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Mister Candid
'He's responsible for the deaths of many people. But everything I've learned about him makes me believe he's fundamentally a good person. Sounds crazy doesn't it? How can he be a good person?' For seventeen years the FBI have been hunting down a killer, a killer with a difference. His victims are the sickos the law couldn't touch. But are his actions those of a maniac or a saviour? And what happened to turn him into Mr Candid? Brought into a life of privilege and wealth on America's East Coast, Charlie Kane was a child prodigy. Reading the New York Times at the age of three, a mathematical genius at thirteen, this gentle, handsome boy went to Harvard University where he found the love of his life and a place in the world. Until one Thanksgiving, seventeen years ago, when Charlie and the entire Kane family all but vanished.
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 29, 2016
Wow ! This is going to be long. Maybe even to long for many people's taste(even my own) so you can skip it since i am aware that i should have left out some of my subjective opinion that is not related to this book. Sorry for that.
Even though this book is closer to a 4 star rating i am giving it a 5 star one. When i think about what kind of books ,which are basically copies of copies ,receive good critics and good rating i must give this one a credit for surprising me. It stood on my book shelve for months and i decided to give it a shot while waiting for my ebay orders to arrive (yes, probably another copies of copies ). I was wrong . I have never heard of this author before(no surprise since we are all bombed with wanna be Gillian Flynn and to be honest with Gillian Flynn her self). Maybe i am impressed more than i should be because i expected nothing from it. Now i am creating a chance for disappointment if someone decides to read it after my review ,but what to say ? I also got disappointed several times after i read a book with such high hopes since they had some great feedback ;). Reviews that glorified them.Our reviews-our opinions so we are entitled to it,right? . This book is not for everybody. It is disturbing as many already said .On the other hand if you can put aside your own repulsion that this book can create and try to listen to a hard emotional story that lies behind,you can find it to be different and good. It is much easier to read about serial killers getting caught by brave detectives , about destructive relationships between non-existing rich,beautiful and a bit psycho but caring male who will fall in love with plain and simple girl that can be any of us (i hate those stories but many women seem to love them and read them in the safety of their own home with perfectly fine husband next to them while secretly wishing for their own Christian Grey since normal and caring husband with no emotional disorder is not good enough )then about something that this book can offer.This book has to many real existing and really sick ''shades of grey '' that nobody would wish for anybody to live trough. They can actually happen but you will not hear about them since nobody would talk about them..You will not hear about them because those kind of tragic stories are the ones that in most cases never leave the safety of a family knowledge as they are to frightening and to real to be told to anybody outside that circle ...and even in that circle if there is somebody who pretends that it is all normal and tries not to see.
I would not describe this book as thriller. In a way it is but i would describe it as a story of one family. Story of a sick and twisted man born to this Earth .. Story of pure evil ruining many lives while smiling as an angel,looking as a Zeus himself.
I felt like the ending was pushed and there are a few obvious flaws that would make this book a 4* for me but i am keeping this rating. And i am recommending it to older generation readers and advising romantic story lovers to pass it. I think most of them would not like it. People who live for '' happily ever after''would not like it but i do believe that for someone out there (not to many of us ) this can be a good read as well .
I apologize for my English . It is not my first language . I also apologize to romantic books readers if they felt offended by my unnecessary comments that were not even related to this book, as i said before, but i feel like they belong with this text .
Happy read ;)
Even though this book is closer to a 4 star rating i am giving it a 5 star one. When i think about what kind of books ,which are basically copies of copies ,receive good critics and good rating i must give this one a credit for surprising me. It stood on my book shelve for months and i decided to give it a shot while waiting for my ebay orders to arrive (yes, probably another copies of copies ). I was wrong . I have never heard of this author before(no surprise since we are all bombed with wanna be Gillian Flynn and to be honest with Gillian Flynn her self). Maybe i am impressed more than i should be because i expected nothing from it. Now i am creating a chance for disappointment if someone decides to read it after my review ,but what to say ? I also got disappointed several times after i read a book with such high hopes since they had some great feedback ;). Reviews that glorified them.Our reviews-our opinions so we are entitled to it,right? . This book is not for everybody. It is disturbing as many already said .On the other hand if you can put aside your own repulsion that this book can create and try to listen to a hard emotional story that lies behind,you can find it to be different and good. It is much easier to read about serial killers getting caught by brave detectives , about destructive relationships between non-existing rich,beautiful and a bit psycho but caring male who will fall in love with plain and simple girl that can be any of us (i hate those stories but many women seem to love them and read them in the safety of their own home with perfectly fine husband next to them while secretly wishing for their own Christian Grey since normal and caring husband with no emotional disorder is not good enough )then about something that this book can offer.This book has to many real existing and really sick ''shades of grey '' that nobody would wish for anybody to live trough. They can actually happen but you will not hear about them since nobody would talk about them..You will not hear about them because those kind of tragic stories are the ones that in most cases never leave the safety of a family knowledge as they are to frightening and to real to be told to anybody outside that circle ...and even in that circle if there is somebody who pretends that it is all normal and tries not to see.
I would not describe this book as thriller. In a way it is but i would describe it as a story of one family. Story of a sick and twisted man born to this Earth .. Story of pure evil ruining many lives while smiling as an angel,looking as a Zeus himself.
I felt like the ending was pushed and there are a few obvious flaws that would make this book a 4* for me but i am keeping this rating. And i am recommending it to older generation readers and advising romantic story lovers to pass it. I think most of them would not like it. People who live for '' happily ever after''would not like it but i do believe that for someone out there (not to many of us ) this can be a good read as well .
I apologize for my English . It is not my first language . I also apologize to romantic books readers if they felt offended by my unnecessary comments that were not even related to this book, as i said before, but i feel like they belong with this text .
Happy read ;)
November 2, 2022
My first review of any book so don't take this with any significant meaning. I liked the book and the topics it revolves around. One thing I disliked is how fast it flows from one story to another. You just get interested in the topic of one character and then it just stops for 3-4 chapters when the author makes a full circle and comes back to the same character.
January 18, 2018
A different kind of book of what I was expecting...it is not the thriller I was thinking of when I got it via Bookcrossing, ages ago. In fact, the book has been on my TBR shelf for 11 years, and in my hands several times, but only recently I chose it among all the books, as I was hoping in a light thriller story to entertain me on a train ride to Birmingham and back.
I was hooked by the story. It's not a thriller as I thought, nor a serial killer story as we know them. It's really a tragic story of a family, of the rich and not so, of the search for justice and thirst of revenge, and since it is not a thriller it is not a fault that you can see where this is going.
Unfortunately, I found the end a bit too rushed, but all in all a good read. I have another book by this author, and I will probably give it a go before too long - hoping it will be just as easy to read and entertaining.
I was hooked by the story. It's not a thriller as I thought, nor a serial killer story as we know them. It's really a tragic story of a family, of the rich and not so, of the search for justice and thirst of revenge, and since it is not a thriller it is not a fault that you can see where this is going.
Unfortunately, I found the end a bit too rushed, but all in all a good read. I have another book by this author, and I will probably give it a go before too long - hoping it will be just as easy to read and entertaining.
July 27, 2024
As I'd loved 'Altered Land', Jules Hardy's very moving, and beautifully-written, debut novel, I was delighted to come across a copy of 'Mister Candid' in a charity shop. Whilst this is a very much darker and disturbing story, the quality of the writing is equally admirable and engaging ... although I must admit to feeling a tad disturbed when I found myself empathising with a serial killer!
July 9, 2020
Enjoyable read, but predictable at times and sometimes also a bit "too much": more than once I found the unfolding of events, the "coincidence" that lead characters to cross each other's paths, so farfetched that it became unrealistic. Pleasant read altogether, but not blown away.
March 1, 2021
It is very messed up and basicaly a psychological horror. It has many taboo topics but the ending is good and the whole story flows very well.
January 26, 2009
Librarything guessed I wouldn't like this and it was almost right. It is one of those reads that left me with a vaguely bad taste in my mouth at the end of it but still managed to keep me reading (which is why it gets 3* rather than lower). There were times that I could see what the writer was doing through the text and there were times it jarred badly on my liking of it. Still it was readable and Charlie "Chum" Kane was an interesting character. The ending did feel quite rushed.
There's a man out there killing pedophiles. Feared by those he hunts and both admired and chased by the legal authorities this is a story of who he is and how he comes to be. Lots of asides and looking into the past it's a story that I felt had issues with determining where it wanted to be. It was neither thriller or literary novel but was trying to be both.
Not bad but it felt like the author could do better. I'm not sure I'm willing to explore to see.
There's a man out there killing pedophiles. Feared by those he hunts and both admired and chased by the legal authorities this is a story of who he is and how he comes to be. Lots of asides and looking into the past it's a story that I felt had issues with determining where it wanted to be. It was neither thriller or literary novel but was trying to be both.
Not bad but it felt like the author could do better. I'm not sure I'm willing to explore to see.
July 18, 2020
This is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. It has incest, pedophilia, social violence, you name it.
Why I read this? Well, in my college days, I was on a long train journey and this was the only book available at the smallest bookstore in the world at a train station (I didn't catch the name) which was not written by a Crichton, a Grisham or an Archer.
Not bad but a very grim tale. It still pains me from time to time whenever I think about this book. Some stories just stay with you.
Why I read this? Well, in my college days, I was on a long train journey and this was the only book available at the smallest bookstore in the world at a train station (I didn't catch the name) which was not written by a Crichton, a Grisham or an Archer.
Not bad but a very grim tale. It still pains me from time to time whenever I think about this book. Some stories just stay with you.
September 6, 2007
I picked this up after listening to the audio version of another of her books, Altered Land. I was pretty blown away by that book, and though I enjoyed Mr. Candid, I don't think it would have had the same impact on me if I had approached these in the other order.
Read
August 9, 2008Found it on my old bedroom's bookshelf the other day -- no idea why I bought this book from Kinokuniya years ago.
April 24, 2011
Intriguing, very good.
January 15, 2013
Very disturbing but also interesting!
July 13, 2013
I absolutely loved this book. It took me some 50 pages to get used to the way Jules tells the story but then I couldn't stop reading and read it in a day.
October 26, 2016
It is disturbing book and some parts were hard to read but still I continue to read it and keep thinking about that book days after reading it!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews