Riptide (An FBI Thriller)

Boy this book has everything. Great story of a girl and her supposedly dead father. He comes into her life when Becca is threatened by a crazy psychopath who is trying to kill her and him. Her father, Thomas sends Adam to protect her and it is a while before she gets any answers as to why. Which is just the start of murder and mayhem. I also loved that detectives Sherlock and Savich climbed on board for this mysterious case. I loved the book and can't wait to read the next book in this series. Bravo Catherine! This book is a real killer.

A great twisting and turning to keep you guessing. Just when you thin you have it figured out here comes another twist. Just. When it seemed like there was a conclusion the final twist takes place. I would recommend this book whom love fast paced action mysteries.

A stalker wouldn’t leave her alone. No matter where she lived. So she went to Maine and rented a big house, which she loved. He found her again but she had her dad’s best friend protecting here. This story has intrigue, the author keeps the reader guessing.

A stalker wouldn’t leave her alone. No matter where she lived. So she went to Maine and rented a big house, which she loved. He found her again but she had her dad’s best friend protecting here. This story has intrigue, the author keeps the reader guessing.

As usual I was not disappointed. I have read all of Ms. Coulter's FBI Series, and will continue to do so. She is accurate when writing about the FBI and that's important to me. She also has a sense of humor which shows up in her books in a subtle manner.

Good FBi mystery keeps your interest to the end.
Didn't need the details of the love story it didn't add anything. Could have been added without the love scenes.
As usual enjoyed Sherlock and Savage .
Becca is a strong young woman.
Overall it is,a good story.

The best thing about this book is its cover. That's honestly the most positive thing I can say about it.
What's bad about it? Well, let's start with the inane dialogue, which is so bad it would make a writer for the TV show "Hee Haw" blush with shame. Then let's move on to the sophomoric descriptions of the geek-turned-Arnold-Schwarzenegger - it's just one example of writing so bad I don't think even Harlequin would publish it.
And the plot ... well, it's just not believable, folks. I know you're supposed to suspend your disbelief when reading fiction, but this asks too much suspension of its readers.
In short, the lame plot, see-through characters and series of unrealistic events make this book a total waste of the reader's time.
This novel is the "Ishtar" of literature. Don't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

About a year ago, I read my first Catherine Coulter book. It was...less than decent. I figured maybe she had an "off book" and decided to give her another shot to win me over. I picked up Riptide. After this, I will NOT try a third Coulter novel.

Where should I be begin?

For starters, I find the main characters, Savich and Sherlock, very boring, plain and bland. They are husband and wife who work for the FBI--together. I doubt the FBI would have a husband and work wife together...but ok. His name is Dillon Savich. Her name is Lacey Sherlock-Savich. Yet, does she call her husband Dillon or Dill or sweetie? No, she calls her husband by his last name: Savich. And what does he call his wife? Honey, Lacey, Lace? Nope. He calls her Sherlock. Do YOU know any spouses who call each other by their last name? I sure don't. In addition to that, in one scene, Dillon Savich introduces himself to the Sheriff. Does he say, "Agent Savich? Dillon Savich, FBI?" No. He extends his hand and says simply, "Savich!" That tells the sheriff nothing. Interestingly even when other people are referring to them, they also just use their last names: "Sherlock called me..." No, most people would say `Agent Sherlock..." And why they would bring their newborn baby on a case, I have no idea.

The characters are boring, plain. I didn't care what happened to any of them. No feeling at all. I was hoping for a meteor to crash into Riptide, Maine and kill them all.

Perhaps the most annoying and unbelievable character is Becca. Becca is a 27 year old woman who works as a speechwriter for the Governor of New York. HOWEVER, she has the vocabulary and emotional range of an 8 year old. I had to look back to see if she was a small child: Perhaps the funniest and most outlandish scene is the following: Becca gets drugged and kidnapped by the bad guy. She wakes up and finds herself tied up in a bed, wrists above her head, wearing only a nightie, the bad guy breathing at her side. Okay, you figure here comes the rape scene. The bad guy begins to LICK HER FACE. And what does Becca say? 27 year old, grown woman, speech writer for the governor of New York state says, "Please stop, that's creepy." Creepy??? I'm not a 27 year old woman but I would think if a woman felt she was about to be raped she'd come up with something better than, "Please stop, that's creepy." Later, she tells a friend about what happened and describes the incident as "icky." Icky and creepy? For a 27 year old woman?

Not only did C. Coulter treat her like a child bit even other characters in the book did as well. At the end, when she and her fiancé get in a little "cutesy" lover's spat, he threatens to "wash her mouth out with soap."

Becca and Adam fall in love because...well, I have no idea why.

The dialogue is not only stupid and childish but completely unbelievable. I copied/pasted an example from another review:

"I know I'm not dead because I would kill for some water. And I don't believe that if someone is dead, she's particularly thirsty. May I please have some water?"

Also, in the book, people talk in paragraphs. Now, really, people don't talk that long uninterrupted.

In another outlandish scene, Savich, Sherlock, Becca, Adam and Thomas are sitting around devising a plot to get the bad guy. Intense important scene, right? In the middle of this important discussion, Sherlock turns to Becca, the only other woman in the room and says, "I really like your hair." HUH?? Becca then talks about her hair. Then, after they get that out of the way, they can go back to getting the bad guy.
I love reading and usually when I get within 100 pages of the end, I'll polish it off. This book I had 45 pages left---and it remained untouched for 2 days. I had to talk to myself into finishing.

Overall, the dialogue is not believable, the characters are plain and I felt nothing. The story/plot itself was not that good. Predictable.
I usually only give a ONE star rating to books that I cant even finish reading. This one I finished...but still, must give it just 1 star.
I've now tried reading 2 books by this author and have not liked either one. There wont be a third. I've wasted enough time on Catherine Coulter

I normally enjoy a rip-roaring good thriller...but this ain't it. I picked up this book and expected a nice rousing tale, but soon found my sense of disbelief kicking in and it only got worse as I slogged my way through as much of the book as I could manage.

The main character is not very likeable or believeable. She used to be a speechwriter for the governor and then, when someone starts stalking her, she can't (somehow) get the cops to believe her. Her stalker then blows up an old woman across from her building (really?) and they still don't believe her...not until someone tries to kill the governor. Then they believe--that she is behind a plot to kill him. She disappears to a quiet Maine town where some old childhood friend lives, renting a spooky old mansion where, promptly, a skeleton falls out of an old wall after a storm. So much for keeping a low profile.

In the meantime, a man comes to protect her who knows her father and its all tied up to the FBI, CIA, and so on. He is also stalking her (in a good way), but she somehow manages to notice him and confront him, a confrontation that, once again, comes across as unbelievable. Is this woman helpless or is she a fighter who has a chance against trained killers? Who can tell. One minute she seems one thing and one minute she seems something else.

Okay, you get the picture. The plot makes very little sense and the writing is amateur at times, which only makes it worse. It sometimes verged on purple prose in its descriptions. I could swallow a lot if I actually cared about the characters, but I don't. They were either cardboard or they were confusing. I finally bogged down about a little over half-way through the book, skimmed the rest, and gave up.

I would give this one a pass. I might try another work by this author just to give a second chance, though. Hope that one will be better.

Catherine Coulter delivers a riveting, action packed, suspenseful tale with many a twist and turn that keeps the reader guessing. The heroine is being stalked, but is getting very little help from law enforcement; as a matter of fact local police as well as federal agents are beginning to think she is delusional and in need of pyschiatric treatment. Her tension and frustration is almost palpable from the first page and throughout the book until the surprising confrontation at the end. There are several surprises in store for the reader that will serve to keep you glued to the pages of this novel and on edge during most of the story. Sit down, strap in, and enjoy the ride!

This is Catherine Coulter's seventeenth novel. Take one stalker, one frightened speech writer, a vengeful spy, slipshod logic, lots of emotion including multiple murder and obsession and you get Riptide. Rebecca Matlock is being stalked by a male who seems invincible. Matlock can't persuade the police, first in Albany then in New York City that she's being victimized. On the contrary, police in neither city believe her. Nowhere in this setup is there any thought of tapping her telephone or even using an answering machine.

Thus, after her mother dies, Rebecca Matlock flees to an isolated Maine town to avoid her stalker after he wounds the Governor of New York, her former employer. Safe? Don't you believe it. First her creepy ex-college classmate shows up. Then a creepy bodyguard shows up, a bodyguard given to violent rages. Somebody behind the scenes is pulling some powerful strings, because the next thing you know, the FBI shows up.

None of these professionals matter of course, because the bad guy is better than all of them. Well, it all gets sorted out in the end, of course and Dear Readers get a bonus, a direct challenge by the author on the back cover to figure out the mystery. Don't bother.

The writing is generally clean and competent, although the dialogue tends to the unrealistic. I've never seen so many tough professionals saying damnation all the time. It's an interesting story idea, but it can't sustain the story line.

Considering Robert Palmer seemed to go barely noticed for the electronica/funk/caribbean styled hyrid of his previous album Pride it's clear that he was going to get groove back for the follow up. He's spent the majority of the decade so far looking to be more creatively innovative than commercial and here he found a way to combine both,with a very simple concept: put two massive pop hits on an album that become so enormous that you can spend the rest of the album basically do whatever you want. "Riptide" is an old standard done up in a kind of mid 80's synth-rock style. Kind of an odd variation on what Nelson George called the "retro neuvo" trend in some 80's music. The brittle electro dance-rock of "Hyperactive" (not the Thoma Dolby song),"Flesh Wound" and "Discipline Of Love" are not very far removed from the style of music Palmer would use as a member of Power Station around the same time. "Trick Bag" tries to go for a heavy funk-rock flavor and with all the cooks in the kitchen from Bernard Edwards,Tony Thompson and keyboard player Wally Badarou the drums and electronics are just a little too heavy to accomodate the sound of funk,which isn't as based in loudness but actually serves to bring out both the advantages and limitations of the funk/rock hybrid. "Addicted To Love" is the big 80's "rock" song that hooked everyone into this album and is presented here in an extended lengh on this album. Because it's so obvious a pop single this song works much better in an edited format. The Robert Palmer composition "Get It Through Your Heart" is the only real ballad on the album and is a strong highlite again the the retro neuvo torchy vocal jazz sort of style. I realize to hear it from the horses mouth "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On" was written tongue and cheek but the style of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis was as strong as anything else here and,the way I view it it's an 80's dance-funk classic and underrated even by the artist himself. This review by the way refers to the digipack edition of this album which is,in my neck of the woods the most commonly available format for this CD. The CD by the way has superb sound quality for a release of it's era. This is probably one of Robert Palmer's most commercial albums considering he was an artist not always known for being a consistant sellout. At the same time you'd be surprised at how experimental a lot of the music is.

If Catherine Coulter's name wasn't on the outside of this book I would never have believed she wrote it. In fact, you would still be hard pressed to convince me that she had anything to do with this book at all until Chapter 14 when Savich and Sherlock came into it. I couldn't believe this was the same woman that wrote such riveting stories as Blowout, Whiplash, The Maze and Split Second. The writing was so novice and inexperienced it was almost unbearable. I almost stopped reading this book but I like to try to finish every book I start. Even when it's excruciating. The lead character was aggravating and unbelievable. Even her name grated on my nerves. At one point, I actually started cheering for her. But it was short lived. I'm glad I did finish the book but right down to the end the lead character was not convincing. I wouldn't torture myself with this one folks. The only reason it got 3 stars is because Savich and Sherlock came and saved the day, or the book.