1138. "The Maze" by Nelson DeMille -- 4 Stars

 

The Maze by Nelson DeMille – 4 Stars

Publisher: Scribner

ISBN: 9781501101786

 Don’t you love DeMille’s wit? He is again at peak performance if this alone could captivate your interest for over 445 pages. But, for us, a good thing repeated constantly and so consistently for even 100 pages becomes too much. Then, when at 50%, John Corey has still not committed to a PI job and his girl friend Beth, yes, same Beth as Plum Island, continues to delay the reason why she wants him to take the job; the story begins to suffer with useless dialogue – same great wit, but at this point already dragging on. Well, there is no acceleration. You’re still waiting on the why he should take the job, then when he does, why he still doesn’t know the real reason why he is there. Good thing John Corey is so bright and has already discovered the whys. Yet, even that doesn’t speed up the story and his lingering around the Farmhouse, where he now works, is described in minute detail as was most things (way too much of this). For what reason we asked? By the time you get to 80-90% the story finally gets to what you already assumed and we still haven’t learned why the book is named “The Maze.” We’ll stop here and not spoil the ending with details. Let us just mention that Rich was so disappointed with the length of the book and the way delays were utilized when explanations earlier would have progressed the story forward faster without boring you – He started to skip pages half way through and never missed anything and never had to go back to read the missed pages. We liked the storyline and characters. Other readers might like everyday gossip and conversation to all depths and enjoy the book more than we did. DeMille still has good ideas. This one just dragged on.

 Reviewers: Rich and Nancy