The Tarnished Eye | 
| Manufacturer: Scribner
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $8.00 (44%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 39082
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000FC1Q4C
Publication Date: May 25, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary People comes a gripping novel of suspense, exploring fragile family dynamics in the aftermath of tragedy... Acclaimed author Judith Guest makes a triumphant return with this poignant and powerful novel that's sure to add luster to her reputation as one of the most thoughtful observers of the human condition. Taking as part of her inspiration a baffling, unsolved true-life crime, Guest achieves in this absorbing new novel an extraordinary combination of page-turning mystery and intimate, emotionally charged family drama. The Tarnished Eye takes readers to the community of Blessed, in northern Michigan, where Sheriff Hugh DeWitt still grieves for his infant son, who died of SIDS a few years earlier. Obsessed with the past, he's endangering his future with his beloved wife and daughter. Meanwhile, up the road from the DeWitts, in one of the rich summer cottages, Paige Norbois grieves for a lost love of her own. Married to a stern and unresponsive man, Paige wills herself to stay in the marriage and sacrifice her personal feelings for the sake of her children's stability. But soon an unimaginable tragedy destroys all dreams of stability in Blessed. Paige, her husband, Edward, and their four children are brutally slaughtered in their home. Sheriff DeWitt, deeply moved by the horrific murder scene, must find answers to a string of urgent questions. When, exactly, did the murders occur? Why did nobody miss the family earlier? Who had a motive to kill? The man with whom Paige was having an affair? The business partner, who was stealing from Edward's publishing firm? Which family member was the primary, intended victim? And above all, what sort of trauma could fuel a killer's capacity to commit such hate-driven violence? Judith Guest, with her own untarnished eye and finely nuanced prose, delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases once again her remarkable literary gifts. "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Poorly written January 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sensationalized claptrap. I hate to think of the author making any money whatsoever off this book. To base her story on real people and then write such garbage about them and trash their memories is despicable. The true event it is supposedly based on is no mystery, either. The perpetrator of the crime was known to the police, but the district attorney didn't feel they had enough evidence to get a conviction. The murderer later killed himself.
 Not a great book, but much better than previous novels. October 9, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a fan of Judith Guest, though, her subsequent novels after ORDINARY PEOPLE were a bit long in the tooth for me. THE TARNISHED EYE, however, highlights her strong writing ability. The first third of the novel is very well written. I particular enjoy the rhythm of her words and sentences; they're cohesive, concise, languid, and assured. You get a sense of time, place, Sheriff DeWitt and his familly life and the Norbois household. I also liked the construction of the novel in that first-third: the reader gets a chance to see what the victims were doing, through their own eyes, right before they were murdered. The last two-thirds of the novel are the challenge. This is Ms. Guest first "on her own" foray into a police procedural so there are some rocky and tedious moments that could have been stripped and/or written better?? I read a lot of mysteries so I figured out the murderer long before the end. What I could NOT figure out is how the murders were commited. I just didn't get it. I re-read several passages trying to piece together the actual murder and quite frankly, I do not see how the murderer was able to ambush all six people so fast. If someone else figured it out, please let me know!
It is a great book? No. It's an interesting read, I enjoyed it for what it was, and I'm glad to see Ms. Guest back in the bookstores.
Outstandinf Procedural January 10, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Minnesota author Judith Guest hasn't written a lot of fiction. Her first, ORDINARY PEOPLE, an acclaimed and best-selling debut, was transformed into a popular, award-winning motion picture. Now we have only her fourth book. She may not write fast, but she certainly writes well.
THE TARNISHED EYE is variously described as a novel of suspense and it is that; as a fine police procedural, and it is that, too. It is also a finely conceived observation of human dynamics. It is not a long novel. Guest's spare, precise style lends itself to this kind of page-turning story with its careful, nuanced prose, multi-layered characters and intricate human dynamics. Yet a reader is not drawn to rush pell-mell through the action. Rather, one settles in, appreciating the language, the individual scenes, the thoughtful, careful way in which Guest hovers over the characters, examining, illuminating, observing even minor characters. "The driver of the yellow Link-belt Tractor is waiting on the road. `What a bitch, gettin' up that hill!' he shouts. Stu turns to snap a picture of the rig." A few words that tell us a great deal about two minor players.
THE TARNISHED EYE has its roots in a still unsolved multiple-murder that took place in Michigan many years ago. The novel follows the sheriff of Blessed, Michigan, Hugh DeWitt, who is still struggling to cope with the death of his infant son three years earlier. His wife, Karen, who has coped better with the tragedy of SIDS, now struggles to support her husband and her marriage.
DeWitt is faced with a multiple homicide. An entire family has been wiped out in their expensive, almost palatial, nearby vacation home. Perhaps this is the final; crushing blow for Sheriff DeWitt, an experienced, dedicated, rural sheriff who is beginning to believe hope for the human race is a lost cause. Written in present tense with multiple points of view, the novel is a masterpiece of structure. What happens next is a finely wrought example of good, careful police work, putting Guest in league with author Michael Dymmoch.
Steadily, carefully, coping with a media frenzy, unhelpful fellow law enforcement agency colleagues, and a host of odd and wonderful idiosyncratic minor characters, DeWitt and his small agency gradually put the pieces together, working against the possibility that the killer may have other targets, until they arrive at a final, surprising, solution. This is an eminently satisfying and wonderful novel.
intriging subject, but more details please September 22, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The subject is one I remember and looked forward to reading the book although it's fiction. When finished I found myself looking for much more information.
Disappointed, too. July 5, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I, too, read the reviews here and got this book expecting a good read. I am totally in agreement with the review who said that this author does not have the talent for good, gripping, complex but accessible, intelligent mystery writing. It's okay. Just okay.
The ending was, in my opinion, just tacked on, not hinted at or built up to in any way that made all the pieces fit together with a fine "ah ha!" It was as if she wrote the book to have a "surprise ending" by creating one false suspect after another, then just assigning an unlikely person the role of villian without creating the character so that it made sense in a satisfying way.
I gave it three stars, because I did read the whole thing, but I would not recommend it to anyone.
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