Many Secrets to keep
This book captured my attention immediately. I've read books taking place in other African countries but not Sierra Leone - the author has done an excellent job of making you feel as if you are there - the heat, destructive forces of many types, the people - both powerful and powerless, the stress of wartime and the awful use of children in war, but also romance and friendship. The book is exciting and terrifying at the same time. I will look forward to other books by Paul Harris.
Rated of 5
by Fred (san diego CA)
The Secret Keeper
Mr.Harris kept me riveted from start to finish. I learned a lot about that war in Sierra Leone.
Rated of 5
by Cheri (Grand Rapids MN)
Sometimes escaping from your zone can be rewarding
I, like many of the other reviewers, was unsure about this novel. I read to forget and achieve a sense of calm... and this book did not do that for me. It was fast-paced and the language kept me intrigued. I was horrified by the slums and constant warfare, but also felt it was described to help the story not bring shame to a country. I enjoyed this author and the many twists and turns his story afforded. I would highly recommend it to even the non-adventure espionage reader... sometimes escaping from your comfort zone can be rewarding! And this is a perfect example...try to read the first chapter and walk away!
Rated of 5
by Wisteria Leigh, New Milford, CT (New Milford CT)
The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris
Harris doesn’t waste any time shocking you into a compelling need to continue as the opening chapter captivates your attention to read on. The Secret Keeper is a transcontinental consummate adventure thriller traversing between London and Sierra Leone. In London, Danny Kellerman receives a cryptic letter of desperation from his ex-lover Maria. He is a journalist who four years earlier reported on the political upheaval in Sierra Leone where he met Maria. The postmark is three weeks earlier and all sense of reality disappears when he discovers that he is too late and Maria is dead, a victim of a robbery and murder while driving in the country.
Harris’s poetic prose style lends itself to a one-night read. You will see, as I did, that putting this book down for even a moment is quite difficult. His prolific use of carefully placed similes, paints a vibrant palette of imagery bringing the reader into the story.
A debut novel, will cause a few white knuckle moments, you won’t want to miss it. Paul Harris is a novelist to watch and anxiously await his next book.
Rated of 5
by Jill (Wichita KS)
A hit! Be ready to read late into the night...
In his first novel, Paul Harris has done the near impossible: combining a tightly designed mystery; love story and self discovery journey into a compelling and exciting read.
When British journalist Danny Kellerman is unexpectedly summoned to Sierra Leone - the place where he made his best and worst decisions in life and journalism - by his former love, he begins a journey that will have him questioning what is and isn’t real, relevant or true. A great book for a club read, Kellerman’s journey is filled with physical danger, unexpected emotion and the ultimate journalistic conflict between truth and consequence.
A twisty and unexpected plot keeps you reading far past the time you’ve allotted—expect to be drawn into The Secret Keeper late into the night—and expect to see Harris again; hopefully this is the first of a long list of bestselling novels from a talented writer. I hope he’s already working on the next.
Rated of 5
by Mary D. (Claremont, CA)
The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris The Secret Keeper was written by Paul Harris, who was, in fact, a correspondent in Africa for four years, and knows his subject well. While it contains many of the essentials necessary to a good spy/espionage genre, there is also a lot of factual background information. Since the political crisis in Sierra Leone is a subject virtually unknown to me, this information was pertinent to understanding the characters and events that took place.
Needless to say, there are many twists and turns, good guys turn out to be not so good, bad guys are sometimes bad by necessity, but the horrible truths behind what has happened in that area are hard to disguise.
It was an exciting, captivating read with strong characters that I found difficult to put down. I highly recommend this book.
Rated of 5
by Gerald (Pompton Lakes NJ)
A well-crafted fast moving first novel
This is a well-crafted fast moving first novel dealing with an African country between 2000 and 2004. Although it is fiction I have no doubt that everything in the book could have, and probably did happen. The main characters are appealing and the villains are appropriately cold-blooded. There are enough twists and turns to satisfy any adventure genre reader. I did find some continuity problems in the switching from 2000 to 2004 in every other chapter. I'll never think of "long-sleeved or short-sleeved" in the same way again.
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