May/10

The Walk

5 Comments · Posted by admin in Active Senior Living

The Walk

“Can books be better than TV? You bet they can — when Lee Goldberg’s writing them. Get aboard now for a thrill ride,” Lee Child

“Lee Goldberg can plot and write with the best of them,” Mystery Scene Magazine

It’s one minute after the Big One. Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.

Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He’s prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do … that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.

All he has to

Rating: (out of 35 reviews)

List Price: $ 1.99

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Video Rating: 0 / 5

better than tv · far edge · lee child · lee goldberg · mystery scene · network executive · new tv show · thrill ride · Walk · walking shoes · wife beth

5 comments

M. C. Love · May 15, 2010 at 8:03 am

Review by M. C. Love for The Walk
Rating:
I just finished this book – and for the most part I truly enjoyed it. The final catastrophe on the bridge was a bit over the top. But everything else was very believable and possible. It sure makes you think – about yourself and what you might do – and how you might act/respond. It was refreshing that the “hero” is more like a real person – instead of a “do-gooder” for the sake of doing good. I recommend this book for you to read – the only reason it is a 4 star (instead of 5) is the bridge episode.
Joanne Harris · May 15, 2010 at 8:49 am

Review by Joanne Harris for The Walk
Rating:
This book did live up to all of the great reviews. I absolutely loved the combination of the apocalyptic story line mixed with the humanistic qualities of the characters. I love any book where I am surprised, and left to think about the book, and this book did that. It was not too over the top gory, which it could have been and I think takes away from a story sometimes, but just horrific enough to really give me goosebumps. It was like a horror movie from the seventies in that it left something up to the imagination. I got slightly bored with some of the description of the LA area, but that is just me.I will recommend this book, and look forward to other books from this author.
Alice · May 15, 2010 at 9:30 am

Review by Alice for The Walk
Rating:
I would have given this book 4 stars but for one thing. The last obstacle that the protagonist faces was just too much (I don’t want to spoil it). The author lost me right before the end of the book. Not that everything that happened before that in the book was believable, but the author convinced me it was believable in the way it was written. But that last one …

Otherwise, the book was very compelling. I wanted to keep reading. As others have stated, the hero was flawed but you grow to care about his fate. Some of the conversations were very stilted and formulaic, but then you realize that those conversations were take-offs on bad TV or film premises and the author quickly disabuses you of any notion that the language was meant to be realistic.

There is a great deal of good humor mixed in with the high drama of the premise. I got stared at on the plane yesterday when I laughed out loud during the depiction of a dream/nightmare in which the protagonist was interacting with characters in disaster movies – one particular line about Anne Heche in Volcano set me off. The author manages to nicely mesh the drama and the humor.

I really did enjoy the book, but I thought it jumped the shark with the last crisis the hero faced. Even though the book often lampooned disaster movies and such, it wasn’t in itself a lampoon so it just didn’t seem to fit.
Gina K · May 15, 2010 at 10:23 am

Review by Gina K for The Walk
Rating:
Martin Slack, tv exec, is having a really bad day in LA. He wakes up under his crushed Mercedes to see the tv studio he had been visiting turned to rubble with all his employees dead or dazed. The BIG ONE has finally hit and all is broken glass and blood. Determined to control his fate, he picks himself up, stuffs his studio bag with survival goodies and goes forward to walk the long walk home to his wife, Beth. Flashbacks to Marty’s past tell us about his “safe” life, lost ambitions, pride and faltering marriage. Still he soldiers on, determined not to be side-tracked by the misery around him. A woman trapped in car, bleeding to death, tells him of her daughter and he ends up with the kid’s picture. All is seeming to be on track until he meets Buck, the private investigator, who is everything Marty is not. Buck carries a gun, has no manners, sticks his nose in other folks’ business, tries to right the wrongs, takes risks and, like a bad penny, can not be gotten rid of. Together, on and off, these two guys survive more disasters than filmed by Hollywood. All of Marty’s pretense and assumptions about life are challenged. I could not put this book down, even though as some have noted it was “over-the-top.” Yes, all the destruction could be true, the human elements are right on. The ending, well, a bit hard to believe, but this is really about the journey and about Marty becoming the hero he had always wanted to be. A “wow” story.
V. Block · May 15, 2010 at 10:53 am

Review by V. Block for The Walk
Rating:
Marty Slack is your perfect everyman. He knows what a schmuck he is, and still manages (mostly) to do the right thing. While this isn’t the greatest novel of the year, it is one of the best stories I’ve read in a long time. Definitely download the sample of this book.