Thursday, June 12, 2014

June column


Again I apologize for having to close my doors for a few days in May due to family illness. Family has to be my first priority. If you are driving very far please feel free to call first to be sure I am open.

I think I have mentioned before that I have never been a mystery reader. I guess that I am getting hooked, but not to much blood and guts please. I discovered a new author, at least new to me this last month. Ended up reading 3 of her books. Her name is Lisa Unger. Her books are classified as physiological thrillers.

Fragile
by
Lisa Unger

The setting is a small community outside of New York City, where everyone knows everyone and their business. It is a good place to raise children in this warm environment. Some leave to find more excitement but end up coming back. Old high school cliques are never quite forgotten. The students are just mature now and have mature roles to play. When psychologist Maggie Cooper returns with her family and sets up practice, her knowledge of local families give her insight into their lives. Her son's girlfriend disappears and her intuition is useful but also dangerous. There are parallels between this girls disappearance and the abduction of another local girl years before when Maggie was in school. Her husband Jones, local police officer has his own issues with the old case and with his son. When Maggie gets close to the truth she realizes it could tear her family apart. A great ending! A great read!

Darkness My Old Friend
by
Lisa Unger

This is another novel set in the same little community with Jones Cooper, now a semi retired cop back in the picture when he is visited by a psychic to tell him some predictions about his future, some of them dire. Michael, a mysterious young man has returned to seek answers about his mother's disappearance many years earlier, now that his cruel father is dead. He has hired a detective and a psychic to help him find out what happened to her.
Fifteen year old Willow is acting out as she resents being moved to this quiet town with her novelist mother. She has developed a friendship with a daughter of one of her mother's old high school classmates. This new friend has a way of bringing out the worse in Willow and she tendency to run away when things get tough. She witnesses Michael digging what looks like a grave in the woods. The twenty five year mystery of Michaels mother starts to unravel as Jones sees the predictions being fulfilled to his horror.

Black Out
by
Lisa Unger

A very carefully woven mystery about a wealthy suburban housewife named Annie living the perfect live in Florida with her husband Gray, and her daughter Victory. Annie's life begins to unravel when she starts feeling she is being stalked by someone from her past. Someone she has been told many times is dead and can't hurt her. She is seeing a therapist to help her heal from a tragic childhood. Her husband rescued her when she was still a teenage and became her protector. She knows she had a different name and life as Ophelia. But there is so much she can't remember. Under her therapy she starts to piece things together and realizes that maybe some of those closest to her are her enemies. A real psychological thriller that you really don't want to put down or you will forget who and what is real for Annie and what is just in her head. This was a real page turner.