Time Release

by Martin J. Smith

Here's an exceptionally smart and exciting first thriller from a fine journalist who knows how to take items from recent headlines--poison in painkillers, repressed memory--and turn them into totally... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0515120286
• ISBN13: 9780515120288
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: Berkley
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.0" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

A Timeless Read...

As good now as it was then...a timeless read, worth reading! A classic suspense yarn, the kind that keeps you stuck to the pages, aching to know "who done it?" Smith creates and handles his characters with such ease you are convinced they are real and in fact they stay with you, following you from room to room long after you've put the book down, pestering you to keep reading until you know the whole story. If you like suspense, you will love Time Release!

The suspense is excruciating.

I stole moments wherever I could find them to finish reading this book. The characters are well drawn, imperfect (like life is imperfect), but you also get involved with them, and want to know what happens to them. I could heap more praise on this book like everybody else has and repeat the same old words to describe it, but suffice to say that this is an excellent thriller. One that will hold your interest to the end. I've already bought his second book because I have to see what else this man can do with words.

An unorthodox mystery, set in an unusual locale.

If you like the TV series "Homicide," you'll want to read this book. The complex, unorthodox plot is told from the perspectives of three men--a washed-up cop, a troubled pyschologist, and the stoic son of a serial-murder suspect--each of whom harbors his own terrible secret. The three are locked in a desperate psychological tug of war, and only two of them will survive it. The characters are unglamorous, at times awkwardly imperfect, and utterly believable. Perhaps the best thing about "Time Release" is the sense of place. In the author's hands, the hard-edged gloom of rustbelt Pittsburgh becomes an oddly beautiful setting, and an apt metaphor for the torturous inner landscape of the protagonists.

Better than Kellerman...

Smith develops a plausible, suspenseful tale, one that people remember every time they enter a grocery store. The main character, a psychologist, surpasses the character made famous by Jonathan Kellerman. The characters are sincere and realistic. Hurry up with the sequal, Martin Smith!

A white-knuckle thrill ride through Pittsburgh

Marty, the book is awesome. The story grips you and keeps you on edge. The believability of the plot is what scares you. It is a white knuckle thriller that can make you paranoid in the grocery store. I found myself wondering just how fail-safe tamper-resistant products actually are. I enjoyed the accuracy of the neighborhood and backroad/alley descriptions, which could only come from a native of the South Side. Every character comes to life and jumps right out of the story, even down to the most insignificant of them. Thank's for the thrill, Marty! I am anxiously awaiting your next one.