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Lying With Strangers
Jonnie Jacobs

Five Star
November 2013/ ISBN 9781432827311
Mystery / Suspense / Thriller / Adventure

Reviewed by Leslie C. Halpern

 

This intriguing mystery-suspense novel contrasts the lives of two vastly different characters: a lonely teenager trapped by poverty and desperation in an abusive relationship, and a financially stable older woman with two children and a loving husband. A violent crime unexpectedly brings their lives together over and over again until the similarities of the two women become apparent.

Action starts immediately, and the tragic event that brings together Chloe and Diana takes place in the first chapter. Chloe’s boyfriend, Trace, shoots two men in a botched robbery attempt at a convenience store. Diana’s husband, Roy, a successful District Attorney, now lies comatose in the hospital. He appears to be an innocent victim who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or was he somehow involved with Trace and the clerk who happened to be in the store that night?

Incriminating information surfaces about the husband Diana thought she knew, and she begins to doubt whether anything she ever experienced with him was real. As she and her children struggle with loss and betrayal, Diana and Chloe develop a relationship, although only Chloe knows of the terrible link between the two women. Meanwhile, Joel, a young reporter hoping for a scoop, makes a connection between a 20-year-old murder case with a missing suspect, and the deceased DA. When Joel shows up at Diana’s doorstep, he serves as the catalyst for helping her make sense of conflicting information. In an evolving interconnectedness, Diana, Chloe, and Joel help each other with personal and professional needs in a logical and satisfying culmination of events.

Best-selling author Jonnie Jacobs throws in surprising plot twists just when readers think they have everything figured out. Through careful plotting, multi-dimensional characters, lively dialogue, and an engaging writing style, Lying With Strangers provides a riveting story that will keep readers in suspense until the very end.

 
Reviewer Leslie C. Halpern is the author of Passionate About Their Work: 151 Celebrities, Artists, and Experts on Creativity, Rub, Scrub, Clean the Tub: Funny Children's Poems About Self-Image, and Shakes, Cakes, Frosted Flakes: Funny Children's Poems About Table Manners.
Reviewed 2014
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