Friday, February 14, 2014

What's in a Name... After Her

I've just finished reading this thriller.  A GOOD one.   While the product description will give you the particulars of this book, I truly enjoyed the story line for the relationships in the seemingly "disfunctional" family.  I'm not sure it was disfunctional, just different.  I would have a hard time believing that children are so unattended but, they must have been.  The mother in this story is almost not, yet the father, who is really a deadbeat dad is the hero.  I would have thought that with all the murders happening in the area, something more significant would have happened, but then again, this is fiction.  Having lived for a very long time with a police officer, I understand the "not home"ness of the dad, they just aren't there, or at least ours wasn't.  Things do consume them, even after they retire.  It's not like Blue Bloods at all, they are hardly ever at the table together,  I want to know how they all get the time off together, and I don't believe they get called to go either, you work your shift, and overtime.  But, I suspect if the truth were told it would make for a boring program.  I love Tom Selleck, but have not been able to get into this series, it's just too fake for me.  O.k. getting back to the book.  Good read, thrilling, but I found the conclusion a little out there, like the author couldn't tie things up so she just did.  I would have thought the extensive police investigation would have uncovered the evidence of the rusty vehicle, but then again maybe I've watched too many CSI programs.  I liked this book, I didn't love it, and I won't rush out to read another by this author, if one crosses my path... love the sisters and their dedication to each other, and Gina was just too convenient. But a good story nonetheless, not great, but good.


Product Description

The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and The Good Daughters returns with a haunting novel of sisterhood, sacrifice, and suspense.
I was always looking for excitement, until I found some . . .
Summer, 1979. A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and her younger sister, Patty—the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome (and chronically unfaithful) detective father and the mother whose heart he broke.
When we first meet her, Patty is eleven—a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel. Rachel is obsessed with making up stories and believes she possesses the gift of knowing what's in the minds of people around her. She has visions, whether she wants to or not. Left to their own devices, the sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the mysterious neighbor who moved in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that looms behind their house.
When young women start turning up dead on the mountain, the girls' father is put in charge of finding the murderer known as the "Sunset Strangler." Watching her father's life slowly unravel as months pass and more women are killed, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet . . . using herself as bait to catch the killer. But rather than cracking the case, the consequences of Rachel's actions will destroy her father's career and alter forever the lives of everyone she loves.
Thirty years later, still haunted by the belief that the killer remains at large, Rachel constructs a new strategy to smoke out the Sunset Strangler and vindicate her father—a plan that unexpectedly unearths a long-buried family secret.
Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County, California, in the late 1970s, After Her is part thriller, part love story. Maynard has created a poignant, suspenseful, and painfully real family saga that traces a young girl's first explorations of sexuality, the loss of innocence, the bond shared by sisters, and the tender but damaged relationship between a girl and her father that endures even beyond the grave.

4 comments:

bermudaonion said...

I enjoyed this one for the unique perspective. I'm a fan of Maynards!

Nise' said...

I brought this book home from the library because I've enjoyed a couple of her other books. When I picked it up a couple of days ago, I noticed that some of the pages were moldy looking! I took it right back to the library, thankfully they determined it was not mold, but something else. I did not want it back, will get it from the other library! ;o)

kayerj said...

thanks for sharing your honest opinion. I'm not really a "thriller" person. I also liked your perspective as a person who has "lived with the law".

Vicki said...

Good review...I have this on my list!

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