RIP: Shutter Island

Title:  Shutter Island
Author:  Dennis Lehane
Publisher:  Harper Collins
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Narrator:  Tom Stechschulte
ASIN:  B001NJ5XM2
Length:  9 hours, 38 minutes
Source:  Personal Copy
Grade: A






A Reader's Respite came close to missing this gem of a thriller.  Why?  Because some idiots out in Hollywood decided that Dennis Lehane's novels make good movies (well, based on Mystic River, they're probably right).  But while we didn't see Shutter Island on film, we did see the movie trailer, which presented the tale as a scary, scary horror-type movie.  A Reader's Respite was just turned off, Leo or no.

Is it just us, or does he still look like he's 12 years old?  (a 12 year old with a beard, that is)

So now it's time to set the record straight:  Shutter Island is NOT a horror story in any way, shape or form.  It is, however, a fabulously executed thriller that gets the old heart pumping.

The time?  The 1950s.

The place?  Shutter Island, a small government island in Boston Harbor.

The set-up?  Two U.S. Marshals are sent out to Shutter Island - where the government runs an asylum for the criminally insane - to investigate the disappearance of a female patient.  Not all is what it seems to be at Shutter Island and things go very much bump-in-the-night as the two marshals get caught up in a creepy mystery and a hurricane descends upon the Eastern Seaboard, effectively cutting off Shutter Island from the rest of the world.

Sandy recommended this on audio and she was spot on, as usual.  Our narrator is pitch-perfect and Dennis Lehane hits another one out of the ballpark.

Highly, highly recommended!

A Reader's Respite Creep-O-Meter: