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Oh, the heavy price of a dalliance. A single misstep. After experiencing DERAILED, I'll wager the temptation cannot be nearly attractive enough to stray from the straight and narrow. For me, it certainly isn't. The cost is simply too high. If you don't believe me, read this book.
Charles Schine's life isn't going too well. After 12 years on a prime advertising account, he's yanked off and given a schlock assignment, a real slap in the face --- and that's just at work. At home, he lives with the strain of his daughter's diabetes and keeping her alive, wondering how many more days she will be with them. Her illness makes her cranky and irritable, leaving him with bittersweet memories of his little girl back when she was a normal child.
To top it off, his wife doesn't turn him on anymore. They go through the motions of everyday life without a shred of joy. The outlook seems bleak. So when Charles meets Lucinda --- sexy, shapely Lucinda with legs up to there --- he dreams of escape into Lucinda's beautiful arms and not-unsubstantial charms. All of a sudden, he feels very lucky. It looks like life has seen fit to give him another turn at happiness.
As you read along, lulled into Charles's sense of blissful contentment, a nagging doubt grows all the while that it can't last. Let me tell you now, it doesn't. Things turn ugly --- utterly and extraordinarily ugly. Close on the heels of the new lovers' frenzied trysts come scenes so gruesome they slap you back to reality and beyond --- into the depths of what I imagine as Hell --- with seemingly no way out. Charles is catapulted from the height of heady infatuation into a dire situation, then into a desperate situation, then farther into a totally hopeless situation.
He experiences some small victories and hopeful recoveries, but the hole he's dug for himself threatens to bury him alive with every turn of the page. Every scheme he cooks up to free himself just digs him in deeper. To be fair, Charles is an advertising executive, not a world-wise street thug. While we may imagine the streets of New York as tough and dangerous for the unsuspecting, we probably don't imagine them this dangerous. Faced with an unthinkable solution, we wonder just how far we would go to save ourselves. The author presents one man's answer. How can Charles ever get himself out? Just watch him.
DERAILED is a book that scares, angers, repulses and leaves you hoping for a happy ending. Don't get me wrong; it's not all unpleasantness. It's a page-turner if ever there was one. Sometimes I wanted to leave the room and the book with it, but the mystery always drew me back. While I can't picture myself falling into such circumstances, the plot as it unfolds could really happen. It is an entirely plausible story --- and that's what really frightened me.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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