get me to know these people in depth.

That said, Sail, by #1 New York Times Author James Patterson  along with Howard Roughan, has all all the elements of a fine mystery and though I breezed through this one in a couple of short read days, I thought it a good one.

This story and the way it was told was like a one night movie rather than an excellent mini-series it could have been.

It's certainly not a blockbuster of a story as is but, all the same, it did entertain me even though it could have been longer with more character development along with filling in a few minor gaps.

All in all though, I can recommend it to anyone looking for a quick and exciting summer read. I read it in the paperback form that came out this year.