Have you ever been watching television, reading something, or even had something happen to you that makes you think, “Damn, that’s a bad day”? I do this on a daily basis. All while reading Greg Iles’s Third Degree that is what I was thinking. That being said, I couldn’t put the book down. It was fantastic!
Laurel Sheilds wakes up one morning to find out that she is pregnant. This is just after ending an affair that she had been having for a year. While she is reeling from the news, she knows that the show must go on and so she begins to go through the day. Her husband is acting a bit strange, but she thinks nothing of it. She knows he has been stressed about troubles with the IRS at work. Later that morning Laurel isn’t feeling well and returns home. This is when things start going downhill. Something obviously is not right with her husband Warren, and Laurel’s only hope is Danny McDavitt, her former lover and a retired serviceman. And that’s all I’m saying, because I don’t want to give anything away.
Something that I really liked about Third Degree was that the book takes place during a single day. In the span of one day, a man who many had thought of as a stable family and working man shows that there is another side to him. You spend the majority of the book wondering what happened to inspire such a change in one man. At the end though blood is spilled, secrets are revealed, and there is no shortage of shock.
Greg Iles didn’t just write a book that had me at the edge of my seat, he wrote a book that gripped my emotions and had me feeling for everyone, primary and background characters, the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ alike. I had several moments where I reeled in shock or shook my head in plain disbelief. And then things would just keep moving onto the next big thing. There is no ‘come on… let’s get moving’ with this, while reading Third Degree. The book is a page turner and, if you are like me will keep you up all night until you find out what happens.
Among Stories 