Reviews

The Three-Day Affair by Michael Kardos

backshelfbooks's review against another edition

4.0

I bought this book out of bias, because Kardos was an professor at my University.But I am SO glad I actually took the time to read it. It is beyond thrilling and entertaining. The book is paced so well, and it quickens as the characters' anxiety begins to heighten (as well as your own). I finished this book in one sitting, and I love that it's a can't-put-down thriller that sticks with you. I highly recommend!

addypap's review against another edition

4.0

Read right after Bluff, wasn't quite as good as Bluff, but did enjoy. He creates great characters. Vaguely reminded me of Very Bad Things movie.

terib's review against another edition

4.0

Twist at the end

It turns several places and my guesses were often wrong. While it seems slow, don’t give up. The final two sections are really surprising.

nathanrester's review against another edition

4.0

Enjoyed the hell out of this. It fits very snugly into the "grown men baring their souls under intense pressure and confined spaces" sub-genre, but it also scratches that broader crime-thriller itch. Kardos is a master at steadily twisting the knob to increase pressure and slowly drive the tension toward unavoidable violence. And while I wasn't as keen on the flashbacks interlaced throughout the primary narrative, those divergences are a necessary release valve to keep the reader from having a stroke.

Overall, if you're a fan of thrillers, mysteries, or crime novels, The Three-Day Affair is a great, twisty nail-biter that belongs on your to-read list. This tension is palpable and the characters are believable and compelling in their reasoning as well as their inevitable mistakes. There's even a great thematic vein about toxic behavior and how our closest friends are often oblivious to - and sometimes complicit in - our irrational, self-annihilating inclinations. Great stuff.

robinsbooks's review against another edition

4.0

Good solid suspense with a good twist that I thought I saw coming but really didn't...

anniebartelsollosy's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A good mystery 

blood_rose_books's review against another edition

3.0

In Muchael Kardos debut novel he takes the reader to place where no one wants to go. Where one decision can destroy everything you have worked so hard to achieve: Will, Jeffrey and Nolan have been best friends since college and once a year they get together to reconnect and relive their past adventure and well golf. Each has taken a different path in life, Will is working at a small recording studio and expecting his first child, Nolan has gotten into politics and is running for Congress and Jeffrey was able to cash in on the dot com boom when he was part of a small internet start-up company. But how much do people really change from college and how much do you really notice it in your friends. Will Jeffrey and Nolan are about to find out, in one night they will all redefine their relationships with each other, who they are and how far they will go to keep a secret that could ruin them all. This book shows the reader how much people can change from college and how priorities change from person to person. It also shows how much people try to ignore the changes they may or may not see in their friends. This makes the book more of a psychological novel than a thriller or mystery as really there are not really any thrills in the book and only a slight mystery so I was disappointed about that aspects. However, I think that Kardos addressed the aspects of how much people change throughout their lives really well and how each person processes a problem differently, we are not all the same therefore, our reactions will differ as well. There was an interesting twist thrown in in the end of the novel that I was only able to figure out part of it but not all of it which is a great feat for any author, I always like a good surprise. The story is told from Will's point of view throughout but it is mainly him looking back at the weekend that went wrong with his two friends from college (so that in itself shows he makes it out in one way or another). I question whether this was the right point of view as the feelings and emotions that Will was going through at the time of these events felt muted and Will just explaining how he felt not what he was feeling. There were also pieces from the friends' past, once again told from Will's point of view, as to how the friends met and what they were like back in college and I think these were to show hwo they were all different back then as well and set part of the back story for why some of them have changed so much. This also means that we get to know Will more than any of the other characters in the book and while he is the main character, I don't really get that attached to him as he is in story telling mode, this is not him now, this is him looking back at everything. Pretty good for a debut note but it was not quite the thriller that I was hoping the book to be (seems to be a problem I have been running into lately), but it had some interesting psychological aspects that kept me reading. I would read another book by Kardos as I liked his writing style. Enjoy!!!
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dawnelitt's review against another edition

1.0

This book was a huge disappointment. I'm not sure why I even read the whole thing. I think it is because I was listening to it in my car and didn't have any other audiobooks downloaded at the time. The narrator didn't help at all - he was whiny an annoying. The main event in the book - an "accidental kidnapping" of a teenage girl by three 30 year old Princeton alums having their annual reunion was absolutely absurd. This event set in motion a series of idiotic decisions that anyone of average intelligence would never make (and they were all Princeton grads!) and ended in an implausable conclusion after 3 days. In real life the situation would have been rectified in 5 minutes. I kept reading hoping that something exciting would happen. There were some twists and turns, but most were predictable. I can't unrecommend this enough.

leerazer's review against another edition

5.0

This is a very entertaining and well-written literary crime novel. Four friends from their college days at Princeton have an annual tradition of getting together for a weekend of golf and reminiscing. This weekend will be the last such, you can be sure. It begins with a kidnapping of a convenience store clerk by one of the men, dragging his friends into a battle between morality and personal preservation. Playing into this current day narrative in a deep way are certain events that may or may not have taken place while they were at school together, leaving one of the men with a strong thirst for revenge.

The host of this weekend and narrator of the story is Will, a recording studio engineer and wanna-be founder of a record label in suburban New Jersey. Nolan is running a campaign for Senate back home in Missouri. Jeffrey is a dot.com millionaire in California. Evan is a high-flying lawyer making deals among the Fortune 500.

The possible stumbling block for the reader will be buying into the setup. Kardos works to convince us, through Will, that the confusion and urgency of the initial moment, followed by a sense of panic and then hope that, given some time to think and come up with a plan, together they can find a way out of this circumstance that doesn't land them in jail, could legitimately happen. I bought it.

pages_by_jeanie's review against another edition

3.0

An easy and somewhat entertaining read, but it was difficult for me to really believe these men could get themselves into the situation they did. Just don't buy it.

I did, however, appreciate the twist that comes toward the end of the book.