About this title: This compelling thriller about the horrifying consequences of an adulterous liaison inspired a 2005 movie starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston. A chance encounter on a commuter train between Charles, a married ad exec, and Lucinda, an equally married stockbroker, eventually leads to a rendezvous in a hotel room. Their tryst has an unexpected and shocking ending: a man invades the hotel room and robs them both, assaults Charles, rapes Lucinda, and then proceeds to blackmail Charles. When Charles finally resolves to put a stop to the harassment, he resorts to methods that only succeed in ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 02/2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 02/2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 02/2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 02/2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in good dust jacket. Very Good Condition with Light Dust Jacket Wear. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Mint condition-Satisfaction guaranteed. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780446613729ISBN:044661372X
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. F-some spine creasing. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 402 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780446613729ISBN:044661372X
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. F-some spine creasing. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 402 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780446531580ISBN:0446531588
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Nice hard cover, lightly read, slight shelf wear to dust jacket, stk #2511o8. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780446613729ISBN:044661372X
Description: Good. Spine is well creased. Covers show wear at the edges and corners. Good Grade C average reading copy. Binding is Mass Market Paperback. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
I saw the 2005 film version of Derailed a while back, and was unimpressed, to put it kindly. When a friend of mine lent me this novel a couple of months ago, I didn't put two and two together until reading the jacket copy. Of course, I assumed the book would be better, since they almost always are, and dove in anyway.
Charles Schine is an ad executive whose life is going along swimmingly until one fateful week when everything seems to go wrong. He loses the firm's biggest account, for one thing. But what really sends his life spiraling out of control is meeting a beautiful woman one morning when he misses the train. They're attracted to one another, despite both being married, but the stumbling beginnings of an affair are interrupted by a nasty mugging that turns into blackmail. But that's only the beginning...
While the book is most certainly better than the movie, it does break one of the main rules of thriller-writing; there are things that are obvious chance that get woven into the story as if they were planned by the bad guys. There's one painfully obvious place this happens close to the beginning, and it soured a lot of the book for me. Still, Siegel is a very good writer when he's not strangling the conventions of the genre in ways that many have tried and no one has succeeded. He book is well-paced and well-plotted, and the characters are much better drawn here than they are in the film version.
Even if you didn't like the movie, the book is worth checking out. Give it a shot. ***"
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