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LIVE TO TELL
by Lisa Gardner
Orion, July 2010
388 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 1409101045


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Danielle Burton's most enduring memory is of her abusive father murdering most of his family when she was a little girl, leaving only her alive and killing himself before the local Sheriff arrived to carry her to safety. Now she works with mentally ill children in a progressive locked down paediatric psychiatric ward at a central Boston hospital, although her career motives are unclear even to her.

Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren is a sex-starved career cop, married to her job with the Boston PD. The leader of a successful team of three, she's an almost contented woman with a penchant for doughnuts who just wishes that now and again her pager will let her enjoy a date to its logical conclusion.

Victoria Oliver has spent the last few years keeping her abusive and troubled young son from hurting himself and from killing her. Her determination to keep him out of institutions has cost her husband and her daughter, but still she remains a devoted and determined mother to Evan.

Then one night, close to the anniversary of the slaughter of Danielle's family, another family is brutally murdered in a working-class suburb of Boston. D.D.'s team haven't had a chance to get their teeth into their investigations when a second family - a drug dealer, his wife and four children - is murdered on the following night.

Thus starts this perfectly sculpted novel, which twists and turns, taking its characters on their own personal journeys as the reader hangs on for the ride. There is not a single word out of place, not a single misstep to throw the reader off balance and because of that, I lost an entire Sunday afternoon reading it cover to cover, unable to put it down.

Every character is perfectly crafted, every nuance of the plot has its place in the story and when all the strands are pulled together at the final conclusion, the end is both shocking and tender. Having read this, I now want to go back and read the author's entire catalogue. Although the world she creates is brutal, it definitely makes a great read.

§Madeleine Marsh is an aspiring writer who lives in the South West. She helps run sci-fi conventions and loves modern cinema.

Reviewed by Madeleine Marsh, August 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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