The Wild Zone

Very good Joy Fielding story that involves realistic characters and certainly timely problems such as ptsd and domestic abuse. An easy read that you will probably want to finish in a couple of days. Lots of thrills and an ending with a credible twist!

Once again, I seem to be out of step with other readers. I really enjoyed this book! It's more a caper than a suspense novel, but I found the characters all well drawn and the story nicely constructed. And I loved the last twist at the end, which is something Joy Fielding does so well. I would recommend it highly. If you're looking for romantic suspense of the See Jane Run type (which is my least favorite of Fielding's books) this is probably not for you, but if you liked Mad River Road (which I did), you'll enjoy this also.

It's hard to top a real-world book. By that I mean a book that features (relatively) ordinary people, with ordinary concerns and ordinary lives, where you read about the characters and think, "S/he is just like ----!" When you find these types of books in the thriller genre, the story more often than not concerns what happens when one or more of the characters reach their tipping point. It might be a singular action that propels the plot, but it is something in their past or personality makeup that provides the rocket fuel. Such is the case with THE WILD ZONE, Joy Fielding's latest work. The plot is as easy to follow as it is hard to put down. The book takes its name from a (fictitious) South Miami Beach bar where the action begins with a bet. The wager is placed among three guys: half-brothers Will and Jeff Rydell, and Tom Whitman, who served with Jeff in Afghanistan. That is the extent of their commonality. Will and Jeff are irrevocably jealous of each other. Jeff, a personal trainer, is (to put it bluntly) a babe magnet. Though he is in a live-in relationship with the extremely hot Kristen, a bartender at The Wild Zone, Jeff is not above straying or even bringing other women home for a threesome, a situation that Kristen accepts. Will envies his older brother's easy way with the ladies, seemingly unaware that Tom is jealous of Will's favored status in the family as well as his intellect, which is earning him a doctorate at Princeton. Tom, a misfit whose temper and impulsiveness earned him a dishonorable military discharge, is jealous of both men. Stuck in a dead-end job with a wife and two children, his behavior is predictable only to the degree that when he has a number of choices, he will always pick the wrong one. Suzy Bigelow is the smoking hand grenade that is tossed into this 30-gallon barrel of kerosene. Sitting by herself in the bar, the attractive, sad-looking woman becomes the object of the trio's wager. The bet is simple: Who, among the three of them, can seduce her first? Suzy's initial pick of one of the men rankles the pride of the other two. What none of them know, at least initially, is that Suzy is married to Dr. David Bigelow, a radiologist at a Miami hospital. David, who is equal parts possessive and jealous, rains physical, mental and emotional abuse down on Suzy daily. When Will, Jeff and Tom learn about this, they each react in a different way, even as they are aiming toward the same result, which doesn't look good for any of them. Suzy has secrets of her own, as well as a plan: she sees a way out of the life that has become a nightmare. There is a climax, and an ending, to the novel, and by the time the dust settles and the smoke clears, you'll be shocked. THE WILD ZONE covers a lot of the territory that Jason Starr has examined in his amazing string of stand-alone works, so his fans will find much to love here, as will Fielding's own legion of readers. While the concept of the "angry, out-of-control war veteran" as

I really enjoyed this book as I do all of hers. This one, of course kept me riveted, but the characters were different and very up to date with what is happening in the world today. The story offered me more insight into what the soldiers go through when they get out of serving their time in the war. I liked the characters very much, Joy has a great ability to have the characters stay around in my head for awhile. It like losing friends when you finish her books. This book is very good and pulls you in at the beginning. A+ for the Wild Zone.

Married Tom Whitman is in the Wild Zone in the South Beach section of Miami Beach with his friend Jeff Rydell and Jeff's visiting half-brother, Princeton grad student Will. A few male bonding drinks later leads to the duo betting on whom has sex with the bartender Suzy Bigelow first. Flash tempered Jeff has his live-in lover Kristen who works at the bar talk with Suzy. Suzy chooses to go out on a date with the safe one Will. However, though she seems cute and innocent, Suzy hides from her date that she has a nasty abusive husband Dave waiting for her as she sees the innocent one, his older sibling and their wild eyed friend as the answer to end her personal nightmare. Tom also has serious issues having been dishonorably discharged from the military after some incidents in the Afghan theatre; his wife Lainey knows what caused his issues but is so frightened of him she files for divorce and flees with their kids. Soon all will collide in a clash in the Wild Zone where each will soon learn the meaning of "proceed at your risk". This is a super Miami Beach thriller starring a strong ensemble cast with a great final twist. Each of the key players is fully developed to include their hidden agendas so that the audience understands their motives while wondering how a drunk-induced joke of a bet could turn so nasty. Joy Fielding is at her best with this impossible to put down tale. Harriet Klausner