I had never read Baldacci before, but understand he writes crime/thriller type books. So I was interested to see what he did with a Christmas theme. Not a thriller.
The concept is interesting enough...man of a certain age takes a cross-country train to meet his girlfriend for a holiday in Lake Tahoe. He meets all sorts of people going to meet family, or not. The Amtrak staff made for awesome characters, and if someone will tell me right now that the cross country trains really have staff like that I will book my ticket right now. Then things start to disappear and the weather turns. All good stuff.
Except that I didn't find our hero to be all that likable and the plot really seemed to be about The One That Got Away.
(sigh)
The climax of the tale is our hero lying in the blizzard with his love waiting to die. Seriously. And I wouldn't want to spoil the punchline for you.
2 comments:
Hmmm, I have never read any of his either. This doesn't sound like a great one to start with. The cover is pretty though!
I read this (yikes!) nine years ago, and this is what I jotted down, which seems to be about what you thought of it, too
"This is a well-meaning little book, and interesting sometimes. But mostly it is a very lightweight story. The characters were not fully drawn; they were like actors on a stage- not real people. But there were some good parts, and though I thought of dropping it, I did continue to the end. A quick look at Christmas but with no real soul, no heart, nothing for the reader to hold on to."
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