Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face

TYPE: Mystery, Thriller

RATING: 8/10

REVIEW:

It had been a while since I’d read a real-good page turner, and this one for some reason, fit the bill.

Though the fact still remains, that I am not a big fan of his work and find most of his stories having a very common thread, this one was certainly un-put-down-able.

The story has Dr. Judd Stevens, a psychoanalyst, who treats few very well known patients. Amongst them is a paranoid patient who thinks everyone is out to kill him. After judging the patient to be an incurable paranoid, Dr. Stevens is surprised to find himself suffering from the same kind of delusions.

Sidney Sheldon – Master of the Game

TYPE: Thriller

RATING: 7/10

REVIEW:

This was a book that was recommended to me as a must-read and since he read a lot too, I didn’t hesitate taking it up. Well, turns out that it wasn’t that great a choice at all.

The only book of Sheldon that I have ever liked is The Doomsday Conspiracy, which appealed to my sci-fi sense.

Master of the Game takes you through the life of Kate Blackwell, with a brief history of her father, who made it rich though it had been considered by few as ill-gotten gains. Using the diamonds that he got, he built a successful empire around him.

Kate’s childhood is spent in loving her father’s assistant, whom she has planned to marry. But things don’t go out exactly as she has planned, and from then does she start a life which involves passion, deceit, and a good amount of blackmail.

The story seems too much of a rip-off of Jeffrey Archer’s works. It stays true to my belief that all Sheldon’s novels are pretty much similar and predictable. The book seems similar to a couple of his own novels including Bloodline and The Stars Shine Down.

Though die-hard fans of Sheldon consider it as one of his greatest works, it fails to hold my attention.

DESCRIPTION:

Kate Blackwell is one of the world’s most powerful women and the daughter of a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond his wildest dreams.

The extravagant celebrations of her ninetieth birthday include toasts from a Supreme Court judge and a telegram from the White House. But for Kate there are ghosts. Ghosts of absent friends and absent enemies. Ghosts from a life of blackmail, deceit and murder. Ghosts from an empire spawned by naked ambition.