by Scott Smith
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Product Description
It All Seemed So Simple...
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane—the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. The men agree to hide, keep and share the fortune. But what started off as a simple plan slowly devolves into a gruesome nightmare none of them can control.
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 A Gripping Tale of Greed, Betrayal, & Murder, 2008-09-09
A SIMPLE PLAN tells the story of three men--two brothers and one of their buddies--who stumble across the wreckage of a small airplane in rural Ohio and discover that there is over $4,000,000 in cash (and a very dead pilot) on board. Realizing that the money is probably the ill-gotten spoils of some sort of criminal activity, the trio devises a "simple" plan that may allow them to keep the booty: they all agree to sit on the cash for 6 months and wait for any possible indication that the law is searching for it. If it turns out that the money is marked or traceable, they will dispose of it; if it's clean, they'll split it up evenly and go their separate ways. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't turn out to be as simple as it first seemed, and soon the three men find their lives turned inside out by mistrust, paranoia, betrayal, and ultimately murder.
Scott Smith is talented writer whose prose is consistently taut and literate, yet his is a style that also flows easily and naturally and makes for a genuine page-turner. A SIMPLE PLAN, the novelist's debut, is a gripping narrative that plays both as a psychological thriller and as a horror story. In the vein of a good psychological thriller, it questions the nature of good and evil in our modern world as it examines the life of an average small-town citizen who becomes utterly consumed by unfettered greed. As a horror story, it is a cautionary tale about how even the best of us can be tempted to justify the most egregious acts of immorality if we allow ourselves to succumb to the lust for money.
In spite of its numerous strong points, A SIMPLE PLAN does have one minor flaw. The protagonist of the novel is able to get away with a plethora of violent, bloody crimes that oddly never seem to be scrutinized too closely by law enforcement. In this era of high-tech CSI techniques, it is difficult to understand why, even in the small-town setting of the novel, some piece of damning evidence isn't uncovered in at least one of seemingly countless crime scenes. (This is likely why screenwriter Smith and director Sam Raimi chose to reduce the number of murders in the cinematic adaptation of the novel.) Still, Smith's compelling prose and tight plotting help grease the path to the suspension of disbelief, and this one defect in the narrative can therefore be surmounted without too much effort on the part of the reader.
In short, Scott Smith's A SIMPLE PLAN is a gripping, modern tale of greed, betrayal, and murder that has several clever plot twists, lots of psychological tension, and a poignant surprise ending. Overall, it is an outstanding piece of contemporary literature that fans of both white-knuckle crime thrillers and tight, well-written prose will definitely enjoy.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
More dramatic ending needed, 2008-08-19
I was blown away by this book. Very dark and evil. However, because it was so evil, I really wanted it to have an ending to make it truly demonic. The ending was good, but I wanted more tragedy out of the end result. I almost expected a dual suicide similar to the way Hanks parents died, only inculding their daughter. THAT would have been more dramatic than the ending it had, although it does make you really evaluate your life.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Falls Short, 2008-08-08
A Simple Plan grabbed me from the start and pulled me in. The writing was good, the story intriguing, and the characters were interesting. Then about 100 pages in everything unraveled.
As the plot moves along, characters begin taking actions which make no sense and seem to be backed by no motivation at all. I found myself saying, "There is no way he/she would do that." And that really is the main problem with the book. Hank Mitchell and his wife start as a respectable, believable couple, and quickly disintegrate into a couple of idiots (if you judge them simply by there actions).
Hank's brother Jacob, starts as an idiot, and just as the author is weaving sympathy and depth into Jacob's character, Jacob blasts away a friend and you put down the book frustrated by yet another "no way" moment.
In the end, despite the books positives, A Simple Plan falls flat like a corpse.
FYI, I rate this 3 stars but Amazon somehow lists my rating as 5.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Outstanding, 2008-08-06
This is quite simply the best thriller I've ever read. Not a word is wasted. Every scene contributes. Every plot point builds to the next in an exhausting concatenation until the visceral "ka-POW!" of the climax.
Having read "The Ruins", I can say that that novel did inherit some of this book's qualities, such as its relentless cynicism and conflicted characters. However, it exceeds it in every way by performing that trickiest of acts: getting you to sympathize with people who range from pathetic to revolting, all while reading between Hank's lines, for he is the quintessential unreliable narrator. Totally apart from the novel's action, the tension of the perspective alone is gripping.
A must-read for any suspense / pscyhological thriller fans.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Uncompromising, disturbing, brilliant, 2008-06-30
This is a brilliant novel; uncompromising, disturbing, and extraordinarily well written. That said: there is no doubt that some readers are not going to like this novel. It's dark and depressing and is filled with unlikeable characters.
The plot: Three men stumble upon a small plane crashed in a remote orchard on New Year's Eve. Inside they find a dead pilot and over $4 million. They devise a simple plan. They will hold onto the money until after the plane is discovered. Once the plane is found they will wait until its safe, and then split up the cash. If the authorities get too close, they`ll burn the money. Simple. But it doesn't take long for the plan to spiral out of control when distrust and greed lead to violence.
The first person narrative is chilling. Hank Mitchell, a seemingly normal man, rationalizes each act of violence, convincing himself again and again that he had no choice. Each horrifying step he takes, makes the next easier, until finally he is lost.
This is a powerful novel about the destructive nature of greed and how the corruption of seemingly normal people rarely happens all at once, but through a series of small compromises and rationalizations. This is crime fiction; elevated.
A Simple Plan is one of the best crime novels I've read, but it won't appeal to everyone. If you can live without a happy ending and you don't mind a protagonist who has completely lost his moral compass, you'll enjoy A Simple Plan. This is an exceptionally good (but very dark) novel.
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