THIRD DEGREE by Greg Iles
Greg Iles has written several novels that are among my all time favorites. He always has a way of creating a suspenseful situation and keeping the reader engrossed until the very last page is turned. TRUE EVIL, TURNING ANGEL and BLOOD MEMORY all did this, and they all involved characters who had their heroic moments. Now comes THIRD DEGREE, the latest Greg Iles thriller, and it is chock full of suspense BUT it doesn't have a single character you care about in the least.
Everyone involved in this story is an adulterer or a cheater in the business world. With so many character flaws the situation in which they find themselves is caused by their own foul actions. This inability to empathize with the lead characters makes this one of Iles' worst books and one that is a waste of time to read.
Laurel Shields and Danny McDavitt entered into an affair. They planned to leave their spouses and run off together, but when Danny tried to tell his wife Starlette she responded he would never get custody of his mentally challenged son. Faced with this possibility, Danny opted to stay in his marriage.
This left Laurel stuck in her marriage to Warren. Warren is a nice man but he is not the love of her life. Danny is. But now Warren has started acting strange and Laurel fears he has discovered she has been cheating on him. She knows she should take her children and run but where would she go?
Over the course of one day Laurel, Warren and Danny's worlds collide with horrifying results. By the end of the day it is anybody's guess as to who will survive. In the best case scenario their lives will never be the same as before.
Iles does his usual great job of keeping the suspense growing as each new event unfolds. He brings in one twist after another, all of them logical but all of them unexpected. Through his words you can experience the fear that engulfs the three main characters as the protective layers of their personalities and their lives fall away.
Still the blind lunacy of these people makes them less than heroic. Only Warren, the cheated upon spouse, manages to garner any sympathy at all. He has tons of problems on the home front and at work. Plus he has a secret problem that no one can know.
You will find yourself racing through the pages of another Greg Iles thriller but when the end arrives you wonder whether or not the effort to finish the book and learn the full story was worth the effort. And you wonder what the future will hold for these totally self-absorbed people.
THIRD DEGREE is published by Scribner. It contains 385 pages and sells for $25.95.