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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780446531450
ISBN number: 0446531456
Label: Grand Central Publishing
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: May 11, 2005
Publishing house: Grand Central Publishing
Sale Popularity Level: 696607
Studio: Grand Central Publishing
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Product Description:
A promising attorney and political candidate, Raymond White was on the fast track when his life was suddenly derailed. Unexpectedly framed and convicted of murder, he is sentenced to solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison. Alone with his inner rage, Raymond methodically plots his revenge against those who schemed to ruin his career and take away his life. Now, after spending 18 years behind bars, Raymond makes his escape--and is ready to finally put his plan into action.
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Rated by buyers 
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I wondered myself how The Count of Monte Cristo could be retold in modern context, and Tim Green does it expertly in Exact Revenge. He stays faithful to the story of betrayal and revenge, but he exercises marvelous liberty to make the story relevant and not just a pastiche tribute to Dumas. The story reads as a natural flow of events, motives, and plot points and has its own merit, standing alone from the classic. A product of the plot is that Seth Cole, the reincarnation of Raymond White becomes less sympathetic as the vehicle of revenge than he does as the innocent victim. Where Dumas painted a resonating work that stands out as a classic, Tim Green's revenge would adapt well for a movie. Both work for the contemporary audience, but Green writes well for our times.
Rated by buyers 
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The very first half of this book was really good, right up until he gets out of prison. Then, it became way too deluted with unessesary details and rambled on and on until the less than satisfying end.
Rated by buyers -
This reprise of The Count of Monte Cristo (in modern times) is very readable--a feast of nonstop melodrama. The characters are slightly over the top; the settings are slightly over the top; the actions are slightly over the top and the violence is perfect. Upstate New Yorkers will particularly enjoy it--with scenes in Syracuse, Auburn and the finger lakes. This is my very first Tim Green novel, so I have nothing to compare it with. The writing is slick, the plotting deft, the 'unputdownable' factor approaching 100%. This is the perfect airplane read.
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Other reviewers have eloquently described this book. And it is not unpleasant reading--it is distracting and mildly entertaining. It won't keep you up all night finishing it.
I just want to re-iterate that the acquisition of limitless wealth, the change of identity and appearance, and the various revenges taken, strain the credibility way too far. The last part of the book is all juvenile fantasy wish fulfillment, and made me uncomfortably embarrassed for the author, who I have to presume took the fantasy wishes from his own collection. Sure, we all have these fantasies, but if I'm going to read about someone else's, I'd like them described a little more artfully.
Rated by buyers 
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Exact Revenge is a loose modern retelling of Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. In Dumas's 1844 classic, Edmond Dantès is wrongly imprisoned after being caught with an incriminating letter given to him by a dying military captain. In prison, Dantès meets an aging priest who provides him with a rich education in history, language, philosophy, and other disciplines before telling him about a cache of unimaginable riches on the Isle of Monte Cristo. Dantès escapes and uses the wealth to reinvent himself before tracking down and bringing to justice all those who had wronged him.
Green's protagonist is Raymond White, an up-and-coming player in the financial world poised to launch a political career. On the eve of the announcement of his candidacy for Congress, he is given a letter by the dying former Congressman. When White delivers the letter, he is implicated in a murder. After trial, he is sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In prison, White meets Lester Cole, an old art thief who teaches him the ways of the world before confiding in him about the hideaway where he has stored billions of dollars' worth of stolen masterpieces. After White escapes prison, he finds the treasure trove and uses it to carry out his vengeance against the people who destroyed his life.
Readers familiar with the Dumas's plot will be either impressed with or frustrated by Green's staunch loyalty to even minor story elements in his reimagined version. For example, both stories include a letter given to the protagonist by a dying man. In both stories, the letter leads to the carrier's false imprisonment. Both stories include a government official who reluctantly allows the accused to suffer prison rather than risk his own career. Both stories feature a wizened benefactor, a hidden treasure, and unnecessarily complex (and expensive) plans for revenge. Other story elements (specifically the nature of White's escape from prison) seem borrowed from the hit television series Prison Break and the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption (based on a novella by Stephen King).
The writing in Exact Revenge is surprisingly good for an author whose previous works have been rather mediocre. His use of metaphor and descriptive prose makes the story enjoyable to read even when its similarities to Monte Cristo seem a bit over the top. I was reminded at times of Cormac McCarthy's abbreviated writing style when Green left out certain details in favor of allowing his audience to fill in the blanks. That strategy mostly worked well in this setting, and I enjoyed the quality of the writing as much as the suspense and intrigue of the story.
Unfortunately, the book contains a fair amount of objectionable content, including multiple sex scenes, some gruesome violence, drug use, and illegal vigilantism. The book's title comes from the most important rule White learns in prison: when someone wrongs you, no matter how trivially, you must exact revenge, and you must pay back the wrong tenfold. That's quite a different message from that of Scripture, where Jesus commands his followers to turn the other cheek and repay evil with kindness. A telling moment comes when White, in the midst of his plotting and carrying out his personal brand of justice, wonders what has happened to his soul.
It's too bad if Tim Green feels he needs to rely on the ideas of others. Giving tribute to classics from previous literary eras is a worthwhile endeavor, and if that was Green's intention with this book, fine. But one would hope that future books from this author will display more originality; his writing is good enough to support ideas that are his own.
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