FALL from GRACE

Dust cover from the hardback book.

Fall from Grace, written by master storyteller Richard North Patterson, a former trial lawyer turned author, is an excellent choice for summer reading.

The plot is set on Martha’s Vineyard, as are those of the other books in this trilogy, Loss of Innocence, and Eden in Winter. Not coincidentally, the Vineyard is also Patterson’s summer home.

As the denouement of this tale progresses, it tears at the heart and soul of the Blaine family, where intrigue, mystery, and complex relationships rule its days.

Benjamin Blaine, alpha personality, principal protagonist, and renowned author drives himself to success and fame, yet becomes dysfunctional within his own family.

 

Adam, Benjamin’s son, describes him as “brilliant, immensely talented, extremely driven, and capable of great charm and generosity. He was also vain, self-centered, and the focus of his own world.

Other people weren’t real to him, simply props in the drama of Benjamin Blaine.  Nonetheless, my mother spent a lifetime loving him.”

Adam’s posthumous view of his dad is very accurate, and describes how easily a person can take down individuals within a family, tarnish its reputation, and destroy one’s own carefully crafted persona.

Patterson has done an insightful job of verbally painting all the characters of his book.