The Three-Day Affair

Michael Kardos first impressed me with his stories in literary magazines. Many of them were gathered in the terrific collection, [[ASIN:1935708104 One Last Good Time]], that came out at the end of 2010. For his first novel, he tries his hand at the mystery suspense genre and does a terrific job. All his credentials as a literary writer remain intact because this is a very character-driven story, but one with a plot that'll keep you find turning pages and avoiding other activities because this one is hard to put down.

The basic premise is that three Princeton grads get together for their own personal reunion weekend. Things go wrong almost immediately, though, because one, who lost a fortune when his Internet company failed, impulsively decides to hold up a convenience store and kidnap the cashier. Before his two friends even realize what's happened, they are embroiled in the mess. The story is told through the perspective of Will - the least successful of the group who spent years as a drummer in a alternative rock band but then transitioned into working as a sound engineer in a recording studio. His two friends are Jeffrey, the failed Internet businessmen, and Nolan, a politician hoping running for the Senate in Missouri.

A fourth friend is a New York lawyer who misses the kidnapping incident, but eventually has to be called in for advice on how get out of the quagmire they've created for themselves. What keeps you turning the pages is the suspense of wanting to know what they're going to do with the beautiful young girl they've kidnapped. They're not career criminals, but they all know their lives will be ruined - not to mention the possible prison time - if what they did gets out.

The story is told in alternating chapters between the present moment of their kidnapping and the past days of their lives together at Princeton, details that serve to flesh out the characters and provide many layers of complexity to the situation they've found themselves in. As the layers of the onion keep getting peeled back, there are many unexpected twists and turns. To say any more would be give too much of the riveting plot away. If you're looking for a suspenseful story with more than paper thin characters, I think you'll thoroughly enjoy the ride offered here.

I first heard about this book by way of another author touting it online. Chris Coake author of [[ASIN:1455506702 You Came Back: A Novel]] posted a link to the book online and it sounded like something I would be very interested in.

The book showed up quick and after reading the blurbs on the back of the book, I was definitely looking forward to it. Two of the four blurbs compare "The Three-Day Affair" with Scott Smith's [[ASIN:0307278271 A Simple Plan]]. Not only did I love that book, the movie was excellent as well.

"The Three-Day Affair" has great characters, Kardos knows how to make his characters live and breathe. The story of the novel is just what the synopsis says, three good friends from college get together for a golf weekend. Will, Jeffrey and Nolan are out on the first night and Jeffery makes a hasty decision that will change everything. The friends stop at a gas station and Jeffery comes out running out with the clerk and tell's Will to drive, NOW! In an instant they realize they have just kidnapped someone.

The story picks up from there and builds with flashbacks involving each friend's history. A fourth friend is brought into the mess with hopes of helping his buddies make the right decision.

Based on the reviews I read before purchasing the book and the glowing blurbs on the back from many well known authors, I was expecting much, much more from the ending of the book. Obviously you know how it starts, the catch of reading it is finding out how they came to that point and what happens next. The what happens next is what just didnt do it for me. I was expecting some serious twists and a powerful ending, but it just isnt there. The ending is good, don't get me wrong, the writing as well, the ending was just a bit too tame for my taste.

The characters, their back stories and the whats next, kept me reading. I finished the book in one night, as it has short chapters and only runs 247 pages.

I'll definitely look into Kardos next book, but I can't guarantee I'll read it based off this debut effort.

The writing is fine, but man oh man ... does this thing crash and burn at the end. "Thriller?" "Crime novel?" Please. Not even a half way decent suspense book. The so-called "twists" at the end will be a major disappointment to whoever thinks that they're getting an actual plot twist or left turn. Just when you think something really dark and interesting is going to happen, the super lame reveal comes. Then it just peters out from there. The last chapter is an utter waste of time. Do not bother. Go pick up a copy of "A Simple Plan" instead. Now there's a story. This book? Hot garbage.

I thought this book was silly and terribly amateurish. The situation was contrived and not really believable. It is not particularly well written either. Don't bother!

We've all had that one friend that seems to lead a blessed, stumbled upon existence. They have a beautiful wife, a flawless home, a dream job, and what makes you scratch your head and wonder why is because they seemed to have tripped over it. There's nothing special about this friend; sure they're nice enough, but they're goofballs; the type of person who you would think would have to constantly struggle day-to-day in order to simply exist, and yet, success just seems to come to them.

And you can't help but envy their perfect, seemingly accidental life more than a little.

Why can't you have it so easy?

What's even more shocking is when this seemingly flawless existence crashes and burns in spectacular fashion because your friend's goofball ways finally step in to screw the pooch; they cheat on their beautiful wife; they mortgage their dream home to the hilt to support their gambling addiction; they embezzle money from their dream jobs.

Or they walk into a convenience store on a Friday night and kidnap the teenage clerk.

This is the scenario presented in Michael Kardos' powerful debut novel, The Three-Day Affair.

The Three-Day Affair follows three friends and Princeton graduates Will, Jeffery, and Nolan at the beginning of their annual golf game/party weekend. Normally the three (along with a fourth pal, Evan, who is absent through most of the novel.) travel to an exotic locale to shoot golf, drink too much, and reminisce about their college days. But this year, the friends have all agreed to meet near Will's, who is a former drummer and now full time sound engineer, New Jersey home. Will and Nolan, a young politician making a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, are driving their third friend, Jeffery, back from the airport, when he complains that he's having stomach problems and asks Will to pull over at a convenience store so he can pick up some Rolaids.

Jeffery is a computer programmer whose company has taken a hard tumble due to do the recent dot.com bust, plus his wife has also admitted that she's having an affair and is pregnant. (Yeah, Jeffery's a real mess.) After a few minutes, he comes rushing out of the convenience store with a teenage girl in tow, and after Jeffery pushes the girl into the car, he yells at Will to drive. Thinking that the girl is hurt, Will tears out of the parking lot and starts heading towards a hospital believing that the girl is hurt. After a couple of miles of panicked driving, Jeffery admits that there's nothing wrong with the girl and that he's kidnapped her. Needless to say, both Will and Nolan are shocked, but when Will decides to turn around and return the girl to the convenience store, Nolan stops him. He knows the girl will go to the police, and he knows it will ruin all of their lives. (Despite his admirable qualities, Nolan is first and foremost a politician.)

Will then drives the four of them to the recording studio he works at to figure out what their next step should be. After a long discussion, the three friends decide to bribe the young clerk and offer her $40,000, the equivalent of two years' salary at her job at the mini-mart. They give her twelve hours to think it over, keeping her locked in a recording booth while the three of them take turns monitoring the local news broadcasts to make sure no one has reported her missing. After the twelve hours are up, the clerk agrees to not go to the police, but she thinks $40,000 is a bit on the cheap side, and instead wants two million.

And things get a little messier from there...

The Three-Day Affair is very much a traditional noir (which is, disappointingly, becoming an ever rarer event in publishing.) in the same cannon as James M. Cain. The characters are everyday people who've been placed in out of the ordinary circumstances where long held personal morals are cast aside and the base instinct of self-preservation takes over. The ordinariness of the characters in The Three-Day Affair is its greatest strength as a novel. Yes, Will, Nolan, and Jeffery are Ivy leaguers, but none of them are the children of privilege. They're humble, middle class, hardworking, and entirely relatable; Will could be your next door neighbor; Jeffery, the guy you share a cubicle with, and because of this familiarity, I found myself hoping that the group would get out of their huge blunder on one page, and then hope they get caught on the next.

Kardos' conversational first person narration and short chapters keep the narrative tightly wound and fast paced, with each page gradually building suspense as he switches between real time in the studio and back flashes of the three friends time in college, and Kardos manages to lob more than a few unexpected curveballs along the way to the shocking and entirely unexpected conclusion.

Overall, The Three-Day Affair is an impressive debut and one of the best novels I've read so far this year, and I'm very much looking forward Kardos has to offer next.

Highly recommended.
(Please note, this review originally appeared at Spinetingler Magazine.)

I really enjoyed this book! The short chapters and witty narration made it a fast and fun read. It was gripping and suspenseful - showing how quickly someone's life can go off track with a single hasty decision. As each chapter ended, I found myself urged to find out what happens next and learn more about the characters in the book. They are slowly revealed through a series of flashbacks that keeps you guessing about their motives - until it all slaps you in the face (in a good way) with an ending that left me stunned.

What an incredible disappointment- disjointed writing- one paragraph reflects the present, the next paragraph reflects an incident from the past--- cluttered writing, no flow and worst of all NO POINT- by the time I figured this all out, I was about 50 pages into the book- I stopped reading every page and skimmed until I got to the end and another disappointment was in store- the ending was the final disappointment. What is troubling is that this book could have been great- -- as another reviewer stated, it is written in an amateurish fashion and sometimes was downright silly.

This one's a true stinker, smelling even more furious considering the rave reviews it's been getting. I was tricked by a misguided goofball from Esquire magazine. The story is awful. The characters ring as false as the premise. the setting of a recording studio, the trappings of rock and roll, the portrait of political careers and the attempt to hint sexual tension ALL flop with a sort of spectacular emptiness. This dude's a teacher somewhere. He needs to revert to being a student. He has NO chops. None. Can't believe I went for it at full (Amazon) hard cover price. It's so bad I'm literally throwing it out.

First, the good. The author reflects upon the theme of the story on the surface and the story beneath it. This tension drives a solid narrative about four old friends who find out more about one another than they ever imagined. Gripping opening. Startling end. Now the what could have been better:the plausibility of the plot. It isn't. There are too many contingencies for it to make sense, starting with a kidnapping of a teenager and the subsequent actions by the four friends. Still, a solid debut, worth reading but be ready to suspend belief.

Four college friends agree to meet after a long break. Will, the narrator, has become a sound engineer and moved to the suburbs after the murder of the bassistof the band, where he played the drums, and he wants to share the idea of seting up an indie label with friends. Will is sure his well settled friends will help him with money. Nolan went into politics and runs a campaign to the state senate. Jeffrey earned millions during the dot-com boom. Evan is about to become a junior partner at a law firm. Jeffrey and Nolan arrive in Newark, and Evan is delayed, so the three friends are planning a weekend full of golf and the telling of tales. But on the first night of the meeting Geoffrey tries to rob a store and then pushes a young saleswoman from this store against her will into the car where his friends are waiting. Will doesn't understand what's happening but follows the instructions of his friend, and so the three law-abiding friends for the first time break the law on a grand scale - kidnapping. The girl is taken to the recording studio, where Will works. Jeffrey explaines to friends that he went bankrupt and lost all his millions, and, in desperation, he commited the crime. Friends realize that their hopes for a brighter future have come to an end.

The Three-Day Affair wins the reader's heart not from the start. The heroes of the novel are office workers, hipsters, kids of middle class parents, quite effeminate creatures. Problems in their lives are nothing comparing to the problems of hard workers, criminals and sociopaths, the traditional heroes of noir. White-collar workers are rather well-off: they do not know hunger, cold and constant humiliation. When dreams of the middle class break - not becoming a senator, not creating a label, not becoming a partner in the firm, - tired used car salesman and pickpocket dance on the ruins.

Crime of the three characters also looks like a whim of assured people. Some mind-boggling theft in the bakery, kidnapping a young dumb cashier, it's immediately apparent that these thoughtless actions are easy to fix without any consequences. This is where the fun begins.

Friendship begins to crack, kidnapped girl confuses the facts and the situation is getting worse. Kardos with flashbacks makes the projection of the past: college friends, too, have the secrets from each other.

White collar or not, but the emotions come out, and that's when you start to empathize to unlucky kidnappers.

The Three-Day Affair is a debut novel, astute, well-crafted and gloomy. Oh yeah: finale here is mind-blowing.