Gold Coast

Author: Nelson De Mille

After reading Wildfire, I’d become a huge fan of Nelson de mille! Almost anywhere and everywhere I could lay my hands on his books, I did. The more I read him, the more the craze wore out. This novel was the nail on the coffin!

A lawyer husband and a wealthy wife lead a happy life on a huge estate that was gifted to the wife by her parents. Their peaceful life is interrupted by the moving in of a mafia-don in their next door estate. Little did they realize what impact this event would have on their future! It starts with a friendly chat and ends with a killing, literally. The couple visit their neighbors as a courtesy and the wife finds herself attracted to the house next door and the don. Her visits become more frequent and her husband, even though not wanting to be a part, gets dragged into family dinners and parties followed by favors showered on him by the don. These he returns with lawyer-ly favors to keep the score even and before he realizes, he steps into the trap and is the lawyer for the don in a case of murder. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid in the beginning! The story has interesting twists and turns.

I liked the base concept but I didn’t like the way the story was weaved. The start was pretty sloppy and the element that pinches me is that – though the protagonist is smart, he’s not smart-enough! Something so unexpected of Nelson’s stories.

Bottomline: It’s a time pass read.