Alone: A Novel of Suspense
by Lisa Gardner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lisa GardnerEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-12-27
ISBN: 0553584537
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of Alone: A Novel of Suspense
Book Review: Alone, but not for long
Summary: 3 Stars
I picked this book up because I came across the publicity for "Hide", Lisa Gardner's latest release. Being more than somewhat pedantic with my reading habits, I HAD to find and read the 'first' in the series. Which brings me to 'Alone'.
'Alone' was probably first written as a 'one-off' outside of Gardners other series which features, I believe, a pair of cops. I hadn't come across these books before, but they seem to review well and I will definitely be picking them up in the future. After writing 'Alone', Gardner has gone back to this original series and then come back with a follow-up in 'Hide'.
'Alone' is very well written. The main character is probably Bobby Dodge, a police sniper on Boston's STOP team. His job is to take a position at the scene of an incident and report to the team on the ground. His main task is obviously to kill if necessity dictates: 'take a life to save a life'. In this case, he takes a life and saves 2: a woman called Catherine Gagnon and her son Nathan. Her husband, Jimmy, was about to pull the trigger on his wife, or so Dodge's instincts told him, forcing Dodge to act as he has been carefully trained to do in such a situation.
From this point on, and this is virtually the first scene in the book, life gets very very complicated for Bobby Dodge. He is immediately investigated (and suspended) for the shooting, as you would expect, by his department and the DAs office. But there are complications. Suddenly the wife of the victim is contacting him and asking for his help. Doubts begin to surface about the shooting. Did Catherine Gagnon set Bobby up to shoot her abusive husband?
The shooting also sparks a chain of deaths around Catherine Gagnon, who emerges as a main character in her own right. She is a complicated character, the survivor of an horrific childhood abduction that lasted for 28 days where she was held underground in the dark and sexually abused. She was eventually found and released and went on to identify her abductor and testify in court. The abductor, Richard Umbrio, was sentenced and jailed.
"Alone" unravels a nasty and complicated family history that Catherine Gagnon has unwittingly stepped into (or has she?). It would appear that the wealthy and influential parents of her dead husband want Catherine dead and gone. They work quickly to disempower her: cancelling her bank accounts and contesting custody of their grandchild being the least of it. They also manage to find a 'loophole' in the law that allows them to pursue Dodge for murder through the court system. I found this to be a little untenable. Surely the police would be protected in the rare instance that they have to use fatal force in the line of duty. Dodge's conduct becomes even more suspicious to his team mates as he gets involved with the manipulative and mysterious Catherine.
The only other criticism I have concerns 'tenability'. I found the motive for the extreme action taken by Catherine Gagnon's in-laws to be questionable. In the end, the in-laws motive is basically self-preservation, I won't say what they are hiding, but the action they take, at their age seems a little too extreme. Gardner covers for some of this by creating a snowball effect; what at first seems like a simple and careful solution soon becomes messy and out of control. Dealing with the dark side always comes at a price.
However, I think Lisa Gardner is really onto something with these characters. They certainly warrant another book. Its refreshing to see a characer like Catherine Gagnon who despite her dark side, is still a proactive survivor of horrific abuse. Perhaps this is how one survives such an incident. And of course she is a mother who goes to extreme lengths to protect her child in the face of suspicion cast upon her for her actions. Gardner does well here, introducing the subject of Munchausens via Proxy, a rare psychological condition where a parent 'makes' a child sick in order to gain positive attention for themselves. Catherine Gagnon is definitely not likeable, but she is certainly very interesting, which in turn makes for great possibilities for Gardner in her follow up, "Hide". At the end of 'Alone' the reader would wonder how the author could extract even more from this story, but she does indeed go on to do so in "Hide".
I gave this book 3 stars, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to rate "Hide" more highly. The characters are intriguing and believable and the tension Gardner creates is sustained throughout. Both books are hard to put down, so be prepared to dig in for the long haul.
Summary of Alone: A Novel of Suspense
Alone . . . Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man?s finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react . . . and forever pay the consequences.Alone . . . that?s where the nightmare began for cool, beautiful, and dangerously sexy Catherine Rose Gagnon. Twenty-five years ago, she was buried underground during a month-long nightmare of abduction and abuse. Now her husband has just been killed. Her father-in-law, the powerful Judge Gagnon, blames Catherine for his son?s death . . . and for the series of unexplained illnesses that have sent her own young son repeatedly to the hospital.
Alone . . . a madman survived solitary confinement in a maximum security prison where he?d done hard time for the most sadistic of crimes. Now he walks the streets a free man, invisible, anonymous . . . and filled with an unquenchable rage for vengeance. What brings them together is a moment of violence?but what connects them is a passion far deeper and much more dangerous. For a killer is loose who?s woven such an intricate web of evil that no one is above suspicion, no one is beyond harm, and no one will see death coming until it has them cornered, helpless, and alone.
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