Cheap Mystery (Book) (Peter Straub) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mystery

The Blue Rose scenario prevails through this book and is once again resurrected in "The Throat." Trying to figure out who Blue Rose really is turns out to be quite a chore for Tom and his new found friend, Lamont von Heilitz. There are plenty of interesting secondary characters, a pretty vile grandfather, and assorted villains and heroes.

"Mystery" is well constructed and maintains interest a little better than its predecessor, "Koko." With "The Throat," Straub finally hits his mark and makes the trilogy a worthwhile, if difficult, journey.

I Know What You Are...
Every once in a while you read a book that absolutly floors you. Mystery, the second book in Peter Straub's Blue Rose trilogy, does just that. It starts out with an excellent opening, a near death experience to the book's main charechter Tom Passomre, and takes off. Tom comes out of this experience with a strange fascination for death and murder and is confronted by an old man named Lamont who shares his obsession. Together they begin to investigat two murders, one past and one present. What follows is an excellent tale of suspense, deceit, and of course murder.

What makes this novel work so well is how intimatlly Straub understands his charechters. He's not satisfied to leave this excellent story with card board cut out charechters. Instead he breathes life into it and before long they are no longer just people on a page. Instead they are old friends who you come to know very intimatley. For me the main thing that makes charechters work in a novel is dialougue and Straub has no problem with this. He makes every word and emotion believable. He engulfs you into these people's lives and you genuinlly care about everything that happens to them.

I don't dare to give away the end but let me say it will certainly come as a shock to even the most experienced readers of mystery novels. With this book Straub has catapulted himself to the top of my list of favorite author. Here's hoping for many more years of excellent writing just like this from one of today's best but least known authors.

Blue Rose part 2
Tom Pasmore is the central focus in Peter Straub's second Blue Rose book, "Mystery". It is just that; a very multi-layered intricate murder mystery surrounding a family on a small island in the Caribbean. During the middle 1960s, 17-year-old Tom is very curious about the murder of a woman who is rumored to be a local politcian's mistress. After that, he is approached by local excentric Lamont von Heilitz to help with the murder of Tom's own sister years before. Soon afterward Tom is sent to Wisconsin by his grandfather and begins investigating a murder up there many years before. Without giving too much away, all these murders are connected. This was a great book, even though I read "The Throat" first by mistake and already knew what the outcome was. But that hardly mattered; it was the details that was so fascinating. Tom Pasmore and Lamont von Heilitz (who is claimed to be the basis for 'The Shadow', the popular radio show at that time) seem very well drawn out, and I liked them both a lot. The only down point is the other characters, they are very one dimentional and shallow. But that is okay. The story and murders are very interesting, it will keep you turning the pages until the very end.