The Reunion

First it is a shame that this is the first of Musso’s books to appear in kindle books. He is very much loved in France and in Europe and his books are translated everywhere even in Hebrew.This book is written wonderfully has rhythm, suspense and a very nice description of places and people. And it is nice to know someone who is not like anyone else.

The book had the potential to be an excellent mystery. In my opinion, it was too broken up with titles and sub-titles and hard right turns in the pathway of the story line. Better editing would have made it a great read.

The author is promoted as France's top mystery writer but if this is an example of the best he does, then either tastes are very different over there in mysteries, or else I've missed something. Nothing to get excited about, another donation to the library book sale.

The mystery is enjoyable but I find the fetishization of high school girls and older teens to be disturbing, at best.

A must have in your bookshelf . If you love mystery, this intriguing book is for you, you won't regret it

Suspenseful

I expected this book to be better since it was an international best seller.. it was just Ok

The story starts slowly and all of a sudden spirals off, not the best book I have read, easily forgotten

I have never given a single star, usually abandoning poor novels before the end but this was so hyped that I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Unfortunately, there were a couple of wasted hours of my life I will now not recover. I wonder if the translation was in any part responsible for the poorly written trite descriptions and pretentious pseudo-philosophy? This is perhaps very unfair to translators but I was struck by the superficiality of the narrator’s musings and frequent name droppings, possibly attempting to convince the reader of a breadth and depth of thought and knowledge that, to me, seemed so sadly lacking. Several had “explanations” of the references, perhaps in case the less knowledgeable reader required these? Hard not to feel patronised. The cliches came thick and fast and not one character appeared more than one dimensional.Apart from the pretentiousness of the tale, its very plot seemed so far fetched that it was risible; I enjoy detective and crime novels but they do need to hang together. This did not, at all. To compare it in ANY sense with Donna Tartt’s Secret History is almost criminal and, were I her (I wish!) I would contemplate a libel suit. It was mostly this ludicrous comparison which led me to this book; how I wish I had had more discrimination. Hey ho, never too old to read a real turkey!

The first few pages of this confuse from the start with the darting about between time lines- years and months. However, once I got accustomed to this, the storyline improves. It’s not particularly enthralling and the author throws all sorts into the mix to add excitement but it doesn’t really work. In fact, in continually describing places, songs, famous people etc, the author neglects to concentrate on defining the many characters. As a result they are flimsy, wishy washy and don’t inspire interest.It’s a school reunion- obviously from the book title- and once you’ve worked out that something awful happened 25 years previously, that was covered up, the plot makes sense. Again though, the author spoils his idea by having too many suspects; most being unbelievable/silly. The final denouement is far from satisfying.Some good parts, far outweighed by the superfluous name-dropping/place descriptions.

I loved the premise when I initially saw this book. A body buried in a school and with nobody the wiser other than the small band of perpetrators. Bud then as the saying goes,”Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead”.When a school reunion is arranged, the murdering clique come together as not only is this a reunion but the setting for an announcement concerning the demolition of the old school gym. Destroying the gym will be revealing and for all the wrong reasons.The story ticks along at a neat clip and I loved the way the circumstances were dolled at a little at a time, leaving the reader to draw their own, often mistaken, conclusions.The familial aspects of the story are portrayed with depth and pathos and add to the over arching mystery as to who did what and for what reason. Personal agendas play a large part throughout the book.You could argue that too many people are involved and that the timeline is therefore unsustainable but that would be to rain on the parade of a thoroughly entertaining book with evocative settings and fully fleshed characters, be they good, bad or lost.

Overall I thought this was pretty awful, but I’ve given it two stars because I carried on till the end. It managed to be lumbering despite its ‘thriller’ genre and the frequent revelations in the action. The plot itself was bordering on the ludicrous and the characters two dimensional. I was faintly disturbed by the immorality of the conclusion, except that I wasn’t sufficiently bothered to mind. The translation can’t have helped much: for instance several characters ‘sniggered’ their responses, but surely this wasn’t the effect the writer intended in the original.

I didn't like it and although soldiered on for some time, I didn't quite reach the end. Quite early in the book I found myself thinking, "So what? Who cares?" and those thoughts did not go away. Not receommended.