Fetch Your Copy Absent Friends Formulated By S.J. Rozan Accessible From Publication

book, set around Sept,, got rave reviews from top thriller/suspense writers like it was the Second Coming, Multiple POVs of childhood friends, a murder caused by one or more of them, a scandal regarding possible mob money from fallen firefighter hero, suicide/murder of a reporter.
Chapter changes insanely frequent, dragged out revelations until you didn't care any more who did what, cliched backstory childhood incidents, overwrought sentimentality,

Evocative writing, gifted stylist, but one of those "single conversation could solve the whole problem" kinds of stories, I think the/aspect, which was well handled, must account for all the acclaim, They mystery itself was hohum and if I could have flipped ahead to solve it, I would have, Trouble was, it was buried in several POVs,

I want to give it,because of the good writing, but the more I write, the more irritated I become, so I'm sticking with, While I am not at all a fan of this new thing authors seem to have taken up of flipping around to different characters and times this was masterfully done.
I almost put it down, not intending to finish it, but I stuck to it, Thankfully. Very thought provoking theme. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,
Skillfully woven with the tragedy of/, The story covers two distinct periods of time,

Firstly, in a battered post/New York, aroundweeks after the collapse of the World Trade Centre Towers, as the city mourns, deals with the shock and life slowly regains a degree of normality.


Secondly, in the suburban environment of Pleasant Hills on Staten Island in the lates, where a group of friends,men, three women, are growing up, forming relationships and, for some at least, finding trouble.


A firemen, Jimmy McCaffery, with a reputation for heroic acts, is killed in the maelstrom of/, A memorial fund is his name

is established, administered by old friend and lover, Marian,

An ageing journalist, Harry, pursuing a back story to Jimmy's death, suspects that events of, when Jimmy's friend Jack, is shot and killed by another friend, Markie, who subsequently dies in a prison fight, might not be all that it first seems.


When Harry apparently suicides by jumping from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge while still working on the story, his colleague and now younger lover, Laura, who suspects Harry's death may not be suicide, takes up the story in pursuit of the truth.
What really did happen in, involving Jimmy, Markie, Jack and his brother Tom, and what is the true source of payments made to Markie's widow Sally ever since that time

The story alternates between these time periods, telling elements of the story from the various perspectives of key characters, until the truth is eventually revealed.


This is a tale of deep friendships and affections, honour and deceit, heroism and sacrifice, crime and corruption, linked to Irish and Italian crime families and a bent police system.


Rozan has done a competent job in revealing the story, managing a complex structure and multiple voices, and maintaining a degree of dramatic tension for as long as possible.


The prose is often clunky and mundane, much of the dialogue unconvincing, but she has managed to capture the atmosphere of immediate post/new York with a sense of authenticity.
In that aspect, she is occasionally poetically eloquent,

Overall, competent and engaging, but never reaching any great heights, It was a solidstar novel, probably,, but short of astar rating from me,
It took me a couple of chapters to get used to the set up of the bookbut once I got used to it, I tore through this engrossing story.
A compelling story of an apparent suicide by a journalist in the aftermath of/, Set in the two months after, it traces several high school friends from Staten Island, their coming of age and why a hero was or was not a hero.
This tale concerns a group of friends who grew up on Staten Island in thes and mostly takes place in latein New York just after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
I was looking forward to reading it but in the end felt disappointed, Despite the fact that I've loved and adored Rozan's other books I never really got into the swing of this one and the plot always felt a little clunky and culminated in an ending that seemed very soso to me.
Just didn't seem to be as well written as I'd hoped, And though I found some of the sections dealing with life in Manhattan after Septemberth interesting I didn't find them as emotionally involving as I thought I should and it started to feel voyeuristic reading the book.
I guess I'd just hoped for better, I have never read anything written by this author, This was very good. The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S, J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September, Absent Friends brilliantly captures a time and place unlike any other, as it winds through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island.
. . and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations, The result is not only an electrifying mystery and a riveting piece of storytelling but an elegiac novel that powerfully explores a world changed forever on a clear September morning.


In a novel that will catch you off guard at every turn, and one that is guaranteed to become a classic, S.
J. Rozan masterfully ratchets up the tension one revelation at a time as she dares you to ponder the bonds of friendship, the meaning of truth, and the stuff of heroism.
This review from Ann here on Goodreads, is exactly what I felt about the book:
"After reading Absent Friends the title reverberated in my mind with the intensity of the deeper meanings of the title.
This book is a masterpiece, The intertwining of the lives of seven young boys and girls who grew up together in Pleasant Hills, Staten Island, New York their childhood, the terrible tragedy of the events of September,and the aftermath in Manhattan and on Staten Island just a few short weeks later told in multiple perspectives bring the memories back, remind us of what was lost and what true heroes look like.
I will not forget this book, Like the ripple effect of a stone dropped into water, the feelings evoked by this book will continue to grow, "

my apologies to "Ann" for using her review without permission, I thank her for her succinct review which I was unable to express any better, This is a real pageturner, Five. Set against the backdrop of/, it's the story of seven childhood friends and an event that changes all their lives the death of one of them at the hand of another of them.
But it's not who the book leads us to believe it is,
Since this is on the spoiler board, I'll say I figured it wasn't Jimmy all along, It didn't fit his personality, And not owning up to it didn't fit his personality,
He always took care of Markie, He never would have let Markie take responsibility for what he did,
My mind swirled around one of the women, or perhaps baby Kevin in some weird accident,
Near the end of the story, I thought we'd find out Tom had Markie killed, Apparently not. I didn't see a good reason for Tom not owning up to what he did, I liked Tom but he didn't emerge as a positive character for me,
I'm not surprised that Harry did kill himself, He would have had a really hard time disentangling that mess, plus so many other people would have been hurt by the truth, by that point.

My big regret was that Kevin was killed, That didn't have to happen, Loved this literary myst I am surprised that I read this book to the end, It got good reviews from significant sources, so I kept at it,
It was very tedious through the first half of the book, Then I began to keep the characters straight and it became more interesting, and the individuals became important to me, I kept reading to find out what happens to them all,
It was a very sad story, set against a backdrop of/, and at the end I felt angry with the author, feeling "what was the point"
I won't be reading any more of her books.
Absent Friends is the kind of read that just gets better and better as it goes along, The characters are many, and at times it was a bit confusing, The author did, however, do a spectacular job of jumping back and forth from the past to the present, In this way the author successfully created her characters from youth to adults, This is a novel about secrets and decisions, About heros and villans. And it is mostly about friends and just what each of us will do for the sake of our relationships, Goodread. .