Now You See Her, a thriller written by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, is a really, really good book that will have you whipping through the pages. It’s a well-woven, well-crafted tale that anyone will have a hard time not thoroughly enjoying. And guessing. You just don’t know where this book is going to take you until you get there.
Nina, the beautiful woman of this story, is currently a self-made successful attorney in New York City, single, with a daughter named Emily. Nina has a good life, and that good life is going to get blown to smithereens because Nina has a past that has risen its ugly head and come looking for her. Fate. Nina decides to face that ugliness of the past.
When Nina was a young lady, she was called Jeannine. She was a senior at the University of Florida and was on a trip to Key West when her life as Jeannine began to fall apart. On the beach one night, Jeannine sees something that enrages her young mind. Drunk, she takes a car that doesn’t belong to her. Car theft. While driving this car, Jeannine hits and kills a man. Along comes a police officer, Peter Fournier, a handsome dude. Jeannine has enough common sense to want to do the right thing, but Fournier convinces her to walk away from her responsibility. That is just the beginning of her connection to Fournier.
Jeannine is then married and living in Florida. Then something terrible happens and she has to run. She barely escapes with her life, especially when a killer gets his hands on her. But she’s free, and she takes off to start a new life.
Fast forward to Nina now in New York, after all those years of recreating this new person. She’s faced with the moral/ethical dilemma of letting a man be put to death for a crime that Nina knows for certain he did not commit.
She does it, she goes back to face her demons. Along the way, Nina teams with Charlie Baylor, a liquor-soaked attorney who’s soon put in his place, and the two of them strike out to free an innocent man and make sure the true killer is brought to justice.
Not easy sailing for all those involved, but A-plus writing by Patterson and Ledwidge. Now You See Her, it’s a gritty book, one filled with good, tight writing, easily read, easily understood. The motives are exceptional, the characters are well conceived, and their motivations and movements are dead on.
Some of it is jaw-dropping, but you really get into it and try to look forward, but your guess might be wrong. There’s no tiptoeing by these authors, nope, they shove right into it and take you along with them.
I’ve been to Key West. I’ve seen it. It’s beautiful. It is extremely well described, true to form, in this book. There’s no other place like it.
This book was a little spooky, to me, but that’s what I know I’m going to get when I read a novel written by these two. It’s good spooky, the spooky that you know (or hope) isn’t going to happen to you. It’s make believe from two fertile brains. Those two brains really know how to write good books when they are in collaboration. Keep them coming. We’ll be waiting.
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