Discount Price: $7.99
Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780307278272
ISBN number: 0307278271
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: September 25, 2007
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: September 25, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 92998
Studio: Vintage
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
It All Seemed So Simple...
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane—the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. The men agree to hide, keep and share the fortune. But what started off as a simple plan slowly devolves into a gruesome nightmare none of them can control.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
I don't usually read mysteries, but this was recommended by my agent. It was wonderful, hard to put down, with really deep, multi-layered characters.
Rated by buyers 
-
Scott Smith's A Simple Plan is the kind of book that begs to be turned into a movie. Not surprisingly, it was turned into a movie (starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda). Mr. Smith also wrote the screenplay for the film, which in this case means he mailed a copy of his book to the producer, director, and actors. (After visiting the Post Office, he dusted off his hands, poured himself a stiff drink, and sat down to count his money.)
Like a direct-to-video movie, this is a direct-to-movie novel. In fact - brace yourself - the movie might actually be better than the book. Ye gods.
A Simple Plan is an easy, entertaining read. However, it lacks the certain je ne sais quoi that, presumably, live actors are paid to deliver.
The premise is (yes...) is... (YES...) is... (YES!?!?) simple. Basically, it's centered around the age-old question, "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" In this case, it's three men who stumble on the loot, and the plan - which is indeed simple - begins to unravel right from the start.
This 1st person thriller is a marvelous example of popular fiction. It is entertaining, dramatic, and well-written - but it is not literature. And thank goodness! A Simple Plan is the kind of page-turner that will save you $5 the subsequent time a flight attendant asks, "Would you like to purchase headphones for our in-flight movie? We're showing "A Simple Plan," starring Billy Bob Thornton and Bridget Fonda."
Rated by buyers -
A SIMPLE PLAN tells the story of three men--two brothers and one of their buddies--who stumble across the wreckage of a small airplane in rural Ohio and discover that there is over $4,000,000 in cash (and a very dead pilot) on board. Realizing that the money is probably the ill-gotten spoils of some sort of criminal activity, the trio devises a "simple" plan that may allow them to keep the booty: they all agree to sit on the cash for 6 months and wait for any possible indication that the law is searching for it. If it turns out that the money is marked or traceable, they will dispose of it; if it's clean, they'll split it up evenly and go their separate ways. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't turn out to be as simple as it very first seemed, and soon the three men find their lives turned inside out by mistrust, paranoia, betrayal, and ultimately murder.
Scott Smith is talented writer whose prose is consistently taut and literate, yet his is a style that also flows easily and naturally and makes for a genuine page-turner. A SIMPLE PLAN, the novelist's debut, is a gripping narrative that plays both as a psychological thriller and as a horror story. In the vein of a good psychological thriller, it questions the nature of good and evil in our modern world as it examines the life of an average small-town citizen who becomes utterly consumed by unfettered greed. As a horror story, it is a cautionary tale about how even the best of us can be tempted to justify the most egregious acts of immorality if we allow ourselves to succumb to the lust for money.
In spite of its numerous strong points, A SIMPLE PLAN does have one minor flaw. The protagonist of the novel is able to get away with a plethora of violent, bloody crimes that oddly never seem to be scrutinized too closely by law enforcement. In this era of high-tech CSI techniques, it is difficult to understand why, even in the small-town setting of the novel, some piece of damning evidence isn't uncovered in at least one of seemingly countless crime scenes. (This is likely why screenwriter Smith and director Sam Raimi chose to reduce the number of murders in the cinematic adaptation of the novel.) Still, Smith's compelling prose and tight plotting help grease the path to the suspension of disbelief, and this one defect in the narrative can therefore be surmounted without too much effort on the part of the reader.
In short, Scott Smith's A SIMPLE PLAN is a gripping, modern tale of greed, betrayal, and murder that has several clever plot twists, lots of psychological tension, and a poignant surprise ending. Overall, it is an outstanding piece of contemporary literature that fans of both white-knuckle crime thrillers and tight, well-written prose will definitely enjoy.
Rated by buyers -
I was blown away by this book. Very dark and evil. However, because it was so evil, I really wanted it to have an ending to make it truly demonic. The ending was good, but I wanted more tragedy out of the end result. I almost expected a dual suicide similar to the way Hanks parents died, only inculding their daughter. THAT would have been more dramatic than the ending it had, although it does make you really evaluate your life.
Rated by buyers -
A Simple Plan grabbed me from the start and pulled me in. The writing was good, the story intriguing, and the characters were interesting. Then about 100 pages in everything unraveled.
As the plot moves along, characters begin taking actions which make no sense and seem to be backed by no motivation at all. I found myself saying, "There is no way he/she would do that." And that really is the main problem with the book. Hank Mitchell and his wife start as a respectable, believable couple, and quickly disintegrate into a couple of idiots (if you judge them simply by there actions).
Hank's brother Jacob, starts as an idiot, and just as the author is weaving sympathy and depth into Jacob's character, Jacob blasts away a friend and you put down the book frustrated by yet another "no way" moment.
In the end, despite the books positives, A Simple Plan falls flat like a corpse.
FYI, I rate this 3 stars but Amazon somehow lists my rating as 5.
Find other books like this one:
