The Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (August 2013 Group Read)

[Jeshu]

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new -partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades--with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems.

**Please remember to hide your spoilers using the < spoiler > ... < /spoiler > codes**

Enjoy your reading! We're looking forward to discuss ;)

[Garrett]

I loved this book! After I read Mystic River, I returned to B&N to find the saleswoman who had introduced me to the works of Lehane.

Shutter Island had just been out a few months at that time, and she couldn't wait to tell people about it. Trouble is, it's hard to do so without spoilers. She did let it slip that the book had really surprised her.

I read the book looking for surprises, and was still surprised.

The book is brooding, like all Denise Lehane books, but the pace is breakneck.

It's a book that I would read again, just to dissect how it was done.

I can't wait until more people join this thread, so we can talk about the book.

Cynthia (the Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

[Jeshu]

I'm so glad that you liked it! Unfortuntely, I couldn't read this one this month, but I hope someone else does so you can tell us more about it!

I've never read anything by these author as I'm not into the thriller genre, but it's always nice to have recommendations ;)

[Garrett]

You would love Denise Lehane. He is a craftsman working in words.

His first books were a detective series with a male and female lead. Then he wrote Mystic River, which was literary fiction. Only to surprise us again with Shutter Island, a thriller.

If you like historically based literary fiction, you would really enjoy The Given Day set in Boston at the end of WWI during the police strike and the influenza outbreak.

I haven't mentioned all of his work, but suffice it to say his range is excellent. Hope you get a chance to read something of his someday.

[Lavender]

Garrett wrote: "I loved this book! After I read Mystic River, I returned to B&N to find the saleswoman who had introduced me to the works of Lehane.

Shutter Island had just been out a few months at that time, an..."

Excellent book! I sat up and read this in a night I wsa so enthralled. I loved the creepy setting and I felt very anxious for the two main characters. I don't want to say too much about this story as it is so easy to spoil it for others but just have to say that it kept me gripped and surprised right up until the end.

[Maggie the Muskoka Library Mouse]

SUCH a wonderful twist at the end!