Review: White Picket Prisons - Phil Taylor

Reviewer: John
Rating: 5 out of 5 Fairies

I hadn’t read any reviews or a synopsis before I read the book, so my first thoughts were that it was going to be a ‘buddy’ type book, you know, old friends together...

Then as I got a few pages into it, I thought it was a ‘coming of second age’, your 30s, where you start to re-evaluate your life, cope with the loss of loved ones; divorce etc

Guess number three was it was about the secret lives of parents; did the father of one have a secret affair with the mother of another of the best friends?

I was totally wrong, which made the unfolding plot all the better as I was in the same boat as the group of friends, events happening around them that they don’t understand, close calls from apparent accidents that grow more & more deadly as they realise that these are no accidents...

The bond that holds these friends together is tested to extremes as they begin to unravel the meaning behind the events; familiar places take on a sinister edge as they walk the streets of their childhood; new faces become the objects of suspicion... I don’t like to give away too much of the plot in my reviews, so I’m say no more than this.
Old friends don’t always have to have the same jobs, hobbies & interests, I completely understood the camaraderie between the old friends, the history that allows you to never let a good insult go to waste. It’s probably a man thing, but as the ladies know we don’t like to display our emotions to other men, so instead we save our best one liners & quips for our friends; we don’t waste good lines on people we don’t like!

A really good read! If you like conspiracy theories you will like this book, I read it pretty much in one sitting, & found it hard to put down!

Synopsis
A group of friends with a penchant for goofy nicknames return to their hometown for a funeral and what had been a pleasant, albeit melancholy, reunion quickly escalates into a fight for their lives with an enemy they didn't know they had. Putting up with each others quirks with good humor they must unravel a mystery that may have started thirty years ago. They unwittingly stumble and fumble their way into a life or death showdown that could kill them all. The question is not whether they will survive the bad guys, but will they survive each other? One reader likened the characters to "the kids from Stephen King's classic 'Stand By Me' but grown up." This story will make you miss those goofy high school friends from years ago.

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