≡ [PDF] Caught [Hardcover] Lisa Moore 9780887842450 Books

Caught [Hardcover] Lisa Moore 9780887842450 Books

Download As PDF : Caught [Hardcover] Lisa Moore 9780887842450 Books

Caught [Hardcover] Lisa Moore 9780887842450 Books

“Caught,” by Lisa Moore, is a stunning novel of piercing psychological depth and realism. It literally took my breath away. This is the first novel I’ve read by Moore, but I can easily see why she won the 2013 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award, one of Canada’s major literary honors. In conferring that prize on the whole of Moore’s literary work, the jury noted that she was “a writer of startling originality and compelling emotional truth.” In my opinion, that short phrase aptly and succinctly captures this author’s exceptional literary gift.

“Caught” is an insightful novel constructed around the theme of trust, truth, and deception. All the main and secondary characters are regular, everyday type of people portrayed with stark emotional honesty and authenticity; the world they inhabit is one of enigmatic moral ambiguities. We recognize that world as our own and it startles us because we begin to see how dangerous and unpredictable it can be. Anything can happen. Trust is fickle. Control is fiction. Fate is something we eventually must accept…and not let it turn us bitter or make us feel entitled.

The publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel is trying to market this book as some kind of a literary prison-break suspense thriller. All that’s true, but it is not necessarily encouraging the right audience. Sure, the novel is compelling with a pace that pushes the reader through the pages eager to find out what’s going to happen to the likable main character. Sure, the main character is very young, perceptive, crafty, and likable—a modern-day Billy the Kid—but what drives this book is not the action, but the inner motivations behind those actions. It’s not a genre suspense thriller; it’s a profound literary psychological drama….that just happens to be enveloped in a thrilling and suspenseful story.

The novel tells the story of good-looking twenty-five-year-old David Slaney. It opens in Nova Scotia with a prison break. David’s been in prison for four years and two days because he was caught while smuggling two tons of Colombian marijuana into Newfoundland by boat. That was in the late sixties before gangsters and violence took over the drug trade. It was during an era when just normal kids were involved in trying to make it rich by smuggling pot. The whole plan was a daring heist—and a crazy youthful lark. It was something that David and his best buddy, Hearn, had done together. Hearn was the brains behind the idea, but they’d gotten caught. David went to prison, but Hearn managed to skip out on the law and stay on the lam. Hearn had a new identity; he was studying to get a Ph.D. in literature; he was also planning a new Colombian drug heist and for that, he needed David…and David needed to be with his friend and support him with this new plan.

For the first half of the book, David is on the run, sometimes only hours ahead of the cop who’s pursuing him across Canada. He’s a wanted man. His picture and story are front-page news. With that amount of high publicity, who can David trust? What motivates the people who go out of their way to help David knowing exactly who he is? What motivates the people who try to deceive him into thinking that they are helping him when they are really only trying to get him turned into the police? How can David know who he can trust? David figures that he has a special skill in sensing who is trustworthy and who is out to deceive him. Time after time, he makes the right decision. He reads people like a book. But is he winning by luck or does he really possess an innate skill at being able to read a stranger’s intentions?

Eventually, David meets up with Hearn. But their second heist of Colombian marijuana turns out to be something entirely different than David had imagined.

As readers, we really want Slaney to win. He’s a decent guy. There is something about him that is very special—the kind of young man who is capable of seeing “glimpses of dignity in everyone.” Slaney has the “raw courage and the will” to make the heist a success. Hearn depends of him. But is he taking advantage of his friend?

Lisa Moore’s arresting prose is full of intense emotions, active verbs, and vivid imagery. But more importantly, she deals with big issues where there isn’t any one right answer. She keeps her readers thinking.

I have nothing but high praise for this author and this book. I hope my review has piqued your interest. The novel is very entertaining and will keep you thinking long after the last page is read.


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Caught [Hardcover] Lisa Moore 9780887842450 Books Reviews

The style of writing is really good. The story? Not so much. It's just an obvious slow moving train on it's way to a wreck. There are no surprises. Perhaps that's the most disappointing surprise of all is that it's just so obvious . Everything you think is going to happen is going to happen. There's no great resolution or salvation at the end. I prefer a story with some twists and unexpected events. A story that draws me in emotionally or intellectually or both. I do admire the style of writing. I just wish it was connected to a more satisfying story.
The story was entertaining but the characters were poorly developed. Book had potential but was cut short, which left the story choppy and incomplete.
Well written, rather unlikely plot, but an adventure with interesting and original characters. What happens when we trust too much and Why do we persist in giving the underserving our unshakeable loyalty? What drives us in spite of the warning signs? These are questions that Moore addresses, and quite successfully answers.
An interesting story set in the early days of dope smuggling with a likable main character. I would have liked to see the author develop some of the other characters more fully, especially the Canadian detective who tracks down the goofy grass runners. The story line offered a chance to create some shades of doubt in the minds of the hunters as well as the hunted.
I absolutely loved this novel. It snagged me from the start. I could hardly bear to put it down while on a recent vacation in Mexico, by chance, and I've been to Colombia, so time and place were familiar, and both were captured very well. The prose was creative and clever. A wonderful read not just about drug dealing, but about love and loyalty and dreams and pipedreams and all the rest. I plan to read more of Lisa Moore. Bravo!
It was a good read with charming characters that you can't help but like despite their flaws. There could have been a little more background development between the main character and his friend/"business" partner, though, to justify the main character's dedication to their plan. I understand that there will be a Canadian series based on the book, and I can't wait to see it.
If your lifelong friend skipped bail and left you to serve the full sentence in drug charges, would you ever trust him again?

That's the choice David Slaney faces when his old friend helps him break out of jail after serving five years of his sentence. Part road trip, part buddy story, and part caper keeps the tension building all the way through. There were a few times I wanted to scream at the characters. And that helped make this a 4-star read.
“Caught,” by Lisa Moore, is a stunning novel of piercing psychological depth and realism. It literally took my breath away. This is the first novel I’ve read by Moore, but I can easily see why she won the 2013 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award, one of Canada’s major literary honors. In conferring that prize on the whole of Moore’s literary work, the jury noted that she was “a writer of startling originality and compelling emotional truth.” In my opinion, that short phrase aptly and succinctly captures this author’s exceptional literary gift.

“Caught” is an insightful novel constructed around the theme of trust, truth, and deception. All the main and secondary characters are regular, everyday type of people portrayed with stark emotional honesty and authenticity; the world they inhabit is one of enigmatic moral ambiguities. We recognize that world as our own and it startles us because we begin to see how dangerous and unpredictable it can be. Anything can happen. Trust is fickle. Control is fiction. Fate is something we eventually must accept…and not let it turn us bitter or make us feel entitled.

The publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel is trying to market this book as some kind of a literary prison-break suspense thriller. All that’s true, but it is not necessarily encouraging the right audience. Sure, the novel is compelling with a pace that pushes the reader through the pages eager to find out what’s going to happen to the likable main character. Sure, the main character is very young, perceptive, crafty, and likable—a modern-day Billy the Kid—but what drives this book is not the action, but the inner motivations behind those actions. It’s not a genre suspense thriller; it’s a profound literary psychological drama….that just happens to be enveloped in a thrilling and suspenseful story.

The novel tells the story of good-looking twenty-five-year-old David Slaney. It opens in Nova Scotia with a prison break. David’s been in prison for four years and two days because he was caught while smuggling two tons of Colombian marijuana into Newfoundland by boat. That was in the late sixties before gangsters and violence took over the drug trade. It was during an era when just normal kids were involved in trying to make it rich by smuggling pot. The whole plan was a daring heist—and a crazy youthful lark. It was something that David and his best buddy, Hearn, had done together. Hearn was the brains behind the idea, but they’d gotten caught. David went to prison, but Hearn managed to skip out on the law and stay on the lam. Hearn had a new identity; he was studying to get a Ph.D. in literature; he was also planning a new Colombian drug heist and for that, he needed David…and David needed to be with his friend and support him with this new plan.

For the first half of the book, David is on the run, sometimes only hours ahead of the cop who’s pursuing him across Canada. He’s a wanted man. His picture and story are front-page news. With that amount of high publicity, who can David trust? What motivates the people who go out of their way to help David knowing exactly who he is? What motivates the people who try to deceive him into thinking that they are helping him when they are really only trying to get him turned into the police? How can David know who he can trust? David figures that he has a special skill in sensing who is trustworthy and who is out to deceive him. Time after time, he makes the right decision. He reads people like a book. But is he winning by luck or does he really possess an innate skill at being able to read a stranger’s intentions?

Eventually, David meets up with Hearn. But their second heist of Colombian marijuana turns out to be something entirely different than David had imagined.

As readers, we really want Slaney to win. He’s a decent guy. There is something about him that is very special—the kind of young man who is capable of seeing “glimpses of dignity in everyone.” Slaney has the “raw courage and the will” to make the heist a success. Hearn depends of him. But is he taking advantage of his friend?

Lisa Moore’s arresting prose is full of intense emotions, active verbs, and vivid imagery. But more importantly, she deals with big issues where there isn’t any one right answer. She keeps her readers thinking.

I have nothing but high praise for this author and this book. I hope my review has piqued your interest. The novel is very entertaining and will keep you thinking long after the last page is read.