Down River

A very well written book. The author is an American who was born in North Carolina . He has degrees in French, accounting and law, and worked as a banker, stockbroker and attorney before beginning his writing career.

This book is among the Richard &Judy's book club short listed books. And it is on the paperback chart for quite a while. I always judge the book by the cover. So this time I tried it for a change to see if it is better than others.

The story is taking place in a county near California. I am not sure if it can be classified as a thriller. But it certainly is a crime book. The whole story has been reveal by the main character Adam who tries to get to the bottom of a series of crime taking place in the county. It is based on the relationship between son and father who fell out twenty years ago because a crime happened in the county. Adam was convicted by his step mother for killing a boy. Although he was not sentenced, he had no choice but to leave the county. 20 years later, he came back and no one knows why he's back. He is back because of a call from his closed friend Danny. Grace , his old friend, was attacked. Danny's body has been found after a couple month of death. Danny's father suicide. In order to get to the bottom of this, he follows the clues and investigates. Eventually, he even found out the real criminal of 20 years ago.

It's very unpredictable and typical. The most likely suspect usually is not the criminal while as the shy and nice person who is less described is the criminal.

Read a bit about others' review on this book before I continue my review. It seems everyone has his own opinion about it. Anyway, it's difficult for my to say weather this book is well-written or not in terms of language, since English is not my first language. But the story is very interesting and absorbing. Perhaps I shall choose my book to read according to the chart in future.