|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 5 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 An excellent debut novel from Roger Meadows May 18, 2006
By Shirley Branden
One dubious choice sends Matthew Cross into a tailspin in this suspenseful novel, which takes its name from the guessing game called Hangman. Roger Meadows keeps the reader guessing as the protagonist's choice causes one complication after another. One by one, family and friends affected by Cross's action are introduced into the mix, with Meadows drawing from his own experience in international business and travel to create vivid description and crisp dialogue.
The complex situation in which Matthew Cross finds himself allows both soul-searching and dramatic action. The novel answers the question, what is important in life?--but Meadows doesn't moralize; he allows his narrator and man of action, Matthew Cross, to solve his own problems and the reader to draw his own conclusions. The pressure is on with danger, suspense, and intrigue and with surprises for the reader up to the very end.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 A solid debut. May 14, 2006
By Vicky Hunnings
A timely premise. Matthew Cross is a career man with a secure future who is looking forward to retiring comfortably until his company suddenly collapses and leaves him without a job or pension. Matthew has always thought of himself as a man with high moral principles. But he wonders if he really knows himself as he struggles with a discovery that could change the rest of his life.
Once he slips, there's no turning back as his friends are attacked, he's thrown into a world of money laundering and deceit. As he winds his way from the Bahamas to the southeastern coast, you'll find yourself rooting for this man who just longs to return to the safety and security of the life he once knew. Thought provoking with well-fleshed characters. A very believable plot with lots of action.
Vicky Hunnings
A true pageturner Aug 11, 2006
By Donald I. Quigg
"Don Quigg"
Roger Meadows delibvers an incredibly powerful tale that drags the reader from page to page as the twists, turns, and Hangman characters slip and slide through this fast paced adventure. A wonderful well written read.
A page turner! May 23, 2006
By Armchair Interviews
What happens to a normal, truth-telling, morally correct, down-on-his-luck person when he finds seven million reasons to change? Imagine being in the mountains for a short camping trip and stumbling across a downed plane with two large duffel bags full of money. What would you do?
Matt Cross does just that--and then the games begin. The normal questions arise: Who should I tell? Should I report the plane? What should I do with all this money? His whirlwind few months have him going overseas to consult with an old friend/former co-worker and visiting his daughter who is taking fashion design courses in Italy.
Upon returning to his home in Tennessee, he comes to terms with having this money and begins planning to make sure it disappears from his life.
As the mystery unfolds, the intrigue comes from the point of delivering the money to an offshore account in the Bahamas--and everything that happens from the time of his return.
At first, I felt the story was moving kind of slow--finding the money, visiting with friends and involving them in a round about way, and then going to the Bahamas to stash the cash. From his return to the end, I had to keep reading to know what happened to Mr. Cross and his string of friends, people who know something but not all the details.
I couldn't put the book down and had to read straight through for five hours to get to the end. You find yourself rooting for Matthew to make it through without much harm to him or his friends. I wanted to know that there was a happy-ever-after ending. But is there really a happy ending?
Armchair Interviews says: Read Hangman, A Deadly Game and find out. A very interesting book about a deadly game played with someone else's money.
The Work of a Wordsmith May 18, 2006
By Mark D. Meadows
As a retired academic librarian, I still read a range of novels each year, whose worth scatters them across that wide scale from Trash to Trollope. Happily, HANGMAN belongs far to the Trollope end of the array. I was arrested immediately by the author's craft as a wordsmith. He demonstrates knowledge of the English language, grammar, and syntax, and the talent to use them compellingly, which many modern writers lack. In the opening pages, before forcing myself to forge on steadily, I kept stopping to re-read certain passages, simply to revel in the good writing. Throughout the book, the reader finds gems to delight him, such as, "I . . . ran my three-mile route before the gathering clouds reached a quorum."
The plot of HANGMAN and the characters are believable and well developed. Meadows has surprising knowledge in many fields: world geography, travel, international banking, wines, foods, operating yachts and sailboats-and the art of love. His dialogue is natural and plausible, his expertise lending credibility. He avoids that mire of mediocrity, where flounder many who substitute vulgarity for skill-but then, he does not have to. The author has keen descriptive powers and draws sharp pictures of locales, natural phenomena, and people.
The book has a beautiful and artistically designed cover. This oversize, quality paperback is printed in a legible typeface that is a pleasure on the eyes.
Matthew Cross is a middle-aged widower with a grown son and daughter. He is at the low ebb of a life cycle, mourning his wife and without job or pension plan after the collapse of the high-tech company that employed him. With money running out and no hope of employment, the upright Cross stumbles upon an awful enticement which seems the answer to all his problems. The reader empathizes with Cross as he struggles with temptation, succumbing slowly. What would each of us have done?
I envy the ingenuity of Matthew Cross as he forms intricate plans that would seem to account for every eventuality and avoid all conceivable problems. Yet the admonition of Burns proves true again: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley." The structure of the novel entices us into a safe complicity with Cross, and we are as horrified as he is when things begin to go wrong. During the last third of the novel, I nearly needed oxygen, forgetting to breathe, and did need a handkerchief when tears blurred the words.
|
| | |
|
|
