The Gate House by Nelson DeMille

I just finished The Gate House, Nelson DeMille’s long awaited sequel to The Gold Coast. It was slower paced than some of his other novels, especially the ones with John Corey in them, but it was still a relatively good story. Honestly I think he probably could have sped things up a bit and made the book a bit shorter (it clocks in at 688 pages) but I never really felt that this story was dragging. Anyway, this book picks up 10 years after John Sutter’s wife, Susan, had killed her Mafioso lover, Frank Bellarosa. After sailing around the world and then moving to London, John returns to Long Island to settle some business for a longtime client and finds himself living in the Gate House of Stanhope Hall and neighbor to his ex-wife. And who else should have moved in nearby but Anthony Bellarosa, Frank’s son, the new head of the Bellarosa crime family. John and Susan begin to explore the thought of reconciling but there are some things in their way. First, Susan’s parents, the Stanhope’s, hate John and will do anything to keep them apart. Second, and perhaps most importantly, Anthony Bellarosa has a score to settle with Susan for killing his father. Like I said before, the plot meanders a bit getting to the violent and somewhat obvious conclusion, but you’ll enjoy the journey.