“One of the best-plotted and most psychologically astute page-turners in decades, the story of how a few ordinary friends take some simple liberties together but then through distrust, greed, panic, and stupidity slide inexorably-- inch by rationalizing inch-- into rage and murder.
Smith's second book, "The Ruins," was a huge disappointment, and you could see Stephen Kng's hands all over it, beginning with heavy promotion of it 6 months before release. I suspect Smith got stuck or paralzed in his writing (it had been 9 years since "A Simple Plan," went to King, and admirer of that book, and King "helped" Smith get unstuck and over the hump, giving birth to the ridiculous, far-fetched, tedious "Ruins" which relies on unintentionally comical, cartoonish stalker Mexican vines and gore ala King for "suspense." The fall from grace and human insights of A Simple Plan are nowhere to be found in "The Ruins." Avoid it like the plag-- no, wait-- almost any horror or sci-fi plague/contagion book has to be be better than this one. So, avoid it like...itself.”
