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TRUE WITNESS
by Jo Bannister
St. Martin's, December 2002
304 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312308175


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Bannisteršs second novel featuring Brodie Farrell, Daniel Hood, and D.I. Jack Deacon is distinguished by vivd and believable characters who tug the reader into the story and intrigue us with their activities. Bannister seems to balance multiple main characters very well. In her Castlemere series she also has three main characters who are very well drawn. This story hinges on the attributes of the three people thrown together once again by crime.

Daniel Hood is a slight man, one who would not physically overwhelm anyone. After suffering countless taunts and slurs as a child, he learned to stand up for what he believed in, no matter what. Jack Deacon, on the other hand, is a very stubborn man who deems he knows the right and demands that others accept that. Brodie Farrell, who bridges the two of them and often keeps them apart, has learned strengths of her own from a failed marriage.

Daniel is outside in the middle of the night with Brodiešs daughter, showing her the stars through his telescope, when he sees two men running up the pier, fighting, and then one man is thrown off and the other flees. Daniel jumps into the water, not thinking of his own safety, but the man is already dead. He is a young man, 18 or so.

Ten years before this three young men had been seized, raped, held for several days, and then murdered. Deacon is convinced he knows who did these murders, although he could never find proof, and now he is certain that the man has struck again. Daniel refuses to identify the man Deacon has indicated because that is not the man he saw. Deacon is certain that Hood did not see him clearly and insists that he just assert it was the man.

This dispute escalates as townspeople become vigilantes in their anger at Danielšs refusal. The two clash again and again and when a second body is found, Daniel begins to doubt himself. The story is a roller coaster, rising and falling, your stomach dropping and then surging up into your throat, and around every bend is the unexpected. It is a fascinating story of crime, perverted love, sex, and integrity. I wonder how many of us, even certain that we were right, could stand up to the verbal assaults of D.I.Deacon.

As I said, the characters are well drawn and very believable. They are three dimensional and we know them as human beings with their weaknesses and strengths, their mistakes and their triumphs, and we empathize with them.

The story is well told and carries the reader along with nothing to draw her out of the narrative. Bannister has an excellent sense of place. The medium-sized English town is nicely drawn and we can certainly feel that we are present, walking the streets, watching the ocean pound in, wandering out on the old pier where once there was an amusement park, sitting in the pub and listening to folks work themselves up into a mob.

This book is very well done, most intriguing, and absorbing to read. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, January 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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