Blackout -- NOT Andy Carpenter, but just as good!

Blackout by David Rosenfelt

If you follow this blog at all, you should be well aware 

that I love Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter series. 

Truly, I do!

However, when I discovered that he also publishes stand-alone mysteries,

I assumed I would also like those and wondered 

if my husband might not also enjoy reading them.

I did. He does!

I checked this newest release out of the library and both of us enjoyed it very much!
Though I admit, I missed Tara greatly! (Andy's canine companion...)

He had me with the first line, really...

Nate Alvarez wanted to screen the call. (1)

Really? Why? What's going on with this guy that he needs to know who is calling? Oh, wait! I do that all the freakin' time!
If your number isn't in my phone, I'll not answer. 

Followed by the second and third sentences:

Actually, he wanted to throw the phone on the ground 

and stomp on it until it stopped ringing permanently. 

There were times in his life that he would have done exactly that, 

but Nate was thirty-seven years old, and in recent months 

there had been faint signs that he was starting to mature. (1)

Yup! There's that snarky self-deprecating humor 

I love so much from the Andy Carpenter series!

Having read these first three sentences, 

I knew this would be enjoyable! I was "in"!

Then we begin to get just a bit of information:

Doug was a loose cannon, always had been. Sometimes it helped him on the job, and sometimes it didn't. What it did was thrust Nate, his partner, into the role of seasoned, level-headed veteran. 

It was not a role that Nate was particularly well suited for. (2)

This is what I love so much. By the top of the second page we have learned so much about these two men--about their personalities and their relationship as partners! Doug had "experienced a personal tragedy that shook him to his core" about six months prior to this. It was an incident that I don't believe anyone could have recovered from or dealt with quickly or completely...perhaps ever. Doug has been chasing Nick Bennett for many years, trying to nail him with...well...something...anything!

Bennett's appearance was particularly deceiving. He was fifty-three years old, graying, 

tall and thin. He looked more like a refined patron of the arts than a person 

who had clawed his way up the criminal ladder in northern New Jersey. 

And ironically, he was in fact a patron of the arts, 

as well as a contributor to many charitable causes. (19)

So immediately we know Nick is one of those guys who is virtually untouchable! This is our first 'bad guy' who is immediately linked to a second 'bad buy,' Ahmat Gharsi, who is currently living in the U.S., unbeknownst to the authorities.  

So he was going to stay in New York City, and with perfect fake identification 

and some minor cosmetic changes in his appearance, he would not be found by the authorities, whether or not they were looking for him. 

Eventually they would learn that he was there.

After the fact. (24)

We are told that Gharsi is underestimating the threat that is Bennett. 

Ahmat Gharsi would learn that Nicholas Bennett was a force to be reckoned with, 
and one he would not be able to handle. 

After the fact. (25)

Doug is found in a motel room with a severe head injury and is suffering from retrograde amnesia in the aftermath. He cannot remember anything that has happened within the past ten years. The prognosis? He may or may not remember anything. Only time will tell. 

Waking up every morning I have the same sensation.

Things seem normal...I seem normal...and my first thought is that it isn't possible. 

There's no way I could have lost ten years of my life.

I'm pretty pissed off about it. It's like I was in a coma all that time, as if I never lived 

those years at all. I'm already realizing that life is all about memories; 

it's the way we keep score. It doesn't matter if a tree makes a sound when it falls in the forest; 

it only matters if anyone remembers it. (45)

I get that. It only seems 'normal' for someone to be angry about losing their memory. It is true that we do "keep score" through memories, isn't it? I'd never thought about it in that way, but I do agree. Without memories, you are basically screwed in many ways. Though Doug had been suspended from the police force, he is now "reinstated with full back pay." But Doug has no idea why he was suspended or what happened to him at that motel! He must ask the Captain his own rank! He was...is, a lieutenant! As you can imagine, that sets any investigation back mightily, when no one even knew where you were, let alone what you were doing and you have no clue either! Yikes! 

Throughout this book, someone tries to kill Doug who becomes a hero when he stops an attack in a movie theater. Then he becomes persona non grata with his own force, Homeland Security, and basically any other law enforcement agency involved, when he receives a tip he believes to be valid and follows up on it with a fruitless stakeout and raid. Much money, time, and manpower wasted for no tangible result. And he has no further leads after that...and still just a teeny bit of memory, but nothing compelling or helpful in solving this case. 

And though she helps, Jessie, is trying mightily to keep a certain distance from Doug, though that gives way before long. You see, not only is Jessie a fellow coworker, but she was once his fiance, until the tragedy six months ago when he broke up with her rather than allowing her to work through their combined grief together. Ouch! This is going to be tricky, as you might well imagine! The morning following their first 'reunion sex' as he prepares to leave, Doug says...

"Nate said if I ever hurt you again, he'll torture and kill me."

"He'll have to get in line." (172)

Alrighty then! At least he knows where he stands with this relationship! He had better 'do right by her,' as they say! Doug receives yet another tip and after sharing the information 
with Jessie, decides this time, he will pursue a stakeout on his own time, by himself...until...

"I'm going with you," she says.

"You don't need to do that. I'm not going to be going in shooting. I'll strictly be an observer."

"Which part of 'I'm going with you' didn't you understand?"

This is one tough lady. Not only can't I fathom why I broke up with her, 

I don't have any idea where I would have gotten the courage to do so. 

"Let me ask you one question," I say. "In past situations like this, 

when we disagreed on something, who would usually come out ahead?"

"I'm undefeated," she said.

"I'll pick you up at seven." (177)

Love it! :) As a feminist I guess I can especially appreciate this. Plus...it sounds...I don't know...I guess...rather...familiar? :)

There are last-minute twists and turns within the plot, betrayal--

all the stuff of a good mystery! 

And, people are definitely in danger! 

Some die.

Some live.

Just a good solid mystery, in my humble opinion, and my husband backs me up on that!

Do you like mysteries?

Do you have a favorite author? Series?

I'd love to know your thoughts. 

R.I.P. X Closeout for Fall 2015!

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril X

Remember this from my introductory posting September 2nd?
It is RIP X and ends today, October 31, 2015!
Thank you to The Estella Society for hosting!

You should know by now that I do NOT read horror 

and do NOT like to be scared!

However, I DO love mysteries!
You could select books from any of the following categories.


The books must be from any 
of these categories:

Mystery

Suspense

Thriller

Dark Fantasy

Gothic

Horror

Supernatural

Although this was my goal:

to read at least 4 of the 5 books

I had listed....

This was my result:

I read 3 of those 5 books

and am only "Peril the Second"!

However, given the fact that you only had to read 2 books to earn "Peril the Second," I feel certain my category should be "Peril the First and One Half"! :)

If you've been following along on my R.I.P. X page, you would know I read and reviewed the following 3 books:

The October 2015 Literary Wives read was a perfect fit for this!

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Though I initially feared this might be too scary and/or creepy for me...since I'm such a wuss...I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't scare me all that much! I found it fascinating!

Second was a book I have wanted to read ever since discovering it at a library sale. 

The Red House Mystery,

a mystery written by none other than 

A.A. Milne! 

Yes, that's correct, the creator and author of the Winnie-the-Pooh series

also wrote a mystery!

It was enjoyable. Written in the same tradition of  Agatha Christie or Ngaio Marsh.

A nice little English countryside murder

and resulting investigation! 

And last, but by no means least...X by Sue Grafton!

This 24th installment in the Kinsey Millhone series

was one of the best, in my humble opinion!

I love Grafton's writing and her protagonist, Kinsey.

Upon reading the publisher's blurb, I initially feared that Grafton had veered into territory I would not like, being inside a sociopath's mind for most of the book. Fortunately, however, my fears were not realized!

Grafton hits one out of the ball park yet once again!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and After Her by Joyce Maynard

are still on my TBR list and I'm confident that, provided I live long enough,

I will have read and reviewed them both. The sooner the better! :)

Did you participate in this scary challenge?

If so, what did you read?

Any you would recommend?

Literary Wives #17

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Check out this book review group!

I had to chuckle to myself as I posted a comment on a recent discussion at The Socratic Salon regarding separation of books and authors--how much does your knowledge about an author influence your enjoyment or reading or even selection of his/her books? It is rather obvious I do little to no 'research' prior to reading a book, since I asked the other co-hosting Literary Wives bloggers if we were going to complete and post an interview with the author of this book. Oops. She died. In 2013. Yep, not much to very little research...well, usually, NO research before reading a book. Uhm...no author interview this time either. And what a shame that she will not be publishing any other novels. This was her debut and I found it to be fascinating. It was such a psychological study on so many levels and in so many ways. 

Click here for more information on Literary Wives, including the bloggers currently on hiatus from the "club"! :)

Be sure to check out the other co-hosting bloggers' reviews: 
Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J
Naomi of Consumed by Ink
Kay of whatmeread
We inevitably represent a variety of reactions to each read, which makes it fun! I would like to thank the publisher for a free review copy in exchange for an honest review! 

I love psychology/sociology and have a distinct appreciation of the way Harrison depicted the underlying rationale and justifications used by both Todd and Jodi as they made choices/decisions in their respective individual lives and their life together as a couple. Part of the sense of isolation I felt for Jodi was depicted by the description on page 1 of their apartment on the 27th floor with only "a vista of lake and sky." This was definitely an 'exclusive' building and my first thought was that anything could happen to anyone in this setting with no one discovering it for quite some time... Talk about sinister foreshadowing:
...she is deeply unaware that her life is now peaking, that her youthful resilience--which her twenty-year marriage to Todd Gilbert has been slowly eroding--is approaching a final stage of disintegration, that her notions about who she is and how she ought to conduct herself are far less stable then she supposes, given that a few short months are all it will take to make a killer out of her.
  If you told her this she would not believe you. Murder is barely a word in her vocabulary, a concept without meaning, the subject of stories in the news having to do with people she doesn't know and will never meet. (4)
What a courageous start to a suspenseful book! Harrison has basically summarized this whole story in these few lines...and yet, there is so much more to learn about both Jodi and Todd. My best friend and I (also named Lynn) have always said we all create our own reality, and this book is a well-constructed clear depiction of just that. Each of us use various rationalizations and theoretical foundations to create our lives, just as they have done. 

Of all the ironies, Jodi is a psychologist who is financially able to limit her practice to only two appointments per day, and she meets with them in her own apartment, therefore she is very isolated from casual, purely social interactions overall, except with Todd. She is a very routine-driven person for whom the daily schedule is all-important. However, she met Todd in a very non-routine way--they quite literally ran into each other--well, their vehicles did, and talk about 'road rage':
  You crazy bitch. what in God's name do you thing you're doing? Are you some kind of maniac? Where did you learn to drive? People like you should stay off the road. Are you going to get out of your car or are you just going to sit there like an imbecile?"
  His tirade that day in the rain did not give a favourable impression, but a man who's been in a car crash is going to be irate even if it's his own fault, which in this instance it was not, so when he called a few days later to ask her to dinner, she graciously accepted. (6)
I'm sorry, but right here, on page 6, I am (in my head) yelling loudly at her to pay attention to this red flag--this guy has an anger problem and he is, at the very least, verbally abusive in his anger. And talk about rationalization, no, not every man is going to act like this! Exactly why was it 'gracious' for her to accept his invitation? I thought it was just plain stupid. I would have avoided this guy like the plague! But...I have had experience with this type of behavior in a long-term relationship, so when I was her age, I might have done the same... (Hindsight is always 20-20, eh?) :) So for those reasons, I can somewhat understand her reaction...maybe! :)

Todd gives the impression he has money and he is quite solicitous, kind, and gentle, on that first date. Of him Jodi states
He's a man whose touch is always warm, a matter of animal significance for someone who is nearly always cold. (10)
Uhm...okay, but really, a good blanket might serve virtually the same purpose, mightn't it? This just struck me as a bit strange, she definitely seems cold and aloof...but then we learn that Jodi, as well as her younger brother Ryan, has endured trauma at the hands of Darrell, her older brother as a six-year-old, and although no details are directly written about this trauma imposed upon the two younger siblings, one can only assume the worst:
The memory had borne its burial well, had returned to her intact, untarnished, fully dimensional, part of her living history, complete with visceral analogues--tastes, smells, sensations--actual voltage....Initially, the explosion within had been all pain and alarm, but later on she learned the trick of surrender, came to understand that capitulation was her means of disengaging, her ticket out.(254)
Sounds like physical/sexual abuse at the hands of her older brother, and her only coping mechanism was to disconnect from the reality and accept it...that would definitely warp your expectations and ability to connect with others later as an adult. 

His impatience with domestic work stems from the fact that his expansive energy overshoots the scale of the tasks to be done. You can see it in the way he fills a room, looming and towering in the limited space, his voice loud, his gestures sweeping. He's a man who belongs outside or on a building site, where his magnitude makes sense. At home, he's often at his best asleep beside her, his bulk in repose and his energy dormant in a kind of comforting absence. (16)
This totally felt like making excuses for the man, rationalizing his lack of attention to domestic tasks of any kind. Although to his credit, he is ambitious and a hardworking entrepreneur who has made his own money. I felt as if these two people weren't truly connected to each other emotionally, but rather theirs was a marriage of convenience (simply routine?) more than anything else, perhaps? 

Then we learn from Jodi,
She is grateful for the stability and security of her life, has come to treasure the everyday freedoms, the absence of demands and complications. By forgoing marriage and children she has kept a clean slate, allowed for a sense of spaciousness. (17)
Wait! Wait! What?!? Yep! She's not even really married to this man! Not that I have a problem with unmarried people cohabiting, but...
There are no regrets. Her friends of course know her as Jodi Brett, but to most people she is Mrs. Gilbert. She likes the name and title; they give her a pedigree of sorts and act as an all-around shorthand, eliminating the need to correct people or make explanations, dispensing with awkward terminology like life partner and significant other. (17)
I do understand this idea of not disabusing others in their assumption that you are 'married' to your significant other, as an "older female" in a relationship with an "older man" to whom I was not married, then after marrying him, it is amazing just how much more comfortable most people are when you claim to be 'husband and wife' rather than anything else... Unfortunately, however, this can leave you very vulnerable legally (and especially financially) if you haven't signed the legal paperwork to be 'married'. 

We learn that Jodi thoroughly vets and greatly limits the clients she will work with since one of her young clients committed suicide early in her practice. Now that would be heartrending, and leave you with quite a sense of guilt/responsibility with which to deal. 

1. What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Although this relationship resembles a marriage in virtually every way to onlookers, Jodi and Todd are NOT legally married. However, that doesn't make a difference to the people in the relationship unless they want it to, in my opinion. Ironically, the partner who cheats is the one who wanted to be legally married... I'm not sure why, really. It is just pure confusion and disbelief for me to imagine supposedly 'loving' someone and then having sex with other people. <shaking my head> That just does not compute for me. Jodi knew Todd cheated:
  Cheaters prosper; many of them do. And even if they don't they are not going to change, because, as a rule, people don't change--not without strong motivation and sustained effort. (24) 
Other people are not here to fulfill our needs or meet our expectations, nor will they always treat us well. Failure to accept this will generate feelings of anger and resentment. Peace of mind comes with taking people as they are and emphasizing the positive. (24) 
I agree with this statement to a degree, though I think most of us have limits beyond which we refuse to accept a partner's specific behaviors--infidelity is one for me! And I believe such limits are healthy and help prevent individuals (especially females) from being totally exploited.
Jodi seemingly provided all the things a 'good wife' should: a clean nicely decorated home, home-cooked gourmet meals for supper, and constancy in being home when he arrived home, etc. She seemed to rarely go out with friends or do anything for her own enjoyment without Todd. She believed that if she did all this and overlooked his affairs with other women, all would continue as it had been for 20 years... Her life was built upon and dependent upon routine and as long as that was uninterrupted, she was okay with his transgressions, though she did exhibit passive/aggressive behaviors by frustrating him in little ways as a form of revenge, occasionally misplacing his belongings, and other trivial irritating acts. So she did care on some level, though she claimed not to.

Then the other extreme is represented by Natasha, whom Todd thought 
had made him young again, but now he understands. The women who start to think they own you and the obligations that can break a man. You have to keep moving in life. You have to move fast so they can't pin you down. (268)
Just as Todd has this realization and can better appreciate Jodi's forbearance of his indiscretions and lack of controlling behaviors, he dies.  

  She feels that in killing him off she killed off parts of herself as well. But at heart she knows that those parts perished long ago--the parts that were guileless and trusting, whole-hearted and devout. Places where life once flowed, having lost their blood supply, became dead spots in her psychic tissue, succumbed to a form of necrosis that also invaded the thing that was neither her nor him but the ground between them, the relationship itself. (300)

2. In what way does this woman define "wife"--or in what way is she defined by "wife"?

While Jodi enjoyed the fact that others believe her to be Todd's wife, she was supposedy relieved that she was 'untethered.' However, it was the routine that she most valued, so as long as he continued in the expected routine, she was satisfied with her role as "wife," though she was not his wife in the legal sense. Although Jodi defined her own role as 'partner'/pretend 'wife,' she soon learned that without that legally binding agreement as an official wife, she was financially at risk since Todd legally owned the apartment where she/they lived, etc. And, of course, the problem with a 'philanderer' (I love that word...don't you?) is the risk that he will decide to attach himself to one of these other women and ditch you! Personally, I don't understand why marriage was ever setup in our laws as such a powerful legal relationship. As far as I'm concerned marriage is a religious construct. I think all resulting legal matters should be attended to between/among individuals with no "marriage" laws involved. Each individual should have a will and update it as life changes occur, and "couples" should work out their own legal agreements regarding property, etc. But I digress. Perhaps one of the most commonly known similar situations is that of Stieg Larsson and his long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, leaving us with the lesson that if you eschew the legalities of "marriage," you must create the legal documentation to protect each other financially, or else...the long-term partner may be left with no legal claim to your estate. To defend her home, Jodi does the unthinkable, plotting and planning for Todd's death, though if we know her at all, we realize her routine is definitely the MOST important part of her life, and losing her home would, she believes, irreparably disrupt that routine... In this regard, Jodi displays a very common reaction to childhood abuse--to create a life based strictly upon routine, within which to protect yourself. 

In the end, Jodi's definition of "wife" or 'long-term committed partner' includes little to no emotional attachment to another person, but her adult life is committed to very loose attachments due to childhood trauma, in my opinion.

I was pleasantly surprised that this book wasn't 'scary' to me as I feared it might be, except for the fact that we all select and rationalize our life's choices, and that can be a very dangerous proposition, not only for each of us, but for those within our immediate surroundings. Have you read it? I fear it might not be as enjoyable for those who don't like to examine characters' underlying psychological motivations, but perhaps it is... I considered it an amazing examination of "marriage." What are your thoughts? 

Look what I found?!? A reading event for September and October!

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril X

What, you may ask, is this? 
It is RIP X and runs September 1-October 31, 2015!

You should know by now that I do NOT read horror 

and do NOT like to be scared!

However, I DO love mysteries!
You can select the challenge you wish to complete. 


The books must be from any 
of these categories:

Mystery

Suspense

Thriller

Dark Fantasy

Gothic

Horror

Supernatural

I have elected to read 4 books:

X by Sue Grafton

After Her by Joyce Maynard

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

The last two will also count as Classics.





And then I realized the Literary Wives read for October is a perfect fit!

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Our reviews of this will be posted on Monday, October 5th!

Here are past Literary Wives reviews!

I guess I'll be reading 5! :)

Visit The Estella Society page and join in! 

Which Peril(s) will you select? 

Crooked or straight---this river held secrets!!

Crooked River by Valerie Geary

Win a free signed copy!! Simply comment and include your email address here! :) You have until Monday, September 7th at 7PM! 

As I finished reading this debut novel I was reminded of two other debut mystery/thrillers: Tana French's In the Woods and Heather Gudenkauf's The Weight of Silence. High praise from me, since these are two of my favorite writers! The similarity to Gudenkauf's book may well stem from the fact that like Calli, Ollie is also mute. The resemblance to Tana French is in the fact that Geary can create the environment/atmosphere in which to couch the whole story--that virtually becomes a character in and of itself! Difficult to believe this was a debut novel, it was, in my opinion, so excellently written! 

Fifteen-year-old Sam and her 10-year-old sister, Ollie, discover a dead woman floating in the river and although neither of them recognizes her:

  Still, she was somebody's somebody and we couldn't just leave her.

 We should do something. Shouldn't we? Tell someone? And then again, because I couldn't remember if I said it out loud the first time, "We should do something." (3)

And this rather sets the tone for this story--nobody seems to do anything when they should to avoid the virtually inevitable suspicion and ultimate arrest of their father, Bear. For the past 8 years Bear had lived in Zeb's pasture,

"...he hadn't changed much. He put up a teepee and planted a vegetable garden, dug a fire pit and an outhouse, and brought in a picnic table, and of course there were the hives. But there was no electricity, only the sun. No plumbing, only the river and a barrel to catch the rain. No roof over our heads to blot out the stars, no television to drown out the bird and cricket songs, no asphalt to burn the soles of our feet. Most kids would probably hate a place like this, but to me it was home. (4)

His landlord, Zeb, and his wife, were actually more parents to Bear (whose parents had died before his children were born) and grandparents to his daughters, than his wife's parents who visited once a year and sent $20 checks on the girls' birthdays. Their mother dies and they go to live with Bear,

  But this was only a trial period. We have six months to prove the meadow was safe and Bear was a good father. Six months to convince her we could thrive here. Three days in, we weren't off to a very good start. (6)

True. It would freak most parents out nowadays if children were allowed to play off by themselves at a river and discovered a dead body! Probably not the best of starts, and may well explain their reticence to report it to the proper authorities. With other evidence accumulated that incriminated Bear, even Sam began wondering if perhaps she didn't know her father very well, or at least not well enough to feel secure in the knowledge that he could never have committed this crime...she had some doubt of his innocence initially, reminding me of Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon (Another one of my favorite reads that I really must review on this blog! Soon!).

After Zeb and Bear have moved the bee hives to better pollen sources, Sam wonders why they don't try to "fly back home," but her Dad explains,
  "Their hive is their home....Wherever the queen is, that's where they return."
  "But what if the queen's not there?"
  "The colony falls apart." (7)

Could be a bit of symbolism or foreshadowing? Without its mother/wife/'queen bee,' their family...could also...

Ollie has one book that she's been reading since the beginning of the summer, Alice in Wonderland. She and her mother had been reading together in it every night, but had managed to only get halfway through... It is, however, this book that ultimately saves her! 

Ollie immediately senses that Travis is bad.

  I do not like this in-between boy, this almost man. 

  He's not who you think he is.

  He's not your friend.

  We can't trust him. 

  He'll hurt us. 

  Tell him to go away. (80)

She knew... I believe Ollie had what many of us may call a "sixth sense" about people. 

Sam is rather a loner,

  Bear and I both thought trees made better friends than people did. (16)

There are times I would agree! ;)

Per Travis, 
Sometimes the people we love most are the people we know least. (178)

Sam talks to Bear: 
  I clamped my teeth down hard, biting back all the words I wanted to scream at him, all the ways he'd failed us....All the explanations and apologies in the world couldn't change what had happened. We carry our pasts with us, no matter how hard we fight to break free. He knew it, Mom knew it. I knew it now, too. I took a deep breath, and then another. I came here for the truth, and that's what Bear was giving me--take it or leave it. (216)

The epitaph on their mother's grave, 
Beloved Daughter and Mother. As if that was all that counted. As if an entire person was made up of only two parts. 
  She was other things, too. Stargazer, storyteller, bibliophile, chocoholic and something of a weekend wino, gardener, collector of roosters and spoons and oddly shaped rocks, a good hugger, a better back-scratcher, a terrible cook, loyal, passionate, ever the eternal optimist, wife. A loving wife. Despite how it may have looked to people on the outside,...Mom had never stopped loving Bear. And he had never stopped loving her. (238-239)

  "Your sister needs you right now."
  Funny, I always thought I was the one who needed her.
  I guess it comes down to this: Sam and me, we need each other. (314)

These two sisters bravely fight to prove their father's innocence, but what they find is incriminating. Is he innocent? If this sounds as intriguing to you as it did to me, I would highly recommend it! A fantastic debut and mystery!

A note: Valerie graciously agreed to an author interview and even gave a free book to one of the lucky readers and commenters! How nice is that?!? I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway and felt grateful that as a result of my review posting, another reader would also receive a free copy! Wow... :)

What a Mother Knows by Leslie Lehr

What a Mother Knows by Leslie Lehr

Published by Sourcebooks, May 7, 2013

ISBN: 9781402279560

I was fortunate enough to receive a free copy of this wonderful book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. (It always seems like a holiday when I receive a free book!! YAY!!) Additionally, I would have been thrilled if I had actually purchased it! I heartily recommend this book!

Unfortunately, I have not had time to read it until now--but it was well worth the wait!! I had to forewarn my co-worker this Monday morning that I was tired. Why? Well...huh-hmmm...that could be due to the fact that it was past midnight before I went to bed to sleep last night. You might well ask, why? Well...because I had begun reading this book yesterday morning and I just HAD to know; I just HAD to finish it before I could go to sleep! It was that enthralling for me! 

This was more suspenseful than I'd actually expected. Ms. Lehr managed the plot quite astutely, revealing a little more and then a little more, and then... Well, you get the idea. I typically am compelled by a narrative when the characters are well drawn and impassioned, and was I ever compelled! (See above note about late bed-time!!) I cannot begin to imagine Michelle's shock and disorientation after months in a medically-induced coma, then fighting for more than another year to relearn to walk and talk, etc. Although unable to accomplish a full recovery, it was remarkable the skills and abilities she was able to regain and maintain. It pleased me that Michelle had the satisfaction of knowing her intuition regarding her daughter was spot-on and she did virtually track her down, though Nikki was able to evade her at the last minute. Good for her! Especially considering the lies with which she had to deal once released from the hospital and returned to a "normal"/"routine" life! Her world had been turned upside down during those 18 months!

I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of limb regeneration briefly explored in this book. I have heard an experienced Chinese practitioner state that the only reason the human body does not fully regenerate limbs is the lack of pain tolerance. Quite an interesting proposition, in my opinion. Michelle and Wes seemed to automatically and unconsciously connect at such an intimate level! I was happy for both of them, however, it would be nice to find out how their lives continued in the aftermath of this particular novel. But isn't that usually how it is when a book resonates so clearly for you? You always wish you knew how certain things worked out in the future for specific characters...and that, for me is much of the enjoyment of reading! 

I was rather proud to have caught a major plot twist which Michelle overlooked (a rather rare occurrence for me! lol). I could empathize with Michelle and Laura, discovering (and remembering) their children's illicit activities. Which brings me to one of the main issues related in this book. Parents rarely deal with "bad behavior" in effective ways, yet it is virtually impossible to control emotional reactions to what can be identified by most parents as "betrayal" or "rebellion." Would you have "over-reacted" as Michelle did? Could you have been as kind-hearted, forgiving, and seemingly objective as Laura? It is amazing how a series of small decisions can create seemingly insurmountable and disastrous results. Ah...but such is life...

The final controversial issue surrounds Michelle's memory and the trial. Did you believe her to be "innocent" with regard to Noah's death? Or did it even matter by that time? Personally, I felt there was no positive result to be had by her revealing recently recalled memories, particularly since she was the only "witness" to Noah's last minutes of life. Especially given the fact that some neuroscientists now believe there is no "absolute truth" within human experience, but rather we each "create" our own individual and unique memories of any specific experience/event. (I listened to a TED talk addressing this issue.) This explains how multiple eye-witness accounts of the same event can differ so widely, and to a degree how people can so easily misidentify perpetrators, etc. I have experienced this in my own life; my children, now adults with their own families, recall quite differently various childhood events, and their accounts sometimes vary remarkably from my own memories! That never ceases to amaze me. Personally, I feel Michelle was doing everything in her power to save Noah... What would you have done in Michelle's place? Would you have felt compelled to divulge what you believe you've just now "remembered," or would you have kept those thoughts to yourself? Quite the conundrum! And will she ever share this information with anyone else in her life in the future?

I plan to read Lehr's first book, Wife Goes On.