Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams and C. Leslie Martin

Book Overview

For Nat, an all-American boy with blue-collar roots, acceptance to New England's exclusive Inverness College seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. The chilling events that follow are nothing like... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345435036
• ISBN13: 9780345435033
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Fawcett Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

I couldn't put it down.

I'd purchased "Crying Wolf" for a friend at work. Because he was out of the office and I'd run out of books, I borrowed this from his stack. I actually went to work half an hour early the day after I started reading it, so that I could finish the book before he came in to claim his prize.I was looking for the suspense since, on the cover, Stephen King is quoted as having said that Peter Abrahams is his "favorite American suspense novelist." I really didn't find suspense. However, I found a good plot with likeable characters. While this book takes place in college - a boarding school, if you will - I kept thinking that Inverness was NOT Hogwarts...Nat is a young man who wins a scholarship that takes him from his working-class town to Inverness College. Freedy is a young bodybuilder thug. Their paths parallel but never quite meet until...Nat happens upon Grace and Izzie, very rich twin sisters who attend Inverness (and very different from Patti, his hometown sweetheart). The three students hatch a kidnapping scheme to try to obtain some much-needed money from the girls' father. However, as we learned as children, if you Cry Wolf often enough, when a crisis emerges no one will believe you.While seldom actually "suspenseful," "Crying Wolf" was nonetheless a good book and a good purchase. I do recommend it; and I will be looking for more books by Peter Abrahams

Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .

I love it when I have no idea where a book is going, which in a case like this is only possible if you don't read the blurb on the dust jacket. Stephen King's recommendation of the author persuaded me that the trip would be worthwhile, and it certainly was. Interesting characters, nail-biting suspense, and clever parallels among very different people - some smart, some terminally stupid - as they attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy into practical use. A winner!

AN INTRICATE AND TIGHTLY SPUN SUSPENSE THRILLER!

Stephen King considers Peter Abrahams his favorite American suspense novelist. You won't find any opinions to the contrary here. "Crying Wolf" is suspenseful, well-written, and intricately detailed...all the elements needed to create the perfect atmosphere in which to tell a story, which Abrahams does masterfully.Nat is headed for a better life...at least that's the opinion of all who know him in the tiny town of Clear Creek. A town in which Nat and his mother struggle to survive their day-to-day existence. When Nat's talents wins him a partial scholarship to the college of his choice, he is elated. He and his mother scheme to come up with the remainder of the costly tuition. Nat has settled on the New England school of Inverness, a choice that is the catalyst for all the events to follow. Once there, he is befriended by twin sisters, Izzie and Grace Zorn, affluent young women to whom wealth is merely something to which they awaken every day. His past life (and girlfriend) are soon forgotten as Nat adjusts to his new life. He grows unwillingly comfortable to his new friendships and their benevolent ways...until the day Nat recieves a letter from his mother telling him that she's been fired from her job and the lifestyle that he lives must come to a close. His mother's house is in danger of being repossessed and Nat's tuition must be sacrificed. In fact, he is told in no uncertain terms, that he must return home immediately. Rather than lose him to such banal matters as money woes, Izzie and Grace concoct a perilous plan that would afford him the means with which to stay at Inverness with no one being the wiser. Silly girls. When Mr. Zorn is presented with the ridiculous plot, he scoffs and writes the whole thing off as "kids games". The plot takes a nasty twist then when Freedy, a mentally unstable young man happens to overhear their plans, and decides to carry them out on his own. Of course, the girls have already cried "Wolf!", and no one will listen to them. The resulting drama is tense and powerful. Laced with Nietzchean philosophy and fully-realized characters, "Crying Wolf" is an incredible moral tale, told with just the right amount of humor and insight to make it intelligent as well. This is one book that comes highly recommended.......

Great Book

This was a good Thriller and I loved all the charcters and the way it switched between Nat and the twins and Freedy, the dirty criminal was great. I love books about college and this was one of them.

The Wolf Does Much More Than Cry

Peter Abrahams has outdone himself with his latest novel Crying Wolf. Always a writer of hard to put down crime novels, with this story he has also created a hard to put down character and a book that trancends its genre. Anyone familiar with Abrahams' style will recognize the complex layering of different characters, the intricacies of situation and the inexorable build in suspense. However Nat's journey from small town boy into sophistication, philosophy, intrigue and ultimately bloodshed is a thoroughly engrossing tale of American dreams and their darker underbellies. Crying Wolf is an intelligent and darkly funny book which quickly becomes a coming of age tale as well, one told with a rare combination of wit and suspense.