Not entirely, but painfully close to being 100% awful. Even taking into account the not-PC era during which it was written, this was offensive... in too many ways and on multiple levels. The writing was very inconsistent - in chapter 16, the coarse NYC detective suddenly switches from his usual sarcastic, hard-boiled, sexist persona to sounding like a shrill teenage girl. The dead characters had more depth than the living ones - virtually no-one seemed plausible. The gut-wrenching (literally) cl...

I really enjoyed this book. It's my second favorite by DeMille after Gold Coast. Gold Coast is an excellent read and I have read it twice, which I don't do too often-rarely in fact. But Plum Island is great because of the main character's wry sense of humor. This kind of humor that does not overshadow the story or cast shade on the character makes this book unique. I had to set the book down on my chest to laugh out loud a few times. This book is also unique because it has a ninety page boat cha...

The opening of the Corey series. DeMille weaves a complicated, but credible plot. Two scientists working at a bio-hazard, isolated government lab are murdered. Could it be terrorism? Theft of horrible pathogens?An excerpt, relevant to today's pandemic: 'The last big deadly human influenza epidemic in the world was in 1918. There were about twenty million dead worldwide, including five hundred thousand in the U.S. Based on our present population, U.S. dead would be one and a half million. And the...

Read as paperback in very early 2000s.

Keep in mind that I read this book a little over a decade and a half ago, yet the story is as vivid today as it was then. Damn. That is the genius that is Nelson Demille.The book starts with a convalescing John Corey, formerly of the NYPD, who wants nothing more than to drink beer while relaxing at his Uncle's Long Island beach house. When two prominent scientists (who worked at a secret research facility on Plum Island) are murdered, John is drafted to investigate the deaths. With acerbic wit a...

I will forever remember this book as the one I painstakingly read in tiny font, all 574 pages of it, and found that it could have been shortened to less than half of the pages without reducing any substance or plot whatsoever. What a waste of time.I was expecting some big story or conspiracy to unfold, as that's what I was lead to believe by reading the back cover. Dead scientists who used to work in an animal research facility, dealing with viruses and bacteria--sounds promising isn't it? Too b...

With this novel I've got beef. Let's begin!1. It's twice as long as it needs to be. 700+ pages is an absurd length for a standard suspense/detective novel. And there's nothing special about this novel from a narrative standpoint to warrant this kind of length. There's an initial mystery; some intriguing facts; the plot thickens; TWIST!; plot comes together; bad guy revealed; final encounter; resolution. I've read dozens upon dozens of books with this format, and I would be hard pressed to find a...

Many GR friends enjoyed this series and that's how I got into starting this book. I really like the main character, John Corey, a smartass and sorta cocky NYPD homicide detective. He might not be a guy I'd like to know or work with in real life, but he's a good book hero. He's a likable guy and the book is entertaining but too drawn out. This is the first book in the series and Corey is recovering from a job-related injury at his uncle's summer home on Long Island when he's pulled into a double

My dad works on Plum Island...the real one. I was dying to read this book because it's about my home on Long Island and because I know quite a bit about PLum Island, so I wanted to see what Demille would do with the story. Indulge my rant, if you will...Plum Island is a biosafety level 3 lab off the coast of the north fork of LI that studies animal deseases like Foot & Mouth, Mad Cow, etc., and does everything they can to keep these diseases out of the US and protect the livestock in our country...

One of my favorite all-time thrillers, this is a fantastic beach book with intrigue, smart-alec humor, biological warfare concerns, and even a touch of love. As a fan of everything Nelson Demille had written to that point, I read Plum Island in 1997, the very month it was published and chomped it down.Since then, Demille has lately resurrected the main character John Corey another five times as the star of other thrillers, and you may have bumped into him. But this baby remains my fave.John is a...

Something, Whatever, You Know - 4 Stars Despite a vocabulary that included more non-specific words than a valley girl, I found myself amused and entertained by John Corey. Both irreverent and brilliant, Corey is one of the most entertaining protagonists I have read in a long time. Because of my preference for reading lesser know authors, I have put off reading this series for a long time. Fortunately, it was well written and entertaining and I will certainly continue the series. Plot Summar

I was hoping that both of the main characters (especially the narrator) would drown so the book would end sooner.

I read this back when I only gave star ratings. It was enjoyable, but I have never tried more in the John Corey series.The main reason for writing this is because someone liked my star only rating today and it made me remember that this book holds a very high honor: It was my very first audiobook!I finished it on May 20th, 2014 and it is now May 22nd 2020 and I have read 365 audiobooks in that time. So, I guess you could say that this book created a monster!

I sat here for a good while considering what to rate this book. I came very close to giving it 5 stars and am still thinking it over (I reserve the right to come back and up the rating if I decide to, LOL).This is an excellent book in a genre that I don't usually find my favorite. It's well written with a likeable yet infuriating protagonist. (Not too unlike Harry Dresden if that's a reference you're familiar with.) He does hit one of my annoyance buttons which I'll mention later under a spoiler...

John Corey is convalescing at his Uncle Harry's Victorian home in the North Fork of Long Island, NY. The Suffolk County Chief, Sylvester Maxwell (Max) has asked John to be a consultant in a double homicide. John learns it is friends of his, Tom and Judy Gordon. A delightful couple who worked at the infamous Plum Island Research Facility for the Department of Agriculture studying animal diseases, viruses and flu's. Immediately, there are several people involved, Foster (FBI), Nash (DOA), Detectiv...

Plum island, truth be told, exceeded my expectations. Except in the humor department. The latter isn't the one thing I look forward to in a thriller anyway. Any book can be written in any style. There's one style, a bleak, grim and unapologetic style that I flee from like a vampire from the sun. Books that imitate life. It can crop up in any book. Fortunately, Plum Island is not like that; it is simply peachy. Oh, and if you want to read this book, you can omit Chapter 13. There's quite some de

With any review I do, I ask myself a single question: "How much do you care whether or not people read this book." This time, the answer is not so simple. I honestly have no idea whether or not people are interested in Nelson DeMille. Dude has a following. He doesn't need my help. Also, he's not terrible, so I don't feel the need to be satirical with my review. He's somewhere between Greg Iles and Howard Stern. Basically, this guy writes really verbose books for middle-aged men. There's some men...

I probably wouldn't have picked up this book if it weren't for a group I was in suggesting it. I have never read anything by this author, and to be honest I never really heard of him before this.I really enjoyed this book. It started off a little slowly, and the main character John Corey was such a sarcastic SOB that he was great! I liked his style and his humor... although I'm not sure I was really supposed to like him. John is a homicide detective with the NYPD and is currently recuperating in...

Meet John Corey. He's a wise-cracking, know-it-all detective recovering at his deceased relative's house in the Long Island area.Wouldn't you know it there he is minding his own business when all of a sudden . . . you get the idea.Well crafted murder mystery. DeMille gets the subculture of Long Island. OVERALL GRADE: A minus to A.

First book in the series, and I really liked it!When I found out that DeMille wrote The General's Daughter, I did a little more research on his 'John Corey' series. It seems that he hadn't wanted to write a series, but there were too many of his readers who wanted another John Corey book. He'd been afraid of his female readers; what they'd think of John as a character. He's cocky, tactless, crude, and a real ass, but I adored him. I loved how his mind worked, how he processed what he saw, what h...