Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (audio)
Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island is a creepy novel about a U.S. Marshal with a tragic past who saw dark sides of humanity that many have never seen. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is a former intelligence officer during WWII called to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane to find a patient who has gone missing even though she was locked behind doors.
Chuck Aule is Teddy's partner on this escapade, and they scour the island looking for the missing patient, who has left them a code to crack -- the Law of 4. The code is simplistic and easily cracked by Teddy, who believes he's stumbled upon island of horrors in which doctors experiment on patients much like the Nazis and Soviets did during the war.
Lehane's narrative gets a little bogged down in inane details about the origins of names and other details that are extraneous. However, his descriptions of the island, the patients, and the water are vivid. Characters from orderlies to doctors and patients are unique and easily discernible from one another, which is a testament to Lehane's skill as a writer. The characters could have easily been similar or stereotypical for a mental-prison hospital.
However, readers may find that they've heard this story before, that there are too many clues left for the reader to unravel the mystery long before the main character, Teddy Daniels. The narrator, Tom Stechschulte does an excellent job changing his voice for each character and reacting to the fast moving dialogue. Overall, Shutter Island is an entertaining mystery with a twist that may not be as surprising as expected.
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Please stop by the next stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour at Bermudaonion and 32 Poems Blog.
This is my 28th book for the 2010 New Authors Challenge.
This is my 7th book for the 2010 Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge.