Hi, and welcome to Momma G's Cheap Book Reviews. I bet you are wondering why I am calling this cheap. That is a simple answer. The books I review are cheap. Oh, not trashy cheap, but, price wise. My books come from second hand book stores and thrift shops, so you may be getting some pretty obscure reviews. But, as I say, even though it is not technically "new", it is new to you if you have never read it!
I will try to bring you a new review each week, but with the two kids I have, and the house to run, and meals to cook and talk shows, well, I may not get around to the thrift shop as often as I please. It is never a matter of actually reading, if a book grips me, I devour it in a day or two. (Speed Reading, freshman year, HS. Highly recommended).) Until I get enough books up, I will not break this page up. Once I get enough reviews together, I will link them.
If you would like to order this book, or see other cheesy reviews, just click onto the title, and you will be whisked away to the amazon by a muscle-bound Tarzan swinging from an ivy vine...er, I mean you will find your self at Amazon, the internet's largest online book store.(ahem).
NOW, the moment you have been waiting for...my first...
***SILENT WITNESS***BY
Richard North Patterson
My first RNP. Gripping, tautly written, I was drawn in from page one. Stayed up too late reading, & even got up early to finish this one in two days!( Hey, if you know me, you know what a surprise is it for me to rise early).
This book was found in paperback at the Goodwill Store, & the publish date in the cover reads, October 1997. I paid $0.50 for this novel, and trust me, it was worth every single penney. According to the cover, this is book eight for the talented author.
****BEFORE YOU GO ANY FARTHER(or is it further??)****This book contains gratuitous sex, nasty sex, rape, murder, and grisley details of murder. It is, after, a MURDER MYSTERY. If this offends you, rest easy. I will not be paraphrasing, excerpting or even vaguely describing ANY of these scenes. You will have to rub your own two quarters together, and high-tail it down to the Goodwill to search for your own copy.
Our protagonist is Anthony "Tony" Lord (imagine, as I did, oh, say, TOM CRUISE). As the story opens, he is a successful lawyer, married to the lovely blond singing/acting goddess Stacey Tarrant (OK, I imagined her as...Tracy Lords. Maybe it was the Stacey/Tracy deal, maybe it was the Tony LORD, I don't know). He has one son, a 17 year old named Christopher (who else? LEO!!) Tony is enjoying the thrill of a legal victory, his son is off in the family car, and Stacey is simultaneously walking up the stairs and discarding her clothing. Because of this talent of hers, they end up basking in after-glow the next page, blissfully happy, when...THE PHONE RINGS. "It's Sue Robb," Stacey purrs. Tony takes the call. Just a mere two pages later, Tony is transported back into time, back to Lake City, Ohio, back to the demons of his past, to defend his best friend Sam Robb (here, I just kept thinking Bamm Bamm for some reason, you remember, the little kid from Flinstones? -Some say I am warped, they may be right-) against the heinous charge of....MURDER!!!
But, before we can dive into the meat of the story, we must flash back to Tony's senior year at Lake City High School. I must say, this book is full of flashbacks, but, I wasn't confused as I am in many stories that involve flashback. So, as Tony is flying from California to Ohio to defend Sam Robb, he must have dozed off, because we are treated to the reason why Tony is Tony today. (That must have been a heck of a flight! Or, a heck of a martini in first class!)
The gist of the flashback is this. Tony and Sam Robb are best friends, and both outstanding athletes, although people seem to like Tony better (who wouldn't pick Tom over Bamm Bamm?). There is a football game, and the two rascals use a play they devised years ago to win the game and be heroes. They are all around athletes, too, for later, they are heroes on the basketball and baseball teams, so an underlying thread is the quest for Athlete of the Year!(year, year, year....) But, I digress. As the Flashback unfolds, the foursome meets up under a tree to celebrate the victory, Sue in her cheerleaders uniform, Sam in jock clothes, and Alison Taylor(this girl put me in the mind of Winona Ryder, from Heathers, with long black hair), Tony's woman, in her preppy outfit. But, there would be no party tonight, because goody goody Alison decides to give it on up for her Hero, Tony! Oh, boy, he can hardly wait. Dissing his friends, they zoom off in his car to lover's lane, which is really Taylor Park. ( I guess her precedents named the park, because not only does it bear her surname, it is directly across from her house, where her tryantly protective father lives!! Gee, just the spot I would choose to deflower his daughter.)
After they do the wild thing, it is apparent that Alison is intoxicated with love, and she decides to get on home, and then, sneak back out for seconds! Tony walks her home, through the shadowy and scary woods, and he watches as she goes inside. He tromps back to the car to wait for her. Tick, Tick...the time goes by, and what do you know, she never returns. So, good hearted Tony goes in search of his love, and...unfortunately for him, he finds her, strangled to death at the edge of the park that faces her House! "NO!" He cries, and holds her lifeless body, as her father storms out of the house with a gun in hand.
Do I have to spell it out for you? Well, I ain't a gonna do it! I think we can all figure out what happens to the poor schlep. Yes, folks, that is right, Tony is the prime suspect. Everyone in town turns on him, except for his wonderful lawyer Saul Ravin(who I imagined as a Paul Reiser type. ). Even his best friend Bamm Bamm questions him about it. Tony is torn inside. He knows he is innocent, but the odds are against him. The only one who even shows him a lick of care is Sue Robb(I pictured her as an Older Shirley Temple ), and that's not all she shows him, by the way!
Yada, Yada, Yada, they blame the death on a transient, and Tony goes on to get a Harvard Law Degree. Sam and Sue stay behind, and marry, and that ends the flashback.
Back to the present. Now, Tony is back in Lake City to defend his best friend against the heinous crime of murder. Sam is accused of murdering a 16 year old girl named Marcie (since Marcie had such a non-living role, and we only met her in flashback, I simply used Winona Ryder as her character again(hey, you knew I was cheap!)), who just happened to be pregnant with Sam's baby! (wonder how that happened, honey?) Of course, it is as much a story about Tony coming to grips with his past, and trying to hold back on his feelings for the still beautiful(and even thinner!) Sue Robb, as it is about the crass Sam Robb. Also, believe it or not, ol' Saul Ravin, who by now is a ravin' drunk, just happens to be available for Tony (again!) for advice, dinners, and aw, what the heck, even as co-counsel for the defendent when Stella Marz(the crusty old woman prosecuter, here, I though of her as Bette Midler) decides to pin Sam's kahunies to the wall by taking him to trial.
I can't say too much else about the story, or I will be guilty of giving away the whole deal, which I hate to happen. If I want to know the ending, by golly, let ME be the one to read the last two pages on my own!! Overall, I gave this story a 9 out of 10. It made me think about the characters, I felt the emotions of love and lust clearly, and I was held to the end to figure out the who and why of the tale. Of course, some liberties were taken, I mean come one, 27 years later, and Saul is still kickin'? How old was he when he defended Tony the first time? And Sue, she's been married to this oaf Sam for 27 years, and she is still as beautiful as ever? Two kids and thinner than before? And, she still pants after Tony like it was just yesterday they romped on the beach together, behind Sam's back? Hey, it's only been twelve years since I was 17, but I would be hard pressed to find any of my ex's to pant after(maybe because they are all in jail or live with their momma's still)(or maybe they just wouldn't recognize me, after MY two kids, I can assure you, I am NOT thinner than I went into it). And, yes, Alison's dad is still all fired up about his daughter's death, full of rage and indignancy(is this a word?), especially when he goes after Vice Principal Robb's job when he is the suspect in the murder of Marcie. This guy was a geezer in the flashback, and he is still making it around town causing trouble?
So, give into creativity, and go with the flow of this one. I want more RNP's after this one, so I am going to be keeping my eye's open the next time I roll up at the Goodwill! This book is an excellent read, and I HIGHLY recommend it!
from the
CRITIC'S CHAIR
& the couch potato who sits in it
MOMMA G!!
Until next time, read, read, read!
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