Feit Book Reviews x 3

Still Missing
Chevy Stevens
St. Martin’s Press, July 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-59567-8
Hardcover

This is an interesting novel, despite its shortcomings:  Basically the writing is uneven, and in many ways pretentious.  A young woman, Annie Sullivan, a realtor on Vancouver Island, Canada, is abducted by a psycho and kept captive for a year, subjected to daily rapes and severe regimentation, severe enough to drive anyone practically insane.  She becomes pregnant and the baby dies after a short period of time.

The story of her year-long captivity is recounted in a series of sessions with a psychiatrist.  In fact, instead of calling each new section of the book a chapter, it is called a Session.  And, of course, the after-effects are recounted as well.  What is unexpected is the ultimate unraveling of just why she was abducted to begin with, in a terrific twist.

The descriptions of just how unbalanced the abductor is, as well as Annie’s mental torment, are excellent.  What this reader found somewhat disconcerting was the language too often used by Annie, especially four letter words, which to me was excessive.  Surely some of it was appropriate to mark her discomfort or anguish, but the constant repetition really could serve little purpose other than to shock the reader or display the fact that this is the author’s debut. Nevertheless, this thriller is recommended.

Reviewed by Ted Feit, September 2010.

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Silent Scream
Lynda LaPlante
Touchstone, July 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3928-8
Trade Paperback

This is the story of two women whose lives become intertwined, one a beautiful and upcoming actress, the other a talented and ambitious detective.  The former, Amanda Delany, is a promiscuous, drug- and sex-addicted film star found brutally stabbed in her bed.  Anna Travis’ career is put to the test as she and the rest of the Metropolitan Police team investigate the bizarre murder.

This is a highly detailed British police procedural, with lots of suspects and false leads.  In the beginning there is certainly a great lack of leads, but Anna, who, by the way, is up for promotion, goes solo too often to come up with the breakthrough information to solve the case.

The plot is cannily crafted to keep the reader absorbed, with the suspense building page by page.  The author brings to life the unfortunate victim as Anna looks back deeply into her past to determine just who the murderer may be.  And not until the very end when we learn all the necessary information can the reader even begin to guess the result.  Written with simplicity but great detail, the novel is recommended.

[The book has also been issued in a hardcover edition.]

Reviewed by Ted Feit, September 2010.

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As Husbands Go
Susan Isaacs
Scribner, July 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-7301-2
Hardcover

As Husbands Go . . . well, the husband who is at the center of this novel – went.  As in, murdered, in a scenario which initially put this reader in mind of Eliot Spitzer, former New York governor, except this time it’s not a politician.  Dr. Jonah Gersten, who to all appearances had been a very successful Park Avenue plastic surgeon, devoted husband to Susie, and proud father of four-year-old triplets, has been found stabbed to death in a call girl’s Manhattan apartment.  On the night he first fails to return home, Susie had been thinking to herself:  “Jonah and I have some lucky star shining down on us.”  That mindset is soon dispelled when, the following morning, the police are at her door to give her the news.

Theirs was an idyllic relationship, having met when Jonah was a senior at Yale, quickly fell in love and married.  Though she feels others may fail to see how she had “score[d] a  privileged-attractive-charming-gifted-successful Yale doctor,” Susie would have sworn by all that was holy that Jonah had never been unfaithful to her, and refuses to believe  that he was patronizing a prostitute.  She is determined to find out the truth, even if it undermines the case against the woman who everyone else believes is guilty of the murder.  Jonah’s s parents and brother believe Susie is in denial, if not completely delusional, which seems to be the opinion of the police and the chief of the DA’s Homicide Bureau as well.

Susie’s only allies are her business partner, Andrea, and Grandma Ethel, the grandmother she had met for the first time not long after she and Jonah had married.  The portrait drawn by the author of Ethel Nachman O’Shea, 79 years old, for 25 years the host of “Talk of Miami” and presently in a lesbian relationship with a much younger civil liberties attorney known as Sparky, is an indelible one, as are many of the other characters who provide the backdrop to this novel.

I have enjoyed Susan Isaacs‘ writing since reading her first novel, Compromising Positions, in 1978.  Her finely honed sense of humor and irony is evident throughout, and the murder mystery, the relationships among the various Gersten/Rabinowitz family members satisfying, and the novel is recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, September 2010.