Crying Wolf: A Novel

by Peter Abrahams

For Nat and his new friends, Grace and Izzie Zorn, twin sisters as seductive as they are elusive, it was the perfect plan for some quick cash. A bold scheme with an admirable motive: to save the bright future of a deserving young man. And the victim, too, was deserving--an arrogant billionaire who would hardly notice a financial loss. All the plotters needed was a believable story, desperate and frightening, but false. Nothing bad was supposed to happen. They were only crying wolf. But what if the wolf were real? For someone in the shadows is listening, someone who thinks he deserves an even brighter future. Now a risky but basically innocent game will take a horrifying turn. . . .

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Adult, Mystery Thriller

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Peter Abrahams is an American author of crime fiction for both adults and children.
His book Lights Out (1994) was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel. Reality Check won the best young adult Edgar Award in 2011. Down the Rabbit Hole, first in the Echo Falls series, won the best children's/young adult Agatha Award in 2005. The Fan was adapted into a film starring Robert De Niro and directed by Tony Scott (1996).
His literary influences are Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, and Ross Macdonald. Stephen King has referred to him as "my favorite American suspense novelist".
Born in Boston, Abrahams lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. He is married and has four children including Rosie Gray. He graduated from Williams College in 1968.

Peter Abrahams is also writing under the pseudonym Spencer Quinn (Chet and Bernie Mysteries).

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent thriller by Abrahams, but a bit too predictable for my taste. Our lead, Nat, starts the novel after just finishing high school. Nat lives with his mother (dad split a long time ago) and they have no money; his mom works as a receptionist at a local law firm in their small Colorado town and Nat works jobs to help. Due to an outstanding essay, Nat got accepted into some great colleges, but alas, no money. He did get a partial scholarship at Inverness, some swank liberal arts college, and with that (and a home equity loan on mom's house), he accepts.

Typical small town boy quickly meets lots of people at school, including two beautiful twin sisters who come from serious money. He met them when they came back to school to collect their pet fish (long story). Anyway, Nat was planning on staying at the college over the holiday break (no money and all) but they invite him to their father's apartment in NYC. Then they take the private jet to their island in the Caribbean. Nice! Nat quickly falls in love with them, especially Izzie, the less aggressive twin. Soon after the term starts, however, Nat's mom loses her job and that seems to be it for Nat at college...

While this is going on, Abrahams introduces our antagonist, one Freedy, who starts off working for some pool service in L.A. After trying to rape some lady (and some other shit), Freedy decides it is time to lay low and heads back home-- you guessed it, the same college town where Nat is going to school. You know Freedy and Nat are going to meet up, and that it will be ugly...

Overall, a quick read (as a thriller should be) and I kinda liked Nietzsche theme (Nat and the twins are taking a class on Nietzsche). Not sure if I will try more Abrahams, however. 2.5 stars, rounding up!

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stories about twins always seem gimmicky and manipulative, and this one is no exception. What saves it is Peter Abrahams’ top-tier show-don’t-tell skills, lending the savory glide of pleasurable uncertainty to every passage and every page of this tale of dark
Suspense, and a first-rate villain who psychotic narcissism is rich in tortured justifications for every horrible thing he does. It is a particular strength of Abrahams’, and Freedy is one of his most magnificently nine-dimensional monsters.

[Waffles - Kelsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was more than a white lie. It was deception on a grand scale. But the motive was admirable-to save the bright future of a deserving young man. And the victim, too was deserving-an arrogant billionaire who would hardly notice his loss, crumbs from a vast fortune. All the plotters needed was a believable story, desperate and frightening, but false. Nothing bad was supposed to happen. They were only crying wolf. But what if the wolf were real?

For Nat, a shining all-American boy with blue-collar roots, acceptance to New England's exclusive Inverness College seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. The chilling events that follow are nothing like what he imagined. It begins at Christmas break. Nat, unable to afford going home for the holidays, remains along on the deserted campus. Along-until he meets Grace and Izzie Zorn, twin sisters who, although biologically identical, are utterly different. Thrown off by the irresistible attraction of this astonishing pair, Nat's moral compass starts to fail him. How could it not, as he enters a seductive new world of private Caribbean islands, personal jets, and endless possibility? A world where folly, even crime now seems right. When classes resume, Nat and the twins fall under the influence of a charismatic philosophy professor with dangerous ideas and a secret of his own. His teachings will be used to justify a bold scheme, plotted deep beneath the school in the lair of a forgotten, social club, banished for almost a century. But, someone in the underground shadows is listening, someone who thinks he deserves a future just as bright as Nat's. Suddenly, a risky but basically innocent game will take a horrifying turn.

I actually couldn't make it through the book. It had so much sex scenes that it was really giving me a headache. Sorry!!

[Nina Ylinen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I knew this book wouldn't be good, I knew it, and yet I decided to give it a try. It really wasn't worth it.

I found the structure of the book very confusing, the themes (deciding your own future? Money? Missing fathers?) got lost in the way, too many insignificant characters, too long a beginning (with nothing really happening), and especially the lack of interesting characters: I couldn't care less what happened to them. They remained plastic and boring, especially the main trio (twins + Nat). Even more, Nat seemed rude, (can't understand why the twins loved him so much).

The only character that had some personality in him was Freedy. Did I like him, no, but was he interesting, certainly.

Overall, not worth reading.

[Jharmon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this because my daughter read his YA books and she loved Abrahams so much she got her hands on this adult book. Good complex plot with interesting twists. But not appropriate for my 11 year old. Lots of themes she was clueless about.
If a parentnts of that entitled world, this is an excellent tool to let them at least think about some of the people they will probably meet. I respect very much the challenges offered students at top schools, but at one point, the uber successful businessman dad says, "I never hire form schools like this. I only hire form the top 5 % of public universities." - it's an idea that a kid going into the job market, and simply acquiring life skills, needs to be aware of.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent the first 20 pages in a state of deja vu. Everything was vaguely familiar.

I spent the next 20 convinced I'd read the book before, though I could remember zero specifics. So I decided maybe it was just that the tone is so The Secret History-esque.

Twenty pages later, I gave up and checked my Palm list. Read it in 2003. (I should really update my GoodReads archives, eh?) Without remembering specifics, though, it was certainly worth the snarky fun of reading it again.

It's not great literature by any stretch of the imagination. But it's a fun ride.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't normally rate this type of book so high, but Peter Abrahams captured my attention and the ending was unusual enough to make it special. I really enjoyed reading this book.

[Rhondakimball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very suspenseful

[John Bradford · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a familiar story. An intelligent, well-liked young man (Nat) from a small town earns a scholarship to a prestigious college and finds himself hobnobbing with the very rich. Author Peter Abrahams adds a foil to Nat, a drug-addicted gym rat (Freedy) who fancies himself the smartest person on earth and steals electronics from the college to begin his fortune. Their paths will cross in the book's climax. In the meantime, Nat enjoys the life of Riley as he befriends two rich girls who take him to their Manhattan penthouse home for Christmas and the Caribbean for more holiday fun. Along the way, Nat meets a philosophy professor who specializes in Nietzsche, which influences Nat's life. This is a very engaging book, including the quotes from Nietzsche, that builds to a satisfying showdown between Nat and Freedy. Abrahams does get bogged down in the prose, which slightly disrupts the rhythm. He does a good job immersing the readers into the POV of Nat and Freedy. Especially Freedy, whose drug-induced mind is not lucid much of the time. This is a very entertaining book written in the early 2000s by the man who would later write the Chet and Bernie mysteries under the name Spencer Quinn.

[Justin Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, I will have to vehemently disagree with the other reviewers on here. This one was awesome!

I went through a big Abrahams phase about 10 years back and remember liking all of his novels, but this one was wayyy better than the others I’ve read.

This has a great university setting with believable characters, and asks some important questions about humanity along the way. Nietzsche is a huge focus as well, with quotations sprinkled throughout.
The further into the novel we get, the more the philosophy ties in, which strengthens the action.

On the surface, this is a novel about a kidnapping, but beneath the surface this is a novel about knowledge, love, and growing up. We can all learn a lot from this one.

The only slight downfall was a real quick wrap-up, but I’m okay with that. This was so well-done I can overlook that. Excellent effort!!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

overall, I enjoyed this book even though there were a few reasons not to. For one, all the Nietzsche references went over my head. For another, in no case did I connect the Phil 322 statment at the beginning of each chapter with anything in the chapter.

Some of the clues given were so obvious that I am surprised the characters didn't pick up on them. Come on! Nat couldn't tell them apart?

Freedy was the idiot that thought highly of himself. hateful character, but you at times feel sorry for him except at the end when he got what he deserved.

I hope Nat finished college and made a success of himself. Not enough to read a sequel, but he deserves a break.

[j ✦ · Rating 1 out of 5]

(1.5 ⭐️)

eh. i liked getting both the good guy/bad guy perspectives and waiting to see when they’d eventually cross paths, but that was about it. all of it was very predictable. extremely predictable.
i absolutely could have done without all of the absolute creep shit (some with MINORS) by the bad characters, and there were no sex scenes necessary for this, let’s be so for real. wouldn’t recommend, though the concept was somewhat interesting.

[Brian O'Leary · Rating 1 out of 5]

good start, for the first 25 pages, then it drops off a cliff and is bad.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was readable enough but I just did not connect with it.
The incident at the end that I guess this novel was leading up to, seemed a bit belated.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2000. Suspenseful, well written and intricately detailed.

[Jarrett Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved how the book was written from bad guy and good guy perspective. However, predictable from the beginning. Glad I read it, but nothing I’ll likely remember.

[Darren Behnke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like this book. It took way too long to mix the two sides of the story together. Would not recommend.

[Stefanie Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Mistiemae1 Downs · Rating 1 out of 5]

Peter Abrahams's Crying Wolf doesn't read like a typical "thriller." Sure, it's apparent from the beginning that the two main characters, protagonist Nat and villain Freedy, are being set on some collision course, but this may be lost on the reader. Mr. Abrahams takes his time setting things up, introducing and rounding out the characters, and giving the reader a good amount of insight into the motivations driving good and bad guy alike.

Where he lost me was with the female characters. I know, I know! It's difficult for men to write convincingly for women (and vice versa). However, it didn't seem like Mr. Abrahams really tried to make any of the girls in his book more than prizes to be won by the men. Izzie and Grace were quirky and energetic--quite loveable! So did Mr. Abrahams really have to sell us the timeworn good twin/bad twin storyline? It was disgusting enough to wallow through chapters devoted to chauvinistic, psychotic Freedy without having one of the heroines trying to trick poor, naive Natty boy into sleeping with her. But, in the end, strong and energetic Grace gets hers too, right? And Nat still gets the girl, despite having slept with her twin sister. Let us not forget that he'd already spurned Grace's advances once and had absolutely no trouble knowing that she wasn't her sister then, after only a brief acquaintance with them both.

I enjoyed the story up until the kidnapping plot came into play, but everything suddenly felt out of character for nearly everyone involved.

[Barbara Elsborg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Peter Abrahams a lot. This one - not so much. The writing was stellar as usual but the plot... I wasn't sure I understood the title until the last maybe tenth of the book when it was obvious and yes, all points before had led to this but I kept thinking - have I missed something. Does the title have more significance than that final act by the twins and Nat?
I have mixed feelings on the way Freedy kept coming in and out with no obvious connection until quite late on but he was a well drawn psychotic individual that gave me the creeps. But then the twins gave me the creeps too and I wasn't sure whether that was intentional. It didn't feel much like a suspense story until the end, until that point it was more a social commentary, a character study. But the book held my interest though it didn't set me on fire.

[U.L. Harper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know now that I have a habit of dropping books. I'm going to add this book to my bad habit. About forty pages in I decided there was no point to go on. Yep, forty pages. It doesn't even seem fair. I was willing to give the story a shot. No problem there. What I'm not going to give a shot is the writing style. Mr. Abraham's who apparently is usually very good, simply rambles his way through the character development. It's not crisp, not flowing, and it drags, yes, even at about page forty. Maybe his style makes sense later on in the story but I don't have the patience. There are great books to read and I plan on finding at least an okay one to read.

Thank you for your time.

U.L. Harper

[Mark Soone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this about 4 months ago, so my memory of all the details is a little hazy (not that I give many details anyway). I had never heard of Abrahams prior to reading Pressure drop just prior to this. I was at the library on one of my occasional binges, and saw that Stephen King said Abrahams was his favorite author (Not sure that is true or not). I like King, I loved him as a teenager and my early 20's now I only really like him alot (Although I enjoy his older stuff more than most of his newer stuff), so I thought this might be worth checking out..It was.

This propelled me on a 3 book binge of Abrahams, that I will rivisit in a few months time.

[Kaitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This doesn't read like a typical suspense novel. In fact, it isn't "suspenseful" at all until the last 50 pages. That's fine with me and actually made me like it more. However, the suspenseful part was garbage. It was too rushed and seemed thrown together. It's a shame because I really enjoyed the character building and the premise of the book. I liked Ned, the main character, and his two partners in crime and could sympathize with them. I also REALLY liked how it was narrated in parts from the bad guy's perspective. Like I said, though, the end ruined it for me and made all the build-up feel like a waste.

[Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not shelved as YA in our library, but it ought to be. In this book two young men and a pair of twin sisters are figuring out who they are, discovering sex and relationships and other important stuff like how to navigate their first year of college life and how to fence stolen electronics. One of the young men meets the girls and when he needs money they hatch a plan to fake the kidnapping of one of the girls to get ransom money to help the young man. What could possibly go wrong? They are all idiots, but no more so than many college freshmen I've known, and the story is entertaining, if a bit predictable.

[Suzyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing I love about Peter Abrahams is that he gives us the villain's perspective. He does a lot of that here, though it is probably the least interesting villain he's ever written about. I am doing my best to read all of the old Peter Abrahams I can find because I like him as an author, but he was just off on this one. A lot of it is that his female characters are really off here, which is too bad given that he draws the women pretty well in my favorite of his books "A Perfect Crime."

His storytelling is better than his writing, and he still kept me interested, though.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really thought this book had no redeemable quality at first, but even though there were elements of the book I just do not care for the plot turned out to be incredible. 5 stars for the story, but can only give it a 2 for how bad the language was and also sexual stuff I did not care for. so compromising with a 3.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful narrative, unsatisfying ending. This book is for the journey, because the destination leaves a lot to be desired. Still, I love Abraham's writing style. Three stars is a smidge generous, but 2 weren't enough to convey how engaging it is up until the last 10% of the book, when it all falls apart.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing. I've read the comments about this book, and they weren't that great, but I LOVED it. Peter Abrahams will always be on my top 5 authors. :) His books always keep you interested, all the way until the last page. Yeah, this book was a little raw, but it was one of his earlier books, and that being said, it was awesome!

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. It seemed to meander aimlessly for a while but really got going towards the end. As far as thrillers go, this one was decent. Several big questions were left unanswered but I like being left to my own imagination to fill in the gaps. I rather liked the open ending too for the same reason.

[Lisa Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abrahams is a delicious writer. I read anything by him in a short sitting. This novel is one of his best: a psycho thriller type deal with a great plot and surprising ending. You are missing out if you haven't read Abrahams.