The Gate House is the sequel to Nelson DeMille's wildly popular mafia thriller/farce, The Gold Coast, picking up ten years after John Sutter's blue blood wife shot her mafia don lover. Now John is back in the aristocratic Gold Coast section of Long Island, having spent three years sailing around the world and seven years as a London tax lawyer. Susan Stanhope Sutter, his ex-wife, is also back from her exile in Hilton Head. Unfortunately for both of them, the dead don's son has also moved back to the neighborhood, determined to avenge his father's death and take over his empire.
Those many thousands of readers who loved The Gold Coast will either enjoy this revisit to favorite territory or find it a desperate re-tread. I fall into the first camp. I was pleased to catch up with John and Susan, and DeMille had me laughing all the way through. It is an excellent send-up of snooty East Coast high life, with clever dialog and plenty of one-liners.
The book poses a conundrum, however, fr those who didn't read the first one. For one thing, the first one really is better. There is no point reading the sequel instead of the inaugural. But anyone who reads The Gold Coast for the first time can't immediately move on to The Gate House because DeMille exhaustively rehashes the original plot -- it would be torture. The only way to enjoy the sequel would be to read the first one and then wait a couple of years.
OTHER REVIEWS
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NOTES
This counts as one of my books for the TBR Challenges I am doing, as well as the Chunkster and Tea & Books Challenges.
I thought the first one was better but this one could stand alone. I did read the books a few years apart, though.
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I definitely will read this book, torture notwithstanding. I absolutely loved The Gold Coast, although for me DeMille is beginning to wear thin. When he's on he is really on.
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