Riptide

Riptide
by Catherine Coulter

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Book Summary Information

Author: Catherine Coulter
Reader: Laural Merlington
Edition: Audio Cassette
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Published: 2000-08-10
ISBN: 1567403638
Publisher: Brilliance Audio Unabridged

Book Reviews of Riptide

Book Review: Mere pulp fiction
Summary: 2 Stars

I went into this novel knowing little to nothing about Catherine Coulter and her FBI series. I do not know how this novel measures up to her previous works, but I can compare it to my personal expectations and have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed.

The novel began off very promising with the stalker calling the protagonist and even setting off a bomb to prove his control. However, the stalker pretty much disappeared after the narrator moves to the town Riptide. Instead of the antagonist, the author subjects us to painful, mindless characters whom we can care less about. I don't care about this FBI agent; I want to see more of the stalker. Basically, the author dragged out all of the wrong parts and brought them to the fore.

The writing was average. There was no figurative language or amazing revelations. The characters were developed somewhat, but not to a point in which I began caring about them, only to a point in which it was above the cheap romance novels one sees at grocery stores. The author also has a terrible tendency to use repetition... but not the good kind. "Suddenly without any warning" jumped out of the text at least four times. Very poor word choices on the author's part.

I simply couldn't finish this book. I have a whole list of what I would like to read next and this book was taking away that precious time from me.

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Summary of Riptide

With four back-to-back bestselling suspense thrillers to her credit, Catherine Coulter has earned an ever-growing following thanks to her vivid characters and satisfyingly unpredictable plots. Now Coulter delivers a novel predicated on a baffling threat, fueled by a hatred dating back a generation.

Political speechwriter Becca Matlock is at the top of her professional game, working for the re-election campaign of New York's popular governor, when she receives the first phone call: "Stop sleeping with the governor or I'll kill him." Although Becca isn't sleeping with the governor, the menacing ultimatums persist. The police suddenly stop believing her, even after the stalker murders an innocent person to prove his point.

When the governor is shot in the neck, Becca flees for the safety of coastal Maine, choosing to hide not only from the stalker but also from the authorities. For sanctuary, she goes to Riptide, the home of a college friend - where she soon finds herself at even greater risk. . .

Rebecca Matlock is in the thick of politics, enjoying her work as a speechwriter for the governor of New York, who's facing a reelection campaign. What she's not enjoying are the menacing phone calls from a stranger who refers to himself as "your boyfriend" and warns her that he will kill the governor if she doesn't stop sleeping with him. Although Becca has never had a sexual relationship with her boss, she is increasingly frightened by the phone calls. The police, who were initially sympathetic to her plight, make it clear that they regard her as a hysteric, even after the stalker murders an innocent bystander to convince her that he means business. Becca seeks refuge in Riptide, an isolated community on the Maine coast, but terror continues to dog her. The skeleton of a woman who may be the missing wife of a college friend is unearthed in the basement of her new house; the stalker tracks her to her chosen refuge; and she is sought by the police and the FBI following an assassination attempt on the governor.

With the appearance of Adam Carruthers, a stranger who says he's her guardian angel but doesn't tell her who sent him, the plot makes a dramatic right turn that requires a willing suspension of disbelief. It seems that Becca's father, a high-ranking intelligence officer, went underground when she was a baby in order to protect his family from reprisals by a Soviet agent whose wife he had accidentally killed. Now it's payback time, as Thomas Matlock calls in his own intelligence community to neutralize the threat on his daughter's life. All the attendant testosterone speeds up the action and propels it toward a shoot-'em-up conclusion, but it also sacrifices a clearer portrayal of Becca's feelings about her father's deception and abandonment. At the same time, the switch from a damsel-in-distress story to a high-velocity espionage thriller relegates the skeleton in Becca's basement to a secondary plot point that is resolved a bit too tidily. Catherine Coulter is short on character development and explication, but she weaves a suspenseful web of danger and intrigue, and for her many admirers, the fact that there seem to be two novels trying to coexist in one book may not be too much of a good thing. --Jane Adams

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