A Simple Plan

Apr 03, 2010 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Sep 28, 2008 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

I heard a story once about a Holocaust survivor who attended the trial at Nuremburg of the Nazi who commanded the camp in which he was a prisoner. When the defendant was brought in, the Jewish man became hysterical and had to be dragged out of the courtroom. People assumed that seeing the Nazi's face again had simply brought back memories too horrific for the man to bear. He later explained that he'd lost his composure because he saw, for the first time, that this Nazi was not some fire-breathin...more I heard a story once about a Holocaust survivor who attended the trial at Nuremburg of the Nazi who commanded the camp in which he was a prisoner. When the defendant was brought in, the Jewish man became hysterical and had to be dragged out of the courtroom. People assumed that seeing the Nazi's face again had simply brought back memories too horrific for the man to bear. He later explained that he'd lost his composure because he saw, for the first time, that this Nazi was not some fire-breathing monster, but just a man, like anyone else. Without the SS uniform, his humanity was laid bare. The Nazi could've been him; the Nazi could've been anyone.

This incident illustrates why Scott Smith's novel "A Simple Plan" is unquestionably the scariest book I've ever read. By far more frightening than anything written by Stephen King, Dean Koontz or even Thomas Harris, "A Simple Plan" touches on an uncomfortable but real truth in life: we're all basically bad, posessing an almost infinite capacity for evil. All we need to find out how bad we can be is the right motivation: anger, lust, greed, jealousy, etc.

For Hank, the novel's main protagonist, the motivation is greed, then fear. Hank is a midwestern accountant with a wife and a baby on the way, a real swell fella, anyone would agree. One Winter day, Hank takes a ride with his no-account brother, Jacob, and Jacob's pal, Lou. An accident sends the three trudging off into the woods, where they happen upon a small airplane that has crashed and been covered over with snow. Inside, they find a dead pilot and a gym bag, which happens to contain around $4 million. The men figure the money is from a drug deal or a robbery. Hank, the upstanding citizen of the group, insists on calling the authorities immediately. Jacob and Lou, however, want to hang onto the cash. Eventually, Hank agrees, but on one condition: they sit on the money for six months - if nothing is heard of it by Summer, they'll split the loot and go their separate ways. It seems painfully simple, but Hank doesn't take into account his brother's impulsive stupidity, or Lou's desperate need to have his share RIGHT NOW. The failings of his partners in crime, as well as his own fear of being caught, send Hank into a downward spiral as the situation gets bad, then worse, then really super-deluxe worse. Toward the end, when Hank is driven to extremes by his own wife's carelessness, the money becomes almost irrelevant.

In a real stroke of genius, Smith tells the entire story from Hank's point of view, giving the reader unencumbered access to Hank's tortured psyche. You find yourself almost relating and understanding when Hank tells himself that the theft is justifiable, then when he graduates to blackmail and murder.

A movie version of this story was made in 1998; it's absorbing, suspenseful and at times unforgettable. All the same, it's inferior to the novel, particularly in the second half. The ending in the film, while tragic and horrifying in its own right, doesn't even come close to the ending in the book, which may stay with me for the rest of my life.

I found "A Simple Plan" at the discount table at the mall in 1995. The dust jacket preview seemed vaguely interesting, so I plucked down my $3.99 and took it home, expecting to read it over the Summer. I finished it two days later, at about 3:00 in the morning. It's that engrossing, and thought-provoking. At one point, Hank's wife, who turns out to be more ruthless than anyone else, says to him: "No one would ever think you'd be capable of doing what you've done." That brilliant line is the entire book in a nutshell.
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Oct 20, 2007 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Scott Smith's books are, above all, methodical. For all their chaos and violence, everything seems inevitable, everyone acts logically, and yet, without fail, things go terribly, terribly wrong. It's impossible not to imagine yourself in his characters' places, wondering if you would have made similar decisions, acted in a similar way, and still come to the same calamitous end. His wildly entertaining second novel, The Ruins, placed its characters in an impossible situation that was articificial...more Scott Smith's books are, above all, methodical. For all their chaos and violence, everything seems inevitable, everyone acts logically, and yet, without fail, things go terribly, terribly wrong. It's impossible not to imagine yourself in his characters' places, wondering if you would have made similar decisions, acted in a similar way, and still come to the same calamitous end. His wildly entertaining second novel, The Ruins, placed its characters in an impossible situation that was articificial and supernatural, but his debut, A Simple Plan, is more powerful and frightening because the impossible situation is the characters' own damn fault entirely.

He begins with a simple moral dilemma: if you stumbled upon a pile of cash, would you take it? What if there was little chance of you being caught? Hank, our narrator, discovers four million dollars in a downed plane buried in the snow. He's accompanied by his brother, Jacob, and Jacob's deadbeat friend, Lou. Together they decide on a "simple plan"; that is, take the money, but don't spend it until the plane is discovered and no one reports it missing. If anything goes wrong, they plan to burn the money instantly.

Of course, everything goes horribly wrong. Despite Hank's best efforts to act logically and cover his tracks, the allure and power of the money proves to be too much to handle. Smith writes in (call me redundant) simple, declarative sentences, which suit his "play-by-play" style very well. It's agonizing to watch the characters make what seems to be a sound decision, only to see it backfire in the next scene. And Smith never flinches, so we are trapped in this downward spiral right along with them. Even when there's no imminent threat, when it seems, for a moment, that everything might be okay, when Hank is playing with his newborn baby, for example, or Jacob is thinking about buying back their family's barn, there is a sustained and suffocating sense of foreboding, which makes the characters' brief hope that much more heartbreaking.

"'I'm not crazy,' I said, trying to make my voice come out rational, calm. 'It all makes sense. It all happened one thing after the other.'"(less)

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Dec 23, 2010 R. Vialet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I find it hilarious whenever I see negative reviews for this book and almost all the time, the reason for the negativity is that the reviewer thought that the main characters were stupid and made dumb decisions. If characters always made the right decisions or the smartest ones, there would be absolutely no drama and why the hell would anyone want to read about people who do all the right things?!

I think this was a wonderful story about how all of us are capable of terrible things if circumstanc...more

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Jan 04, 2010 Trudy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 3-unclassified

This book was probably THE most painful reading experience I have ever had. I actually finished it - more because of my own stubbornness than anything. I guess I would have to liken it to the first few weeks of American Idol where the whole point is to show you the people that are really bad. I am just too sensitive for that - I feel the pain and embarrasment they should be feeling but in some cases don't. In the case of this book the pure idiocy that these characters go through after finding th...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Edward Howles rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great thriller that draws you right in. If the characters weren't painted so well as utterly sad and normal, then this book would fail, as it all hinges on believing their choices as each new horrendous thing befalls them when the titular plan falls to shambles. If you've read the synopsis (or seen the great film adaptation) it's not much of a spoiler to learn that these characters have to do things that should be unthinkable to keep the money as things spiral out of control, and the author do...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-and-mystery

A SIMPLE PLAN is, in a nutshell, the best novel Stephen King never wrote. The story picks up one of the oldest plots in western literature: three men find a treasure, and very bad things begin to happen almost immediately. Famous antecedents include Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale" and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, but Smith updates the story to the banal middle-class Ohio of 1980's, and in doing so thrillingly illuminates the evil things someone as ordinary as you or I might do in a certain situ...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Cleo rated it 5 of 5 stars

To this date this is still one of my favorite suspense fiction stories.

When I first read this book way back when I loved it- and then I reread it 5 or 6 years later---- and still loved it.

It is still one of my favorite "suspense" novels because the characters are simply human and the decisions they make are plausible. The book was written before the internet changed the nature of small town, harsh winter isolation. The small town worldview of the times seems real.

It is refreshing that no one...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Sharleen Jonsson rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you're a writer or serious reader, you know the value of complications -- a character does one thing to try to make things better for himself, but this action creates an even bigger problem he must then solve. This novel is an excellent example of this kind of plotting.

I was drawn to the novel because of the movie. The premise of three people stumbling upon a few million dollars didn't excite me much, but one evening when there was nothing else to watch, I tried it. And what gripped me immed...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Roberta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Splendidamente angosciante
Non vi è uomo che cerchi il male in quanto tale: lo confonde semplicemente con la felicità, con il bene cui egli anela.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Con questa citazione esordisce Scott Smith, trascinandoci nella sua ipnotica e angosciante narrazione. Nonostante avessi già visto il bel film di Raimi tratto da questo libro, "Soldi sporchi", sono rimasta estremamente soddisfatta da questa lettura, e non è dir poco!
E' inverno in Ohio e il paesaggio è coperto di neve. Altrettanto cop...more

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Feb 26, 2010 Loren rated it 4 of 5 stars

From ISawLightningFall.com

In his The New Rhetoric, Chaim Perelman concludes, "The distinction of the different genres of oratory is highly artificial, as the study of a speech shows." He then goes on to cite Marc Antony's "friends, Romans, countrymen" speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, noting how it "opens with a funeral eulogy ... and ends by provoking a riot that is clearly political." While Perelman sees this as an example of genre's artifice, I think it better illustrates its flexibility...more From ISawLightningFall.com

In his The New Rhetoric, Chaim Perelman concludes, "The distinction of the different genres of oratory is highly artificial, as the study of a speech shows." He then goes on to cite Marc Antony's "friends, Romans, countrymen" speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, noting how it "opens with a funeral eulogy ... and ends by provoking a riot that is clearly political." While Perelman sees this as an example of genre's artifice, I think it better illustrates its flexibility. All but the most obstinate critics note how speeches and poems and narratives naturally clump together in camps. It's interesting, then, when an author decides (like Marc Antony) that his work needs to become the genre-fiction equivalent of a citizen of the world rather than a longtime resident of a single locale. Which is exactly what Scott Smith does with his debut novel, A Simple Plan.

Hank Mitchell has a good life. The first in his family to attend college, he has landed respectable job as head accountant of a small, Ohio feedstore. His undergraduate sweetheart is also expecting their first child. It's a steady, if slightly dull, existence, but certainly better than that of his older brother, Jacob. Perpetually slovenly and unemployed, Jacob spends his days playing with his German shepherd Mary Beth and his nights drinking with his best friend Lou. The only thing that brings the two brothers together is a mutual pledge to visit their parents' graves on the last day of every year. And during the year it all begins, they are driving to do just that when a fox darts in front of Jacob's pickup and Mary Beth leaps out in pursuit. One long walk across snow-covered fields later, they discover the mutt amongst a copse of apple trees -- and a downed plane filled with over $4 million in cash. They hastily hatch a plan to keep the money until summer and burn it if anyone comes looking. Simple, right? But even the simplest plans can go so easily awry.

Current writing mores almost demand a whiz-bang intro, but Smith doesn't take that tack. Plan begins in literary mode, most of the action staying firmly between Hank's ears. From there it moves in a slow swell, gradually introducing characters, delineating their personalities and motivations, stringing out the moral deficiencies that will strangle them later. Only once the stage is fully set does it transmute into a crime-thriller. Alliances coalesce, then shatter. Laws get broken in the heat of the moment, then transgressed again with cold-hearted foresight. When attempted blackmail erupts into charnel-house slaughter, you suddenly see Smith's goal. It's taken so very little for these salt-of-the-earth people to move into the depths of depravity. "You're just a nice, sweet, normal guy," Hank's wife tells him. "No one would ever believe that you'd be capable of doing what you've done." How much would it require for us to follow them? In the end, Plan is the best sort of horror novel, a devastating examination of the darkness in every heart.(less)

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Jun 23, 2012 Patricia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yes, I'm on a Scott Smith roll. Scott Smith has a gift for writing unlikeable characters (you may not root for them after a couple of chapters) but you will keep turning the pages to find out what the hell they’ll do next. I liken the experience to finding a loose piece of thread on your sweater, you give it a little tug and instead of making things better, you’ve made it a little worse, so you pull again to get the long thread out and damn now you have a hole in your sweater and you’ve really m...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Maciek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thriller-mystery-suspense, read-in-2012

Reading this novel is like watching a trainwreck taking place: you know it's terrible, you know you shouldn't do it, but somehow you can't look away from it taking place; its as if your eyes have been glued to the train and carriages, losing touch with the track, falling out, being squashed and destroyed, all with the incredibly loud and draining sound of screeching and bending metal. You look at the solid, rectangular shapes being transformed into crushed masses of steel, thrown around like the...more Reading this novel is like watching a trainwreck taking place: you know it's terrible, you know you shouldn't do it, but somehow you can't look away from it taking place; its as if your eyes have been glued to the train and carriages, losing touch with the track, falling out, being squashed and destroyed, all with the incredibly loud and draining sound of screeching and bending metal. You look at the solid, rectangular shapes being transformed into crushed masses of steel, thrown around like they were miniature toys, as if some invisible God took to them in a moment of incredible and hopeless fury.

The title of the book accurately describes its premise: In winter, three men stumble upon a wreckage of a small plane in the woods outside their city. Curious, they decide to investigate: one of the men peers inside, and sees that the pilot is dead. He notices a small duffle bag near the body, and takes it out. Of course, they open it and peer inside: what they find is 4,4 million dollars in packets of hundred dollar bills. They make a decision to keep the money; all agree on a simple plan to do nothing and just wait for six months and see if anyone would be looking for the money when the plane is discovered in spring. If not, then they will split it adequately and quietly leave town; if yes, the money will be burned to keep them out of trouble. Nothing to lose, but a lot to gain.

A Simple Plan is narrated in the first person by Hank Mitchell, an accountant, husband, and soon to be father. His partners in crime are Jacob, his brother, and Lou, their mutual acquaintance. The setting is a small town of Ashenville, Northern Ohio. As one involved with money on a daily basis, Hank takes charge and takes the bag, intending to keep it. He'll either split it after six months, if there's no mention of missing money anywhere, or burn it immediately if there is. Only it's never this easy, is it? Another allegory with which the novel can be described is a domino sequence, one which goes through a spiral, lower and lower. The decision to keep the money is knocking over the first piece of the domino; the rest will soon follow.

There is an incredible feeling of bleak hopelesness in this novel, right from the first sentence, where Hank describes the dreadful death of his parents in a car accident. Although he is married and lives comfortably well with an attractive wife, with whom he is expecting their first child, there is a general aura of unhappiness about him and the whole town of Ashfield. The greyness and mundanity of the region, where seemingly nothing happens, at least nothing of importance. Everything irrevocable changes for the three men when they decide to take the bag; they are now on something together, are a part of a scheme, even if it involves doing nothing at all. However, they have set something in motion; The butterfly has flapped its wings, the wind has been stirred.

The first person narration allows the reader almost unlimited access to Hank's mind. We're both able and limited to seeing things the way he sees them. We see how he makes decision after decision, how he tries to find a best way out of the situations he find himself in, and how he tries to rationalize and justify his actions. It becomes obvious that A Simple Plan is not a simple thriller, as it might suggest, but a quite complex moral tale; where each decision has multiple consequences, each complicating the events further.

An Amazon reviewer called the novel "macbeth in Midwest", and the comparison is very apt. It also reminded me of one of my favorite old movies, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre", which is notable for having Humphrey Bogart in his only role as an unlikable character. The plot of the novel is simple enough, but what makes it unique is that it gives us a chance to see inside the mind of a person whose life has been completely turned upside down in one moment, and see how far he is going to go as the situation develops. These characters are people who could be you or me; they just happened to be in one place at a certain time. It could happen to any of us; Scott Smith doesn't build a complex mystery, or center his book around action scenes. Its plot is simple - three guys find a bag full of money. Its tension almost entirely inside the mind. It's the mind that is most fascinating in this novel, the mind of Hank, his wife, his brother and Lou. What will they do with the bag? What would you do?

A Simple Plan is a stylish debut in the vein of Dennis Lehane, unique, complex and memorable. I could barely put it down as I was reading it, and it will stay with me for a long time. It is simply so relatable; it is impossible not to relate to the characters and their discovery, not to put yourself in their place, wondering what would you do in their situation. This is what makes it terrifying. As Hank says: "'It all makes sense. It all happened one thing after the other."(less)

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Apr 26, 2009 Ev rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, mom

As with The Ruins this is a hard book to put down. The story starts off right away and forces you to keep reading unill the very end. I like how this author tells stories, noone is safe. Main characters can die halfway thru the book. There's no happily ever after. And Paranoia will Distroy yaaa! There really was no evidence against Hank and Sarah and no one ever really suspected them of anything. They were simply paranoid.

Likes:
- Cool story idea, really suspensful
- Graphic, the part towards the...more As with The Ruins this is a hard book to put down. The story starts off right away and forces you to keep reading unill the very end. I like how this author tells stories, noone is safe. Main characters can die halfway thru the book. There's no happily ever after. And Paranoia will Distroy yaaa! There really was no evidence against Hank and Sarah and no one ever really suspected them of anything. They were simply paranoid.

Likes:
- Cool story idea, really suspensful
- Graphic, the part towards the end at the conviencene store. Pretty brutal...a machete, carotid artery, 5 ft tower of wine bottles and a can of olives!! Pure Awesome.
- I liked how Sarah was part of the plan and truly wanted to keep the money, instead of having the wife be the goody-two shoes party pooper.
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Dislikes:
- The very end. I never could understand burning the money. If you burn it you STILL stole it. But now you don't have anything. Seems silly. The logic doesn't make since to me.
- The baby. I don't get what Amanda had to do with anything. She cried a lot, I kept thinking this was going to lead somewhere.
- The serial numbers written down, Seriously?? So you're telling me that theres a "list" out there with 5000 serial numbers on it and every single bank has some poor bastard that references the list of serial numbers to all the $100 bills that come thru the bank every single day, and if one bill happens to match then what, some booger picking bank teller is like I found one and calls the FBI and then they find out how that bill got to the bank and BINGO! Busted!! Who is going to fund this project, paying someone at every single bank in the world to look and serial numbers. AD592755812G...I094488714M....Ugghhhh...oh yeah 90% of the bills arent' on the "list", and you killed 9 people for the money but let's burn it. Two words MONEY LAUNDARY. The mob and the government have been doin it for years.
- I don't know what Ohio is like, but are $100 bills really that special. Special enough that when you spend one you have to tell the store employee a story of how you obtained such $100 bill.

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Feb 19, 2013 Gabriel Orlet rated it 5 of 5 stars

An incredibly readable page-turner that packs as much literary significance and insight into a couple hundred pages as any book I've ever read. I have never been more drawn in by the characters and their thoughts and actions as I have when reading this book. The author does fantastic work in setting up a story that sneaks up on you with its suspense, but it certainly is also a provocative and terrifying look into the extraordinary things that ordinary people will do in troubling circumstances. S...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: suspense-thriller, crime-noir

I was in the mood to read a good bestseller-y sort of book, a page-turner sort of thing that would be entertaining but not leave me feeling used by the end. A Simple Plan, Scott Smith’s 1993 novel, procured from Bookmooch, did the job nicely. (Thanks, Bookmooch.) I’d seen the 1998 movie version back when it came out and enjoyed it, as I’ve always loved stories about ordinary folk who find a big pile of money - that universal fantasy - and the inevitable downward spiral of greed, broken relations...more

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May 18, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 21, 2010 Waven rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, suspense

This book was infuriating. I almost stopped reading three or four times. The characters were unintelligent and largely uninteresting. The plot was predictable. I thought I had wasted hours reading a humdrum book about mediocre morons in Ohio ... until the very end. Then it all coalesced into a clever and piercing testament to human nature. If I find a book disappointing, it's often because I expect more than it delivers. This one disappointed me so long because I didn't expect enough . I took it...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Deb rated it 4 of 5 stars

I always like a good suspense read, and am rather picky when I read these type of books. I want to be bothered by them, I want them to creep me out. I can say that I would read anything by Scott Smith, any day, so get writing Mr Smith!
I first read The Ruins a few months ago, this book was very different from that one. This book was almost a comedy of errors with these characters, one horrific thing after another. Oh no, is he going to....? Oh no, ....he didn't?! You could almost see everything...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars

My goodness. That's my reaction to this book. What a crazy read.

Scott Smith has created in this novel one of the most hateful characters I've ever come across in fiction in Hank Mitchell. The only one who writes characters I loathe more is Chuck Palahniuk. But what Smith does here that makes Hank Mitchell different than any of Palahniuk's characters, is he gives Hank depth. While I find many of Palahniuk's characters to be evil, moral-less souls, I also find them to be flat and one-dimensional,...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-10, mystery-thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Two brothers, Hank and Jacob, who aren't really close, are together for their annual duty: visiting of their parent's grave site. Jacob's friend, Lou, and Jacob's dog is there as well. On the drive there, a fox crosses in front on the truck, the truck breaks hard, and the dog is off to chase the fox. All 3 men end up going into the forest, with snow all around, to go after the dog and happen upon a downed plane, a plane with a dead pilot and $4.4 million. The men initially agree to keep the mone...more

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Dec 30, 2009 Stacy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Hank Mitchell is the epitome of everything despicable about human nature. It was a little disconcerting to be inside his head the whole time, especially since he's convinced, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he's a good man.

Hank, along with his brother and his brother's best friend, find a plane crashed in the woods. There's money on the plane...lots and lots of money. Of course they decide against turning it in, and even without all the foreshadowing Smith provides, it's obvious this...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I don't think I have ever had as mixed feelings about a book as I had for A Simple Plan! On one hand, this was an extremely riveting read. From about page 15 (the opening was a bit slow) through the novel's final sentence, I was completely hooked.

A Simple Plan truly put me through the emotional wringer. For me (and most people, I think), reading is usually a quiet and contemplative experience. Not so, here. At numerous points in the book, I found myself gasping, moaning, groaning, and at times...more I don't think I have ever had as mixed feelings about a book as I had for A Simple Plan! On one hand, this was an extremely riveting read. From about page 15 (the opening was a bit slow) through the novel's final sentence, I was completely hooked.

A Simple Plan truly put me through the emotional wringer. For me (and most people, I think), reading is usually a quiet and contemplative experience. Not so, here. At numerous points in the book, I found myself gasping, moaning, groaning, and at times even loudly scolding / berating the characters in this novel for the incredibly stupid and/or despicable things they had done.

Smith's writing style is simple and fast-paced, but with a surprising attention to detail. Many of the things I DIDN'T want described to me: (i.e. dead bodies and how they died) were etched into my brain with the precision of a chisel and the mercilessness of a sledgehammer.

On the other hand . . .

This was probably the most upsetting book I have ever read in my entire life! It doesn't take very long for the "mild mannered accountant" narrator to go from an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances to a highly unsympathetic and frightening sociopath. Because I would probably cross state lines to get away from a person like this, spending over 400 pages with him felt like sheer torture. As his rationales for committing YET ANOTHER murder become more and more tenuous, I began to wonder whether Hank was going to reach through the book and kill ME for the money!

I truly understood the story's theme, which, in itself, was not exactly novel. We have seen it before in countless tales, most notably Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies. And yet, while I do believe that ordinary (otherwise good-hearted) people can be driven by greed, fear or peer pressure to do awful things, this book took the concept to an unbelieveable extreme.

From the point at which he went back to the crashed plane to "return some (but not most) of the money, in case someone came looking for it" Hank had lost me as a sympathizer. It just seemed like a really stupid thing to do. Why not just launder the money? Isn't that what most crooks do in this day and age with ill gotten gains?

As I disagreed with his initial step, I found it hard to justify Hank's actions as being a necessary consequence of circumstance. And as the body count rose, I grew to hate the narrator more and more . . .

This culminated in the absolutely ridiculously senseless, unbearably cruel, and disgustingly graphic murder of a dog, which had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the plot! Animal lovers beware! This scene seemed to be added by the author for pure shock value and, in my opinion, it was completely unnecessary and just plain wrong!

A Simple Plan is definitely not for the faint of heart. But if you go into it knowing somewhat what to expect (I didn't), and can stomach the gore and awfulness of it all, it is storytelling at its best . . .(less)

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Mar 21, 2013 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Stupid people.

Recommended to Jennifer by: Stupid people.

I am selling this turd back to the used bookstore I got it from--pronto.

*SPOILERS*

I will cut right to it. This is a book with an interesting idea, fascinating plot, but is ruined by characters who are loathesome, less sympathetic than any I have read in my life, and who do absolutely nothing believable. And not only that but I don't believe that any of these crimes could be played out and go over without a hitch the way we are supposed to believe they did, so even from a technical standpoint I...more I am selling this turd back to the used bookstore I got it from--pronto.

*SPOILERS*

I will cut right to it. This is a book with an interesting idea, fascinating plot, but is ruined by characters who are loathesome, less sympathetic than any I have read in my life, and who do absolutely nothing believable. And not only that but I don't believe that any of these crimes could be played out and go over without a hitch the way we are supposed to believe they did, so even from a technical standpoint I don't know how anyone could possibly buy into this garbage.

I keep seeing reviewers stating things about a "slipperly slope" and this is a look at our dark side. No, this does not depict anyone on a slippery slope, or someone who is shocked by their own actions when put in a bad situation. It's not even about a nice, regular guy who gets forced into doing heinous things and is tortured with guilt or emotion. It depicts someone who is supposedly normal and average who leaps head first into being completely inhuman with zero remorse, zero emotion, zero conscience, zero regret. There is no subtle build up, no progression into evil, it's just simply a normal guy who finds money and immediately turns into a serial murderer at the drop of the hat and then is like "huh, I am a killer now. Oh well."

I realize money does weird things to people but this guy and his wife's reactions and actions are not believable on any level--while sure, maybe there are some people who might--MIGHT--do some of the things these two do, I do not believe for one moment that there would ever be two "normal" people on earth who would do what these two did over this money. I get that there have been many deadly duos in real life, don't get me wrong, but not like this. It's as though two sociopaths were simply waiting to be unleashed when the right circumstances came along. And the way the guy talks about his pregnant wife and even the baby before and after it's born...it was enough to make my stomach turn. But not too much because the wife is even crazier than he is.

Then there is the whole segment where he describes in great detail how he could kill his infant and then his wife (oookay, as if the book weren't already atrocious enough we get to read that). And then there is the other segment in which he brutally and slowly kills a dog and buries in like one inch deep--oh, after having kept it tied to a tree for weeks with rotting sores all over its body out in the snow. YAY for even more beyond inhumane actions. And then the wife cooing "Bye bye, doggie! Bye bye..." to the baby when the husband takes it out to kill it. WTF, really?

I have never read a book and felt SO unattached to the characters nor have I read a book and felt the characters were so utterly absurdly written that I couldn't believe a thing they did and could not have cared less about their fate--well, that's not true...I wanted them to die. There is no one to root for in the book. Only after Jacob and Lou are killed do we even realize that THEY were the most likable people in the story...which ain't sayin' much.

Speaking of sociopaths, I think the author might be one! As to the hundreds of glowing reviews...I don't know what to say except how sad it is that there are so many stupid people in the world. And how incredibly lucky the author is that so many dumb people found this to be "amazing." Birdcage liner...right here. (less)

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Dec 17, 2009 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

A few years back I watched the 1998 movie based on this novel, and loved it to pieces: it's the most wonderful noir tragicomedy, eliciting bleak laughter at the same time as a profound sorrow at the way potential human destiny and dreams are forever thwarted by human stupidity. So, although I picked up my copy of the novel a while ago, I fought somewhat shy of actually reading it in case I found it a let-down.

Not so: it's wonderful. And here, too, we have one of those very rare instances where,...more

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May 15, 2013 Prakriti rated it 2 of 5 stars

Quite disappointed by this book. Disappointed because
1. It came highly rated,
2. It began beautifully.

Eventually though, it is not as much a simple plan as a simplistic one. The author has worked quite a bit at fleshing out thoughts, scenarios but once you realise the utter sham the story is, one loses interest. Every twist in this caper comes from a cringing stupidity showcased by one of the characters. Imagine that for a minute. Writing a thriller, and making every twist come from a stupidity...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Grant Gougler rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've never said this before, but I think the movie was better than the book. The movie was also written by Smith, but instead of an adaptation it's more like an additional draft with fewer scenes. A lot of the scenes that were lost were good, but the stuff towards the end of the book kind of dragged down what was otherwise a page-turner. So it was just as well that it didn't make it to the movie.

Without giving anything away I just didn't sympathize with the main character in the book the way I...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Tammy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-reader, dark-fiction

This book really messed with my mind. Crazy good storytelling. I have watched the movie and was worried that I would find the book boring. The book has twists not in the movie and the characterization was gripping. I haven't been this sucked in by a murderer's mind since reading McTeague and Jim Thompson's work.

I highly recommend.

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Sep 02, 2009 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first of two novels by Scott Smith (the other being "The Ruins"), which was eventually made into a movie starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridgett Fonda.

The story line can be briefly summarized by the old adage, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave...". What starts out as a "simple plan" soon becomes not so simple.

This was a fascinating character study - a look at how money affects people and the way they think. The book was a real page-turner, and at times even made me uncomfortabl...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Der-shing rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: annoying, mystery, horror

What a terrible book. None of the characters acted believably. Not one. Smith actually expects me to believe that a straight laced white-collar man with a pregnant wife is going to trust a secret of such a huge magnitude to two people he dislikes and barely knows? Or that he wouldn't think of the larger ramifications of his actions or the drawbacks to the plan or the intelligence of any of the larger justice agencies? You eventually wind up rooting for the blatantly unsympathetic characters, whi...more

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