by Santi Meintjes

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 04, 2009

"Sail" was co-written by James Patterson and Howard Roughan. The title is presumably taken from the fact that the story centres around a woman taking a sailing vacation with her dysfunctional group of kids. It is punted as a thriller and the blurb on the back sounds alluring: "When a message in a bottle is found, it becomes apparent that there must have been at least one survivor", followed further on by "...being found may be the last thing they should be hoping for...".

Unfortunately the book does not live up to these enticing promises. The plot is tired: man marries woman for her money then tries to kill her in order to get hands on loot. In this case he (or rather, his hired assassin) fails initially, then he tries to do the job himself. He and his floozy are killed by the assassin in the end while the woman and kids survive.

There is hardly any characterisation in this book. The killer husband is not too badly described as a typical sociopath, but the woman is a one-dimensional soapy figure whose thoughts and acts are highly predictable and uninteresting, including the snippet that one kid's father is her brother-in-law. The kids are 1) anorexic, for some unknown reason 2) on drugs for some unknown reason 3) shy and fat but clever, perhaps because he is the youngest? Who knows.

The most irritating issue with this book is that the style seems to be more suitable to a graphic novel. Sentences that indicate something mysterious or dangerous are printed in italics, in case you miss the import: "He made people disappear" and "that's the tail fin of the same shark!". Loud sounds are capitalised: BOOM! BLAM! Really.

Chapters are vey short, hardly ever more than three or four pages. There are also blank pages between the various Parts. Consequently the book, which consists of 457 numbered pages can actually be read in about three hours, easily. The line of suspense is not very tight (that's probably why they needed to capitalise the explosions and the gun shots) and one actually has a very good idea what's going to happen at various stages of the story. The obligatory sex scenes are not too obscene but their value, if any, lies in illustrating the coldness of the killer husband.

All in all, this book is unsuitable for anybody older than sixteen. Most people will get more enjoyment from watching a favourite movie or spending their money on a greasy MacDonalds burger.

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