Authors: Sandra Brown
ISBN-13: 9780446353939, ISBN-10: 0446353930
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Date Published: April 1989
Edition: Reissue
Already a successful romance novelist in the 1980s, Sandra Brown struck gold when she pushed past the category s boundaries to take chances with more intricate plotting, richer characters, and surprising plot twists. Her string of bestsellers feature strong, capable career women in extreme circumstances.
In this specially priced classic suspense from the "New York Times" bestseller, one woman risks everything to find her mother's killer.
Twenty-five-year-old Alexandra Gaither is a Texas state prosecutor, whose mother, Celina, was murdered when she was an infant. Since her grandmother has always considered her the cause of the murder, Alex is driven to solve the mystery of her mother's death in an effort to earn her grandmother's love. Strangely, she gets permission from the state district attorney to reopen the case but must complete her investigation in one month's time. Alex has three suspects: her mother's lover, Sheriff Reede Lambert; town mogul Angus Minton; and Minton's son Junior. Sexual tension grows immediately between Alex and Reede even though he is 25 years her senior and could possibly be her father. Angus pushes Junior to seduce Alex in order to halt the investigation, which threatens his plans for a racetrack. The creepy result is that the same two men who loved the mother become rivals for the affections of the daughter. Alex, who is described as a strong, self-made woman, comes across as a neurotic weakling who wreaks havoc in order to satisfy her own needs. Award-winning reader Dick Hill does his usual outstanding presentation; however, even he cannot save this one. The characters and the plots are unbelievable and unappealing. Purchase only for adult fiction collections where Brown is a favorite.