Riptide - Hardcover

Coulter, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399146164 ISBN 13: 9780399146169

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2000

Synopsis

Receiving a letter that threatens the governor and damages her own reputation, political speechwriter Jessie Matlock finds herself on her own when the police refuse to believe her and declare her a suspect instead. 350,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Rebecca Matlock is in the thick of politics, enjoying her work as a speechwriter for the governor of New York, who's facing a reelection campaign. What she's not enjoying are the menacing phone calls from a stranger who refers to himself as "your boyfriend" and warns her that he will kill the governor if she doesn't stop sleeping with him. Although Becca has never had a sexual relationship with her boss, she is increasingly frightened by the phone calls. The police, who were initially sympathetic to her plight, make it clear that they regard her as a hysteric, even after the stalker murders an innocent bystander to convince her that he means business. Becca seeks refuge in Riptide, an isolated community on the Maine coast, but terror continues to dog her. The skeleton of a woman who may be the missing wife of a college friend is unearthed in the basement of her new house; the stalker tracks her to her chosen refuge; and she is sought by the police and the FBI following an assassination attempt on the governor.

With the appearance of Adam Carruthers, a stranger who says he's her guardian angel but doesn't tell her who sent him, the plot makes a dramatic right turn that requires a willing suspension of disbelief. It seems that Becca's father, a high-ranking intelligence officer, went underground when she was a baby in order to protect his family from reprisals by a Soviet agent whose wife he had accidentally killed. Now it's payback time, as Thomas Matlock calls in his own intelligence community to neutralize the threat on his daughter's life. All the attendant testosterone speeds up the action and propels it toward a shoot-'em-up conclusion, but it also sacrifices a clearer portrayal of Becca's feelings about her father's deception and abandonment. At the same time, the switch from a damsel-in-distress story to a high-velocity espionage thriller relegates the skeleton in Becca's basement to a secondary plot point that is resolved a bit too tidily. Catherine Coulter is short on character development and explication, but she weaves a suspenseful web of danger and intrigue, and for her many admirers, the fact that there seem to be two novels trying to coexist in one book may not be too much of a good thing. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Catherine Coulter is the author of the suspense novels The Cove, The Maze, The Target, and The Edge.

About this edition

• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0399146164
• ISBN 13: 9780399146169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384