The Spirit of the Straightedge by Babs Lakey
Over My Dead Body May 2001 paperback
ISBN: 1931616000
Psychological Suspense/ - for explicit content

Reviewed by Barbara Buhrer, MyShelf.Com
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Elsie Sanders has been abused by her father. She cannot understand why she can never do anything to please him. It is her best (and only) friend, Lynn, who bolsters her fragile ego and gives her confidence.

When Elsie's parents die in a murder/suicide, she and Lynn leave their small town and move to Minneapolis to find a new life for themselves.

Lynn is brutally mutilated and murdered. Elsie believes the murderer is the man Lynn rejected and who was stalking her. She shares her feelings with Detective Gerald Lawrence, who cannot make any progress in the case.

Lynn's murder leaves Elsie in such a state that she joins a therapy group. She finds that each member of the group has been traumatized in some manner by sex abusers.

She has spent her life trying to make everyone else happy so they would like her and show her the love she thought she needed. Now she decides to seek revenge for all those in her group while she is still trying to find Lynn's murderer. Her method of revenge is well-planned, diabolical and final for all concerned.

Only when she finds the murderer and wreaks her vengeance is she able to exorcise her demons and seek a normal life.

This is a chilling story of the effect abuse may have on its victims.
The reader is taken into the mind of the murderer and of Elsie, and is given flashbacks of both their lives and how it affected them.

The action is fast paced and suspenseful. The characters are presented in depth. The book is well-written; it is written with strong language. There is a lot of graphic violence along with descriptive, explicit sex. This is not a book for the faint-hearted.