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A Simple Plan

Scott Smith

3.92 · Rating details · 31,244 ratings · 1,385 reviews

Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane–the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan.

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Paperback, 432 pages

Published October 24th 2006 by Vintage (first published August 31st 1993)

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Jun 01, 2019 Justin rated it it was amazing

I finished A Simple Plan a few days ago, and here I am sitting at work, eating a Lara Bar on my lunch break, and I’m still thinking about it. I hope to watch the movie tonight so I can just get all of this Simple Plan stuff out of my system. The book, not the cheesy pop punk band.

The plan is simple, and the story itself is pretty simple, too. Two brothers and a friend find a wrecked plane with a whole bunch of money inside so they decide to take the money, wait six months, and then split it all ...more

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Nov 19, 2013 David Putnam rated it it was amazing

I'm sorry I thought that I'd written a review for this one. I loved this book and everything Smith writes. This is the story of how values and morals can devolve to the lowest levels of humanity when a great deal of money is involved. The writing craft is excellent. Smith starts off first by endearing the characters to the reader and then slowly step by step takes them down the wrong path. It is so masterfully done that I was cheering for them even when they were doing the most heinous acts. In ...more

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Dec 03, 2016 Arah-Lynda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: paperwhite, top, i-said

If a poll were taken, I wonder how many of us could confirm that they had passed tests of honesty. You know those little tests. A twenty dollar bill found laying about somewhere and you know who left it there, A found wallet, fat with cash or a purse left sitting on a display table while you were shopping.

I remember finding a twenty dollar bill laying in the ditch, when I was just a kid. Of course I gave it to my parents, not even fully aware yet of the real value of my find. I’m sure the If a poll were taken, I wonder how many of us could confirm that they had passed tests of honesty. You know those little tests. A twenty dollar bill found laying about somewhere and you know who left it there, A found wallet, fat with cash or a purse left sitting on a display table while you were shopping.

I remember finding a twenty dollar bill laying in the ditch, when I was just a kid. Of course I gave it to my parents, not even fully aware yet of the real value of my find. I’m sure they kept it, but much later in life an interoffice envelope ( remember those) was left in my mail slot, mine being the last name added. When I opened it I knew immediately that someone had inadvertently sent me the cash collected from a hockey pool. Hell I wasn’t even in it. There must have been somewhere over a hundred dollars in there. I wasn’t really sure who was collecting that week, but a couple of questions later and the die hard hockey fans steered me in the right direction and the envelope made its way back into the right hands.

But as I said these are little tests, how I wonder would I respond if the payoff was a lot bigger?

Well Hank Mitchell, his brother Jacob and Jacob’s friend Lou are given just that opportunity when they accidently come across a small aircraft that has crashed in the woods on the outskirts of their Ohio community. On further inspection they find a dead pilot and a duffle bag containing 4.4 million dollars. Snow is expected to fall over the next few hours effectively covering their tracks. They could take the money and no-one would be the wiser. As an added precaution they agree that they won’t spend any of it right away but instead wait and come spring, once the plane is discovered and after all the hullaballoo dies down they can split it equally and take off for parts unknown. If at any point they feel that they are at risk of being discovered they will simply burn the money. No harm no foul.

A simple plan right. What could possibly go wrong?

Scott Smith is here to answer that question and he does so brilliantly. The story is told through the perspective of Hank, the keeper of the cash. Can he trust Jacob and Lou who both drink too much and are out of work, to stick to the plan and keep the secret?

Through Hank’s narration the reader is privy not only to what happens next but also Hank’s mind set as time passes and doubts and anxieties increase among the principal party of three who by this time number five as Hank has told his wife and Lou his girlfriend.

Watching what plays out over the course of the next few weeks from the comfort of my armchair is like watching a train wreck. You simply cannot look away.

I’ll not say anymore. Trust me let Scott Smith tell you this story. He does so very well. ...more

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Jul 02, 2008 Kemper rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rednecks, favorites, 2014-reread, noir, crime-mystery

When it comes to Scott B. Smith it’s a good thing we got the quality because the quantity is on the low side with only The Ruins released since this one came out in 1993.

Hank Mitchell is a regular guy living in rural Ohio with his pregnant wife Sarah and a steady job as an accountant at a feed store. He isn’t close to his brother Jacob who is a high school dropout that spends most of his time drunk when not scrounging out a living. One of the few times they interact is their regular New Year’s When it comes to Scott B. Smith it’s a good thing we got the quality because the quantity is on the low side with only The Ruins released since this one came out in 1993.

Hank Mitchell is a regular guy living in rural Ohio with his pregnant wife Sarah and a steady job as an accountant at a feed store. He isn’t close to his brother Jacob who is a high school dropout that spends most of his time drunk when not scrounging out a living. One of the few times they interact is their regular New Year’s Eve visit to the graves of their parents. While taking care of this annual obligation they’re going to drop off Jacob’s drinking buddy Lou before heading to the cemetery when a freak accident leads the three men to the discovery of a small plane that has crashed in the snowy woods. Along with a dead pilot they find a bag with over four million dollars in it.

Hank’s first instinct is to turn in the money to the cops, but Lou and Jacob want to keep it. Tempted but worried that the two men will do something stupid to draw attention to them, Hank will only agree if he holds the cash until the plane is eventually discovered once the snow melts. If no one is looking for the money after the plane is found, they’ll split it up and go their separate ways.

Anybody think this is going to end well?

This is one of my favorite crime novels and a prime example of what I consider to be noir. What starts as the kind of decision that many (Most?) people would make is the first step towards suspicion and betrayal that finds Hank constantly reevaluating his relationship with his estranged brother. That’s about all I want to reveal to anyone who hasn’t read it, but if you like dark stories about the lengths seemingly ordinary people will go to when they see a chance to change their lives, give this one a try.

It was also turned into a very good movie adaptation with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton that has significant plot differences that make it a surprising watch even if you’ve read the book.

A few more thoughts for those who have read it. (view spoiler)[

• This and No Country For Old Men make the point that if you find a bag of money and want to keep it that you should never never never go back to the place where you found it.

• I’ve always thought it was effectively creepy how the pregnant Sarah becomes Hank’s Lady Macbeth, but they make the amateur criminal mistake of being just a little too cute with their crimes. Sarah’s idea of returning some money to the plane is clever, but returning to it causes the first murder. Killing Sonny as part of the stage setting for the murders of Lou and Nancy was completely unnecessary. The cops would have no trouble believing that a guy like Lou could shotgun his girlfriend in a drunken rage for any trivial reason. Trying to make it look like Sonny and Nancy were having an affair was an unnecessary risk that could have easily backfired.

• Speaking of that shotgun murder spree, I’ve read this three or four times, but I just realized that Smith made some critical errors with Hank's actions that should have got him caught. First, Hank called Sarah after Lou and Nancy were dead, and she comes up with the plan about involving Sonny. The story is that they dropped off Lou and were leaving when they heard the shooting. If the cops pulled the phone records (Which seems likely at the house of a quadruple murder.) they’d see that call to Sarah and have a good idea that Hank was lying. Also, gunshot residue tests that would be routinely administered in a situation like that would show that Lou hadn’t fired a gun but that Hank had been emptying a shotgun.

• I’d forgotten the part about Jacob’s dog. Hank really shows that he’s kind of an uncaring son-of-a-bitch under this regular fella persona when he leaves the poor animal alone in a garage nights and ties it to a tree during the day where it has nothing to do but sit in the cold and mud. He never considers that it’s not Jacob’s death but his own treatment that makes the dog mean, or of trying to find another home for it. The way he botched the shooting of it is also the most painful scene in the book for me. Yeah, I’m one of those people who can read about or watch a thousand people getting brutally murdered without batting an eye, but even fictional cruelty to animals makes me sick. (hide spoiler)] ...more

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Feb 26, 2014 Dan Schwent rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Hank and Jacob Mitchell and Jacob's friend Lloyd find a crashed plane in the woods. The pilot is dead but he has a duffel bag with 4.4 million dollars in it. The three men agree to sit on the money until they're sure no one is looking for it. But can they keep their mouthes shut? And what will happen when someone talks?

A Simple Plan is the story of three men in a difficult situation that quickly escalates into violence. The underlying theme seems to be how one lie inevitably leads to one more.

Th ...more

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Mar 15, 2014 Joe Valdez rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime

I love bookmarks. My favorites are color postcards, or airline boarding passes I hold onto. I have no problem using these to mark my place in a book and pick up with it the next day or the days after. The exception to this are books like A Simple Plan, the debut novel by Scott B. Smith that I stayed up until 3:05 a.m. on a Saturday night/ Sunday morning to finish. I had to. Published in 1993, its premise is not new and one that many have asked ourselves: If you found millions of dollars in cash, ...more

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Dec 18, 2010 Richard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: crime-mystery-thriller, small-town-secrets, favorites, essential-crime, noir-contemporary, essential-noir, re-read-list

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 08, 2013 Jeff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers-suspense-spys

If you found four million dollars, what choices would you make? Keep it?, Return it?

What if there were two others with you when you found it and you were always the odd man out in your little group, yet were suddenly handed over the controls? How would it change you? Are you up to the responsibility?

One of the other two people is your brother, but he’s weak and unreliable and the other is a gambler and a drunk. Can you trust them?

If you keep the money, how far would you go not to give it up? Wou ...more

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Jan 04, 2020 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it

Shelves: gangsters-floozies-and-creeps, novels

Yeah, baby. A step by step descent into a very private hell. Four stars from me. This was a hundred per cent better than most thrillers & crime fiction I ever read because it didn’t ask you to suspend any one tiny part of your disbelief, there were no outrageous circumstances, no floridly crazed villains, no coincidences, no corpse that did not follow on logically from the corpse before it. Scott Smith comes up with a felicitous phrase to describe what I mean on page 237:

It had the disorderly ve ...more

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Apr 05, 2019 Glenn Sumi rated it it was amazing

Scott B. Smith has written only two novels, published 13 years apart. I’ve given them both 5 stars.

He works within specific genres. His novel The Ruins is horror; this book is a crime thriller. And yet both books are so well-written, so smart and feature so much psychological depth that it does them a disservice to call them anything but great literature. He’s that rare literary writer who keeps you turning pages.

A Simple Plan has a simple premise. Three men – accountant Hank, his unemployed b ...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Maciek rated it really liked it

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 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." ...more

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Sep 28, 2008 Steve rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

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

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Mar 07, 2013 Jennifer rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: People I dislike.

Recommended to Jennifer by: Stupid people.

Shelves: would-throw-into-a-fire

I am selling this piece 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 I am selling this piece 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 people in the world who feel this is quality reading on any level. And how incredibly lucky the author is that so many people found this to be "amazing." Birdcage liner...right here. ...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Char rated it really liked it

I liked this book a lot!

It was very easy to identify with Hank, the protagonist of this story. Imagine that you and your two siblings find a bag full of money in a plane that crashed that no one has yet discovered. Would you keep it or not? That is the gist of this story.

Just think about how one simple lie in your life could spiral out of control...into more lies and things MUCH worse than that, even. That's exactly what happened here, It was very easy to take the next step with Hank, and then ...more

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Jul 23, 2019 j e w e l s rated it it was amazing

this is a good one!

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Jan 28, 2020 Stepheny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-books, favorites, most-excellent-audio, pantsless-platoon, reads-with-buddies, from-delee-to-me

When 3 men stumble upon a downed plane in the middle of a field, their lives are changed forever. Their fates decided and forever intertwined. For inside that plane lies a dead pilot and a duffle bag full of money. How much money? Approximately $4.5 million total.

What would you do? Turn it in? Call the police? Keep it?

Hank, his brother Jacob and his brother’s best friend Lou are faced with this dilemna. After counting the money on the side of the road and discussing it they formulate a plan- a When 3 men stumble upon a downed plane in the middle of a field, their lives are changed forever. Their fates decided and forever intertwined. For inside that plane lies a dead pilot and a duffle bag full of money. How much money? Approximately $4.5 million total.

What would you do? Turn it in? Call the police? Keep it?

Hank, his brother Jacob and his brother’s best friend Lou are faced with this dilemna. After counting the money on the side of the road and discussing it they formulate a plan- a simple one. Hank, the “reasonable accountant” will hold on to the money for 6 months. If nothing comes of the downed plane, or missing $4.5 million, they’ll split the money amongst themselves and go their separate ways.

But things are never that simple, are they?

After agreeing to not tell their significant others, Hank immediately tells his wife Sarah. Lou tells his as well. Jacob, the loner, has no one to share the secret with. Lou is a heavy drinker, has a bit of a gambling problem and a big mouth to boot. He mentions to another buddy that he’s coming into some money. The fear of being caught and the paranoia that follows lead to a whole new chain of events that none of them foresaw.

The saying is typically said incorrectly that money is the root of all evil. It’s the greed of money that is the root of evil. The desire to keep this money, the future it held for them all leads this group down a very dangerous and evil path. They make decisions before thinking through their options. They are ruthless and stop at nothing to protect their stake in the money.

It’s easy for me to sit in my relatively comfortable life to think that I could do the right thing. That I would see that bag full of money and call in to report it. But seeing all that money would probably trigger some deeply rooted longing in me. A longing stemmed from a childhood of growing up without all the new and flashy things my friends had. But the reality is we really don’t know what we would do if faced with this kind of money or what decisions we would make thereafter. This was a pantless buddy read with some great friends that had us all in heated(friendly heated, of course!) discussion. Exactly the type of book that makes reading with a group so much fun!

...more

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Mar 04, 2014 Richard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, thriller

9/10

Shit balls! Was this a good read or what?! This is one of those books where you genuinely can't stop reading and need to find out what is going on and how things are going to end. The best part about this book and the questions it poses are that its happening to regular folk who aren't all that dissimilar to yourself/people you know. How would you/they react in that situation.

If someone said to me, "you can find $4m with some friends but all you have to do is wait to spend it" I'd sign up st ...more

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Feb 02, 2020 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: bad-shit-and-atrocities, 2020, mystery-and-thrillers, ebook_kindle, reviewed

Another sans pantalon buddy read with the squad. Last summer we read The Ruins which I quite enjoyed, and so now, we're coming back to the beginning and reading Smith's first book. And OOF. It's a doozy.

If you have lived under a rock for the last 25 years or so, the premise here is that 3 guys find a plane with a whole lotta money in it, and instead of turning it in, decide to hold onto it for 6 months until they know whether anyone's looking for it or not. If not, they split it up and go their ...more

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Jan 20, 2020 Delee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pantless-group-read, mystery, books-i-have-read-more-than-once, group-or-buddy-read

Re-read with some pantsless folks!

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Apr 16, 2020 Jordaline Vulva rated it it was amazing

Holy shit. I am speechless.

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Oct 01, 2007 Matthew rated it really liked it

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 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.'" ...more

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Apr 21, 2008 Trudy rated it did not like it

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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Jan 23, 2020 Vivian rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: suspense, 2020-odyssey, buddy-read

Bad idea fairy runs amok.

This is the slippery slope of decision-making, from dumb to bad to worse to WTF?! It reads like a movie, not subtle and disturbing amount of detail on the dreadful minutiae of sad lives. It's entertaining if you like slow train wrecks. I won't remember it by next week.

So what have we all learned from this?
Drive your own car and meet up. ...more

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Mar 27, 2018 Bren rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: drama-tearjerker, family-drama, great-for-book-clubs, started-it-realized-had-read, thriller-horror, ohio, crime, dark-and-heavy, read-and-reviewed, suspense

“By doing one wrong thing, I thought I could make everything right.”
― Scott B. Smith, A Simple Plan

SPOILERS:

Well there is always that one person who just wonders what he or she missed..and with this book that person is me.

I am going against the grain here. I did not love it. Liked it..yes. Held my attention..yes. Was it well written and atmospheric? Yes. Was there a great moral message? Yes.But I did not find this book to be amazing or anything. I skimmed some reviews and there are others who f ...more

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Jul 24, 2020 Saurabh (सौरभ) rated it it was amazing

HOLY CRAP! THIS IS A MASTERPIECE!!

There's a bollywood film called "Ugly" and in it's trailer it says: "When the going gets desperate, the desperate gets...Ugly." And that implies so perfectly here... because It does get DESPERATE and it does get UGLY.

It's a classic tale of found treasure, greed, desperate measures and the spiral into murderous mayhem.

It was very intense and unnerving. Very unapologetic with the depictions of flawed human psyche. The characters so masterfully crafted and the atm ...more

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Apr 28, 2016 Horace Derwent rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

only when i'm reading this book, i agree with the author that he said every one is the same

but i always think that every single one is different

actually, the sam raimi's film is much crueler, just another mindfuck as well as the book ...more

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Sep 13, 2019 Marty Fried rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

On the cover is a quote from Stephen King: "Read this. It is better than any suspense novel since Silence of the Lambs."

I don't know if I agree with King's comment. Personally, I had mixed feelings about the book. The main characters were not very likeable, so it was hard to care what happened to them. I am pretty certain I would have reported everything and hope for an honest reward; but if Jacob and Lou insisted, I might be afraid to report it. In that case, I would get away as soon as possibl ...more

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Dec 15, 2018 Fahad Naeem rated it it was amazing

Shelves: thriller, fiction, 2018, mystery, self-help, favorites

If you haven't read it, you're not a fan of thrillers altogether. Read it next thing in the morning.

The finest literary piece. Well-controlled and put together. Expertly crafted that in the end, one can feel bad about Hank for not getting the money.

It was absorbing, engaging and thrilling. I hope everybody gets the lesson it tells i.e. Family comes first and money doesn't buy happiness. The end was beautiful and not what I had anticipated. Scott Smith had a little interest in violenc ...more

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Dec 18, 2013 Steven Godin rated it liked it

Shelves: america-canada, crime-fiction

Three golden rules when discovering a large amount of money in the wilderness,

Keep your mouth shut
Keep your mouth shut
Keep your mouth shut.

When will we ever learn?

Two brothers stumble upon $4.4 million in the smouldering wreck of a crashed plane. But make one doomed mistake. telling a wife of the discovery, this sets off a chain of events leading in only one direction, bad. A Simple Plan is a novel that slowly but surely grips, it unfolds with an inevitable and doomed spiral of events, through m ...more

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Jul 10, 2020 Carla Remy rated it really liked it

Very suspenseful and fun book. Because everyone finds murder rampages fun, right? Well, okay, not in real life.
Very full novel. Lots of morality and birds.

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Crime, Mysteries ...: 08) A Simple Plan (Feb 15)	10	56	Mar 08, 2021 07:19AM
Currently reading this	3	16	Dec 13, 2018 04:07PM
Other books like Coen Brothers movies	1	20	Apr 10, 2017 09:33PM
Around the Year i...: A Simple Plan, by Scott B. Smith	2	19	Oct 19, 2016 05:16AM
Why	1	26	Jan 31, 2016 01:28PM

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About Scott Smith

Scott Smith

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Scott Bechtel Smith is an American author and screenwriter. He has published two suspense novels, A Simple Plan and The Ruins, and adapted them for the screen.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

(from wikipedia) ...more