Quick read. Not necessarily my cup o' tea. I'd just finished a book. I wasn't sure what to start next. I was in the mood for something mystery/thriller. I didn't have anything that fit the bill on my shelves at present and no time to run to the bookstore. Two friends of mine had just finished reading this book, they liked it and recommended it. I said, why not give it a try. We have different tastes in book genres, the three of us but they both said that Sidney Sheldon is one of their favorite authors. I'd never read a book by this author until now. Here's what I thought. This will be a semi quick review. The Sky Is Falling is supposed to be about a local news reporter, Dana Evans who's curiosity about a well known philanthropist's murder get's her into more trouble than she bargained for. Prior to this adventure, Dana was a news correspondent in war torn Sarajevo. Now she is back in Washington D.C. doing the local nightly news, she's engaged to the sports caster and she is trying to be mother to a orphan from Sarajovo named Kemal who lost his arm and his family to a bomb explosion. Dana does an interview with philanthropist Paul Winthrop and the next day, he's dead. Something feels not right about this and Dana starts, in the beginning out of curiosity to look into his death. She finds that he was the last of a rich American family who within months of each other have had sudden strange deaths. Everyone talks well of the family as if they were saints but Dana feels in her gut that there is something not right under the surface. She just couldn't accept that they all came face to face with accidents. These were murders and she would get to the bottom of it. Thoughts: To be honest. This was a quick read and I'm glad. To me this is very drug store/grocery store I need something to occupy my time at the airport or while waiting for an appointment type of book. It was too simple. Too inconclusive. Too many loose ends and totally not believable. Too many random one page characters that were very transparent or just too simple. All the supporting characters were feeble to me. Under developed. The descriptions were of what they supposedly looked like physically but nothing supportive in the script to tell me who these people really were. What was their purpose besides their name or title. Fiction is fake and mysteries and thrillers are fantasy or infringement but this was just too B movie for me. Trying not to give away spoilers here but Dana encountered people who spoke different languages and you mean to tell me every time she could speak those languages? She was a local news reporter yet she was known world wide? Really? The relationship between her and the adopted son was just.. so careless. It didn't feel like there was any feeling or genuine connection. If there was supposed to be it was not communicated so the reader comprehended this. At all. The fiance' had some side story that I still don't comprehend the point of. Why was it there? The story was fast moving and slow moving at the same time. Fast from this place to that place to this spot to the other but technically nothing really interesting happened till the end of the book. The end was interesting but still... Hollywood B movie. Recommend? It was quick. It passed the time. That's about it. I don't think I'll read any more of this author's books. Just not really my cup o' tea. Maybe it's the book snob in me and I mean no harm with it but.. I read Literature.. this was a book. One makes you think, ponder, feel and learn. The other causes you to exercise the mobility of your hands turning pages and exercise your retina's reading from one side to the other. But to each his/her own. I'm an advocate of reading in general. Sadly some don't even read at all. Not because they can't but because the TV and Internet have stolen their soul. So if it makes you read, whatever it is, much respect and enjoy in good health. Two stars for keeping my busy.
"It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit." -Antoine Rivarol One day, you find yourself picking up a book you would never think about laying your hands upon and almost suddenly this novel has you fastened to the couch ominously preventing you from gazing away, even for a second from its iron-grip. The protagonist is a witty news reporter that has acquired fame from the perilous, lethal news reports she covers. The genesis of the plot is sparked by the curiosity she succumbs to after the death of the last member of the affluent Winthrop family-all 5 of which have died 'accidental' deaths within the appalling span of a year.The book was thoroughly equipped with treachery, deception and treason but at the same time it also depicted loyalty, love and friendship in its most versatile framework. It differentiated between the qualities that people portrayed and the obverse ones they possessed. It was a breath of fresh air-for me,someone who isn't accustomed to reading crime debut thrillers.The form of speech was was simple, and could be easily comprehended. I loved the fact that this book got me thinking, it got me trying to outsmart the author- miserably failing in unearthing the end. All i can gather from an author such as Sidney Sheldon on a first read is that his book was anything but cliche. It was thoroughly drenched with enigma and suspense and drove me toward the edge of insanity in unfolding its mystery.Toward the end, the murderer turned out to be someone i never quite managed to put a finger upon. In all totality the book was remarkable, the plot- an endless tornado distinctly whirling its way through a myriad of possibilities.A grappling, quick read.
What do You think about The Sky Is Falling (2001)?
I picked this book up because it was a "New York Times bestseller" and I had never read anything by Sidney Sheldon and wanted to see what I thought of him as an author. Answer: Not much. Situations are contrived, characters don't feel like real people. Just about every page has something on it that strains credibility, or seems fake or contrived. Conversations don't feel real. Situations don't feel real. There are lots of stupid little mistakes and inconsistencies. I won't pick up any more Sidney Sheldon books. This just goes to show that just because a book is a NY Times bestseller, doesn't mean it's worth reading. This is probably the worst "mystery" I've ever read.
—Kathryn
arren AshleyJanuary 7 near Owings MillsI finished reading The Sky Is Falling, a second book by Sidney Sheldon, my friend Mary Lou recommended to me, whose style I took an instant liking to. Dana Evans, a news anchor, travels all over the world inquiring about leads to the death of Gary Winthrop, a senatorial hopeful. She has recently adopted Kemal, a little boy with one arm and takes a liking to Jeff, a sports reporter. Kemal has trouble in school as he constantly retaliates after getting bullied. As time passes, Dana hires Mrs. Daley as her housekeeper, and gets Kemal a prosthetic arm and moves him to a better school. In Dana’s travels, the responses to her questions about Gary Winthrop are all the same: Everyone liked him. He had no enemies. No one had any reason to kill him. Dana returns from a long trip to Russia to find an unsigned note telling her to return to Russia for the answer to her question. She returns and meets an ambassador she had recently crossed paths with who tells her he will tell her who killed Winthrop if she will help him leave Russia. Ambassador Shasha leads Dana on a long trip in Russia to an underground city where the inhabitants must stay making plutonium. Gary Winthrop got greedy and went into business for himself. His business partner learns this and has Winthrop and his family killed. Dana has no idea how to get Sasha out of Russia but on a trip back, Sasha gets shot in front of her. Someone was obviously tracing him and didn’t like his revealing to Dana the truth.Scared, Dana makes her way back to the airport where a ticket to the U.S. is waiting for her, but she too is being watched with plans to kill her also. Her trip back home is long and dangerous and she worries about the well being of Kemal. Dana gets tracked down in Chicago stealing from a store but the owner excuses her since he respects her as an anchor. She spends time changing her appearance so she is more difficult to trace. She has to wait longer to see Kemal who she is dying to see. After being told that she and Kemal will both be killed, Kemal is pulled from a burning building, treated for smoke inhalation, and Dana and Jeff marry.
—Darren Ashley
This book is bad, no doubt about it. Dippy dialogue, cornball characters, predictable plotting, and a drawn-out narrative to a convoluted conclusion of idiotic double-crosses. Despite of all this, or maybe because of all this, I was very entertained by the book. Go figure! It's about a television journalist that starts to investigate the mysterious deaths of 7 related people and stumbles upon a big conspiracy that threatens her life. She'll have to get through almost 200 filler pages of endless trips to airports and front desks of hotels before it all starts to make sense. Silly melodrama with her adopted son from Sarajevo and her fiancee's modeling ex-wife intrude on the narrative and serve no purpose whatsoever. It's literary junk food... or junk literature, whichever you prefer. But I'll give Sheldon one big compliment - the plot keeps moving along swiftly. Not a dull moment, and writing a dull novel is the worst sin an author can commit.
—Scott
