I know that Sydney Sheldon was the king of storytellers in the eighties and if you read today, it may sound simplistic. However, if you are willing to not think too deeply about it, and ignore the formulaic storytelling (for instance, he describes the special restaurants and tourist places of every city where the story takes place) it still is interesting. With the current crop of authors like Jeffrey Deaver (For instance, his Empty Chair) or the twists and turns in Dan Brown (Angels and Demons is his best work in my mind) it may seem quaint and simplistic but his twists and turns still have the power to amaze.
We have reviewed some earlier books of his here – for instance, see Morning Noon and Night, Rage of Angels, and Master of the Game.
Furthermore, this is a sequel to The Other Side of Midnight . That story was very good and I thought that it ended in a kind of a final stage and when I read this book (several years ago for the first time), I wondered how you can continue the story and would it be even close to the original. Reading this book cleared it all right up. Yes, he has done a good job of continuing the story and what is more, this one is as good.
This story starts with an assassin being asked, in Kowloon, China, to kill Catherine Alexander. She is in a nunnery, where we saw her last in The Other Side of Midnight, and has no memory of who she is or why she is there. But flashes of her past are coming back to her, slowly.
The ruthless Constantine Dmetris (whom we met in the first book) wants to kill her and when he realizes that she has lost her memory wants to seduce her like his pilot Larry in the earlier book took his sweetheart; After the revenge, hw eill kill her. When he sees she has lost the memory fully, he wants to send her to England but before he can do so, she steals a ride around Athens and remembers part of her past.
Constantine woos and marries the rich Melina but when she cannot produce sons for him as he hoped for, he turns (psychologically) cruel to her and grows indifferent.
Catherine is shipped off to London – where she is far away from places that can trigger her memory hopefully – but spies are all around her in the employ of Constantine.
Constantine comes to London and tries to woo her and she falls under his spell. Now Melina’s brother Spyros Lambrou and Constantine are rivals and the brother has other reasons to hate Constantine. He took the ideas of the other man and profited; he treated Melina really badly. And so he bides his time for revenge.
Meanwhile, Spyros refuses to take on Tony Rizzoli as a client because he knows that Tony will use his ships to smuggle cocaine. The story shifts to how Tony Rizzoli rose from poverty to be the kingpin of the smuggling ring.
The brilliant lawyer Napolean Chotas rescues a woman who was accused of murder with overwhelming evidence against her by ‘proving’ that the cough syrup she was accused of using does not contain poison at a risk to his life. (A ridiculous method and an even ridiculous explanation, but hey, you do not look for reality in a Sydney Sheldon book.) He is the lawyer in the first book who, on orders of Constantine Demetris, betrayed Noelle Page and hoodwinked the other lawyer Frederick Stavros, into betraying Larry Douglas. When Stavros gets an attack of conscience, he, Napolean, makes the mistake of confiding with Constantine. Then Stvros is gone, killed in a freak accident. Wen Napolean realizes what it means, he protects himself by having a tape of the whole story and handing it to public prosecutor friend of his but is nevertheless killed and we see the tape being handed over to Consntantine and realize that the public prosecutor has been in his pocket. All loose ends neatly tied – except Catherine now.
Meanwhile, a gigolo called George wrings the confession of Napolean from the priest with whom he has a sexual relationship and then offers this for money to his boss Spyros. As Constantine has started hitting Melanie, his wife, it spurs Spyros for revenge.
He also sets Toni by revealing that Constantine cheated the system and got Larry and Noel executed for the murder of a woman who is really still alive.
Constantine is furious also to learn that Catherine is travelling with a colleague on vacation!
When the colleague tries to ring Constantine’s lawyer himself and asks if attempted murder can earn a death penalty in Greece, he conveniently dies in a ski “accident” the next day.
Meanwhile Constantine traps Rizzioli on one of his yachts brilliantly (by sending a fake message as if from Spyros) to warn him that Constantine is making a run for it, and then escaping in a prearranged coptor when the boat is wilfully destroyed. He even has a priceless amphora that Toni was trying to smuggle on the ship. He now tries to take revenge and a bomb explodes, destroying the bedroom of Spyros. Spyros only survived because he decided to go to a play. When he tells Melania the story, she decided to save her brother.
When Constantine returns home one day, he sees great disturbance and a bloody knife and no sign of Melania. He is told that the knife has his fingerprints everywhere, the police know that he tried to divorce her and quarreled with her and her body has been found in the river. He has been framed perfectly. By whom? The answer is interesting.
Catherine on her return decides to see Allan Ross, a great psychiatrist for her mental troubles.
There are three people who are sent by Constantine to the London office and along with them comes a bumbling, stuttering mess of a boy. However, we are told in a previous scene that Constantine has asked a very highly skilled assassin to go as an employee. His mission is to kill Catherine, make it look like an accident and also ensure that the body cannot be identified. This is because just before he was framed, he knows that more people are aware that Catherine is alive and his original elaborate plan had to be replaced with instant murder. Sydney Sheldon beautifully throws suspicion on each of the three officials who came with strong reasoning (but easy, simplified logic) that you are left puzzled until the last minute, as usual, where he exposes the brilliant twist as only he can.
With Allan and Catherine falling in love, Alan declines to be her doctor any more so that they can be together.
Finally, the assassin is revealed and it is a huge twist. And the ending is typically Sheldonlike spectacular.
Sydney Sheldon keeps you entertained all the way, ratcheting up the tension till almost the very last page. Good story, well done.
8/10
– – Krishna
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