Books

Average customer rating:

Not Klavan's Best Book, But still Pretty Exciting
Healing touch
Not Original but Not Bad...
hunting down amanda
Amazing similarity to Dean Koontz 's "Sole Survivor"

Hunting Down Amanda
Andrew Klavan
Manufacturer: Time Warner Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Shotgun Alley (Weiss and Bishop Novels)
Man and Wife
True Crime: The Novel
Dynamite Road
The Uncanny

ASIN: 0751528676

Amazon.com

The inventive and audacious Andrew Klavan never covers the same ground twice, and his latest psychological thriller is about as far as you can get from his previous bestsellers, True Crime and The Uncanny.

What all his books have in common is a growing assurance as you turn the first few pages that you're in good, honorable hands--that the author won't trick you shamelessly or go off on some tedious tangent. So, without losing a beat, a book that begins with a horrible plane explosion that rains down fire over a Massachusetts village can shift seamlessly into a jazz musician's hunt for his lost love and an executive hit man's search for a little girl.

When that plane crashes over the small coastal town of Hunnicut (in a scene probably better not read during or just before a flight of your own), 5-year-old Amanda Dodson--"a roundish little mixed-race girl with a quiet, thoughtful manner"--escapes from her babysitter's burning house and wanders into the woods. That's where her young mother, Carol, who works as a cocktail waitress (and does occasional sexual favors for customers), finds her after an agonizing search. With Amanda is one of the plane's passengers, apparently brought back to life by the girl's formidable healing abilities. "Now they'll come after her!" Carol Dodson cries, before fleeing with the child to New York City.

In Manhattan, she has a brief encounter with a grieving saxophone genius named Lonnie Blake. Captivated by her resemblance to his late wife, Blake tries to find Carol again, but he is not the only one hunting down Carol and Amanda. Others want to capture the little girl to exploit her amazing healing powers for profit.

In lesser hands, these ingredients might add up to nothing more than a shameless potboiler, but Klavan has powers of his own--a magic touch that humanizes even the smallest characters and makes them a part of our own world. --Dick Adler

Book Description

Lonnie Blake's wife was brutally murdered three years ago, leaving him a shattered man . . . until he crosses paths with Carol, who shares his bed and fulfills his fantasies for a single night. For her, the affair is strictly business, but for Lonnie, the echo of lost love is irresistible. Buoyed by happiness he hasn't felt for years, he sets out to track Carol down -- and finds he's not the only one on her trail.

Someone has dispatched a team of ruthless killers to hunt down Carol and her five-year-old daughter, Amanda. Suddenly Lonnie's search for love becomes a desperate fight for survival, a life-and-death race to discover little Amanda's earth-shaking secret and protect a woman and child he has come to cherish. Fast-paced, electrifying, and filled with unexpected twists and shocking turns, this is a thriller that takes off fast and accelerates all the way to its riveting climax.

Customer Reviews:

Not Klavan's Best Book, But still Pretty Exciting.......2007-06-18

HUNTING DOWN AMANDA is a good thriller, one that kept me glued to the pages for hours on end. The plot essentially deals with a young 5-year old girl with strange healing abilities, and a group of assassins who will do anything to find her. The girl's mother, however, is determined to avoid them at all costs. What results is a long chase story with a lot of well done action sequences. This novel is very suspenseful, and has a very exciting climax.

The major weakness of HUNTING DOWN AMANDA is the plot, which becomes less and less believable as the book progresses. The reader is essentially asked to swallow an absurd number of coincidences in order to move the plot forward. Although Klavan is a good enough writer to pull this off, I wish he hadn't gone quite so over-the-top with the storyline.

I also felt the hero and heroine in this book were underdeveloped and ultimately uninteresting. The romance between them was pretty awkward and unbelievable. In the end, I personally found some of the supporting characters, such as the college professor character, more interesting than the main leads.

Overall, HUNTING DOWN AMANDA is good, but I personally like other novels by Klavan better, most notably DON'T SAY A WORD and TRUE CRIME, which have more realistic characters and storylines.

Healing touch.......2005-12-15

Five year old Amanda, has, by reason of a dose of chemicals, injected into her father before her birth, by a pharmaceutical company, the power to heal with a touch. This has made her the target of unscrupulous men who wish to sell her to the highest bidder, and have forced her mother Carol, an uneducated cocktail waitress, turned prostitute, to keep constantly on the run in an effort to outwit the baddies. Recently widowed saxophonist, Lonnie who is spiralling downwards in a haze of alcohol, literally bumps into Carol and saves her, at least temporarily, from the clutches of the crooks. They spend the night together, with Carol captivating Lonnie so much that he stalks her, putting himself in great danger from that moment on. After many adventures in which other innocent people are involved and ultimately killed, Carol, Lonnie and Amanda are helped to make a final run for freedom by a reformed crook, who sacrifices himself to save the child. I agree with other reviewers that it has the makings of a "made for cable" movie, but I found it to be an exciting read nevertheless!

Not Original but Not Bad..........2005-01-15

Over the holidays, I read some of Andrew Klavan's more recent novels so I went back and tried some of his earlier books. I'm a little late to the party on this one but thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.

My rating may be a little generous; I'd rather give the book between three and four stars. But overall it is a very exciting and interesting read. Some critics have complained about the lack of originality and I can't argue. We'll all read it before - the child with abnormal powers, the villains from some high-tech facility chasing her, the unlikely heroes to team up to thwart the villains - it's been done. But the real key is how well it's done; as they say, there are only so many plots.

With that, Klavan has written a very fast-paced and absorbing story. The characterizations are deeper than are usually found in this type of novel and the plot zips along. His writing is sometimes poetic and you buy the premise. I don't want to oversell this book but I have certainly read far worse.

Klavan is a good writer and those who really want to see how far he's progressed might want to try some of his recent novels featuring the characters of Weiss and Bishop. I suspect that if is your first encounter with Klavan, you'll want to try others; the guy can tell a good story.

hunting down amanda.......2002-08-04

i really didn't like this novel. everyone who tried to help amanda already had miserable lives anyway so why did they have to die for helping save amanda's life. i wouldn't recommend it to anyone, i'm glad i borrowed it and didn't buy it.

Amazing similarity to Dean Koontz 's "Sole Survivor".......2002-07-15

I really enjoyed this book. The opening chapter describing the plane crash was breathtaking. I wouldn't take too much notice of the supernatural aspect of Amanda's powers - they are not the main story line.
Mind you I just saw a telemovie called Sole Survivor based on a Dean Koontz novel and the similarities between the 2 stories is amazing. The similarities are enough to make you believe in the supernatural :) Both feature plane crashes with sole survivor, a child that can heal the sick, a sad lonely guy that helps save teh girl, bad guys chasing them. One of them must have left a draft on the train and the other picked it up.

Average customer rating:

THE UNCANNY AND HUNTING DOWN AMANDA
Unknown
Manufacturer: WARNER BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S94VA8

Books:

Books