Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 416
Duration: June 23-June 25
Description:
Two gorgeous widows go up against a nefarious multinational think tank in this airbrushed but goofily entertaining thriller by perennial bestseller Sheldon (The Sky Is Falling; Tell Me Your Dreams; etc.). Four scientists working for the New York–based Kingsley International Group have died or disappeared within 24 hours. Wolfish top boss Tanner Kingsley vows to find the perpetrator; meanwhile, stunning artist Diane Stevens, wife of a just-murdered KIG scientist, and supermodel Kelly Harris, whose husband has likewise been killed, find themselves under attack by mysterious strangers. Diane and Kelly form an uneasy alliance, though both spend most of their time ruminating on their wonderful (now dead) husbands: "I want to feel you stroking my breast.... I want to imagine that I can hear your voice saying that I make the best paella in the world...." The plot is straightforward: people are killed, women are in peril and an evil CEO (Tanner, gasp!) has a plot to take over the world. His technique involves controlling the weather, and in an intriguing short afterword, Sheldon explains the very real possibilities of just such a scenario. The on-the-lam ladies, Kelly and Diane, escape every assassination attempt with ridiculous ease, and other characters appear and disappear simply in order to get the author out of one plot pickle after another. Still, despite (or because of) Sheldon's blithe unconcern for logic and his just-add-water relationships, this is a breezily pleasing read.
Review:
So, I just read Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon, and I got a bit frustrated along the way. I'd never read any of his books, but I was bored at work on Friday so I went to the Denver Public Library Online to check out an e-book. I was browsing through the fiction and ran across this book. Since my mother-in-law likes him, I decided to give it a try. The book was pretty easy to read and intrigueing, but he trys to make a big point about the government controlling the weather. But I got lost in the small details that he seemed to just take for granted and now I find it hard to believe his "research." First, he made reference to Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. Since I work for TransUnion, another of the three, I know quite a lot about the business. He states in the book that the "bad guy" is able to go into Experian's database and get the characters bank account number, this is not possible, back account information is not reported to the bureaus. He then says that the "bad guy" cancels all the characters credit cards, this is also not possible, the credit card companies would have to do that. Experian just records the data that the credit card companies send in. Then he goes on to say that the "bad guy" does these same things for another character who has all her account in France, forgetting that Experian may have branchs all over the world, but the databases are kept completely separate. So that was the first thing that got me. Second, was the fact that one of the settings was Denver. That actually peeked my interest, but if you are going to have your setting be Denver, you might actually want to research Denver. Sheldon had an airplane flying into DIA, this plane was supposidly two miles away from the airport when it slammed into the side of the mountain. Hello.....there aren't any mountains within two miles of DIA.....maybe he should have had him flying into Aspen, then it would have been more believable. Then, one of the airport traffic controllers lives in a "nice stucco house, six miles from the airport." What? There is nothing for like nine miles. Hmm.....maybe he was thinking of Stapleton. :-) Also, this book was written in 2005, but Sheldon seemed to have forgotten all the 9-11 related airport policies. Okay, enough, I'm done. :-) I don't typically pick on books so much, but this one irked me a bit.
Pages: 416
Duration: June 23-June 25
Description:
Two gorgeous widows go up against a nefarious multinational think tank in this airbrushed but goofily entertaining thriller by perennial bestseller Sheldon (The Sky Is Falling; Tell Me Your Dreams; etc.). Four scientists working for the New York–based Kingsley International Group have died or disappeared within 24 hours. Wolfish top boss Tanner Kingsley vows to find the perpetrator; meanwhile, stunning artist Diane Stevens, wife of a just-murdered KIG scientist, and supermodel Kelly Harris, whose husband has likewise been killed, find themselves under attack by mysterious strangers. Diane and Kelly form an uneasy alliance, though both spend most of their time ruminating on their wonderful (now dead) husbands: "I want to feel you stroking my breast.... I want to imagine that I can hear your voice saying that I make the best paella in the world...." The plot is straightforward: people are killed, women are in peril and an evil CEO (Tanner, gasp!) has a plot to take over the world. His technique involves controlling the weather, and in an intriguing short afterword, Sheldon explains the very real possibilities of just such a scenario. The on-the-lam ladies, Kelly and Diane, escape every assassination attempt with ridiculous ease, and other characters appear and disappear simply in order to get the author out of one plot pickle after another. Still, despite (or because of) Sheldon's blithe unconcern for logic and his just-add-water relationships, this is a breezily pleasing read.
Review:
So, I just read Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon, and I got a bit frustrated along the way. I'd never read any of his books, but I was bored at work on Friday so I went to the Denver Public Library Online to check out an e-book. I was browsing through the fiction and ran across this book. Since my mother-in-law likes him, I decided to give it a try. The book was pretty easy to read and intrigueing, but he trys to make a big point about the government controlling the weather. But I got lost in the small details that he seemed to just take for granted and now I find it hard to believe his "research." First, he made reference to Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. Since I work for TransUnion, another of the three, I know quite a lot about the business. He states in the book that the "bad guy" is able to go into Experian's database and get the characters bank account number, this is not possible, back account information is not reported to the bureaus. He then says that the "bad guy" cancels all the characters credit cards, this is also not possible, the credit card companies would have to do that. Experian just records the data that the credit card companies send in. Then he goes on to say that the "bad guy" does these same things for another character who has all her account in France, forgetting that Experian may have branchs all over the world, but the databases are kept completely separate. So that was the first thing that got me. Second, was the fact that one of the settings was Denver. That actually peeked my interest, but if you are going to have your setting be Denver, you might actually want to research Denver. Sheldon had an airplane flying into DIA, this plane was supposidly two miles away from the airport when it slammed into the side of the mountain. Hello.....there aren't any mountains within two miles of DIA.....maybe he should have had him flying into Aspen, then it would have been more believable. Then, one of the airport traffic controllers lives in a "nice stucco house, six miles from the airport." What? There is nothing for like nine miles. Hmm.....maybe he was thinking of Stapleton. :-) Also, this book was written in 2005, but Sheldon seemed to have forgotten all the 9-11 related airport policies. Okay, enough, I'm done. :-) I don't typically pick on books so much, but this one irked me a bit.
posted by ~Jenn~ | 4:31 PM
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