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FALLING
by Christopher Pike
Forge, March 2007
368 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0765317184


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Matt Connor is deeply in love with his girlfriend, Amy, but when she leaves him to marry her rich ex-boyfriend he sets up a plan to hurt her as much as she's hurt him.

Being an excellent pilot, Matt starts his devious plan by faking his own death. Now officially dead, he can sneak back into his California town, stalk his old girlfriend and her new husband and then take revenge on her by kidnapping the one person she loves the most, her son.

FBI agent Kelly Feinman is an intelligent woman who loves her job. She also loves being the person who solves all her cases without telling her superiors what she is doing. She thrives on the glory. In one such instance of going after a serial killer by herself, Kelly was nearly murdered. She was the one that captured the killer but was severely injured and her supervisors were not happy that she confronted the man without backup. The FBI never told the media that it was Kelly who stopped the killer.

Kelly's marriage has also suffered from her visions of grandeur. Her husband had asked Kelly numerous times to not spend so much time on the job and to spend more time with him and their child. She refused and even though he still loved her, her husband left and took their daughter with him.

Now living alone, Kelly is assigned the case of the Techer family whose son Jimmy has been kidnapped by Matt Connor as revenge against his ex-girlfriend, Amy. Kelly figures out who kidnapped the child and can't help but admire how smart Connor is as he evades the FBI. Eventually the two become friends and help each other out.

FALLING by Christopher Pike has a riveting start. The reader learns about Matt and even feels sorry for him. But then FBI Agent Kelly Feinman is introduced and a perfectly good story gets annoying.

Kelly's need to be a top FBI agent and making sure the world knows about it makes her a very unsympathetic character. She neglects her family and runs off to solve the case of the 'Acid Man' – a serial killer who burns women – without telling anyone and ends up being severely burned in the process.

Kelly did get the killer but lost her husband and child and the respect of the department for going after the murderer alone. I didn't have any admiration for the way she did her job or the way she made her family suffer because of her hunger for glory. And then when Kelly moans and wails and begs her husband to come back, but he refused because he had found another girlfriend, I agreed with his decision and still didn't feel any sympathy for Kelly.

I did like the character of kidnapper Matt Connor, though. In a strange way the reader does understand why he did what he did to seek revenge, but the book turns strange when Kelly and Matt become friends.

FALLING is a big disappointment. The story started out strong and then as the pages went by it became a disaster. The book is not worth the time it takes to read it.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, May 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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