Security

by Stephen Amidon

Book Overview

There isn't much crime in Stoneleigh, Massachusetts. It's a college town, a mountain getaway for the quietly rich, where the average burglar alarm is set off by foraging wildlife. So when Edward Inman, the owner of Stoneleigh Sentinel, gets a latenight false alarm from the home of Doyle Cutler, one of his wealthiest clients, Edward thinks nothing of it-not until a local student, Mary Steckl, claims that she was sexually assaulted at Cutler's house...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374257116
• ISBN13: 9780374257118
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

"Kathryn had learned that the small favors were as likely to be denied as the big ones."

Secrets and lies are at the heart of Amidon's effective novel, the drama of public accusation and private revenge in the sleepy college town of Stoneleigh, Massachusetts, when Mary Steckl accuses a wealthy local man of attacking her one night at his luxurious estate. Unfortunately for Mary, her father, Walt, is an object of derision since an electrical accident cause irreversible damage to his body. Since the death of his wife from cancer a few years earlier, Walt's drinking has kept him in the public scrutiny. A student at Mt. Stoneleigh College, Mary is a quiet girl, but her accusations bring out a pettiness in her fellow students that burns like a forest fire. Soon everyone takes a side, Mary's credulity hampered by her father's very public blunders. The story is told primarily through the perspective of Edward Inman, owner of Stoneleigh Security, a private security business that has prospered from the increased paranoia of average citizens. It is Edward who first realizes something is amiss at the home of Doyle Cutler, when he responds to a so-called false alarm and later picks up a stumbling, inebriated Connor Williams walking away from Doyle's estate. Connor is the son of Inman's former lover, Kathryn, a woman Edward has been unable to purge from his life and heart in spite of his best intentions. Then there is the charismatic professor, Stuart Symes, who is having an affair with one of his bright students and is teaching a class Mary attends in creative writing. Stuart is somehow connected to the current scandal, a situation that imperils his reputation and case for tenure and outrages his students. Amidon skillfully blends these disparate characters in a believable plot of small town life where controversy breeds passionate responses and gossip spreads without regard to accuracy. Something is terribly wrong in Stoneleigh, important men's reputations on the line, Mary caught in the middle, her innocence forfeit as the stories swirl unabated and Doyle protects himself from scandal. From Edward's loveless marriage to Mary's motherless home, the author captures the uneasy tensions of daily dramas and the controversy that brings scandal to the surface in a small town. Lives are irrevocably changed, hysteria rampant, the truth as elusive as a man without an opinion. Luan Gaines/2010.

no security here

I enjoyed this book. It is a well paced, well written page turner. The story is on slow burn throughout, but the interweaving and unfolding of relationships was fun to follow, and the story is more about the people involved than the events. Indeed it's a funny book in that the hinted at event hangs over the book without ever being properly defined. The title is ironic- everyone in the book wants security but none can find it, and there isn't any at the end. I loved the book's ability to conjure up small town life, with its superficial politeness and some deeper fault lines. The slow pace of the narrative was like a Mahler allegro- intense, a bit slow, but building to something magnificent. Sadly as with many novels, the build up is great, but the ending lets it down. It happens too quickly, and we never find out about what happens to the bad guy, or why he did what he did. The book would easily adapt to become a very good film, and might even be better on screen. Overall I rate this novel a good read.

Astute Observations

I had very high expectations of the author of the well-received, "Human Capital" and I wasn't disappointed. Au contraire. This novel covers many themes well: politics, adultery, class snobbery, law enforcement, parenting, real estate, addictions and deep emotional conflicts in a small but developing suburban college town. To our benefit, the characters are well-drawn and true-to-life--they all have interesting stories to tell us-with a good dose of mystery and suspense.

interesting small-town saga

In Stoneleigh, Massachusetts Edward Inman runs a security company while married to Alderman Meg. He and Meg know their relationship is loveless, but she will never let him go as long as she runs for public office; which she is as she tries to become town mayor. In fact, Edward loves his former girlfriend Kathryn recently divorced; they are having a heated affair. Meanwhile college student Mary Steckl accuses wealthy Doyle Cutler of sexual abuse. The police and most townsfolk assume she is full of BS and is probably protecting her widower alcoholic father Walter from some drunken rage of his in which he injured her shoulder. Walt thinks immediately rape through his alcoholic haze. However, one person witnessed what happened to Mary at the Cutler mansion, but Kathryn's brooding nineteen year old son Conor has his own issues and so far is silent except with Doyle. This is an interesting small-town saga with an ensemble cast including other prime participants not mentioned above like Angela the student who is also at Cutler mansion. The two major subplots of what happened to Mary and the affair between Edward and Kathryn never merge; in fact the latter just sort of vanishes without closure while the former ends violently but somehow without closure too. Fans of morality plays that border on soap opera (as everyone in Stoneleigh seems overwhelmingly loaded with angst) will appreciate this gloomy glimpse at the power of money to make people dance the affluent piper's tune. Harriet Klausner