Manhattan Affair – Jack Sussek

Title: Manhattan Affair by Jack Sussek
Publishing Info: February 14, 2012 by Independent
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: December 15, 2012

A tale of New York City nostalgia mixed with murder, conspiracy, and sex, Manhattan Affair portrays a world of secrets and lies which entwine the lives of three former New England college classmates: Jed Chase, Steve Cahill, and Morris Bergman, one of whom is the victim, one of whom is a co-conspirator, one of whom is the lawyer. None of which appears as it seems.

Please take my rating with a grain of salt — What it really came down to was that I was hoping I would be a good match to the book but I think I just wasn’t the right audience for it. I don’t want to give the book a poor rating because it wasn’t a bad book — I just hadn’t enjoyed it like I hoped and it’s hard for me to put a rating on that.

I went into this book thinking it was going to be a mystery. I was hoping for something vaguely similar to the In Death series, which is why I had accepted the book for review in the first place. It turned out to be more of a thriller and it gave me a “noir” type feel, the setting in the 90s somehow adding to that, though I’m not sure why.

I actually did like the feel and the color of the book, but the story line isn’t quite what I was expecting. I had the impression that I was going to be reading a murder mystery, but it was really much more of a conspiracy thriller than a mystery. I kept waiting for something to happen and I felt like I was left waiting a little too long.

The first half of the book was a bit too much of getting to know the characters and developing the relationship between Jed and Katherine — which was good and all, but there wasn’t much else going on outside of that. I wanted to be swept away with the story, jumping at action, trying to pick up a mystery, analyzing the characters, but it seemed like a lot of descriptions that would have been better interspersed with action sequences. It seems like a little editing should be in order to have those beginning chapters moving somewhere and getting the reader nervous and excited for the rest of the book.

The ending was very well written with some major twists and turns that I was not expecting! It always fascinates me when plot turns like that happen because I always think of how they started and where they originated from in the beginning. Nicely finished and nicely wrapped up. I just wish I had been hooked from the beginning!