Deadly Destination [Paperback]

When a writer chooses to go with something different for fiction novels, they need to really think about it, in my opinion. It is extremely hard for an individual to, for instance, write in first person and keep that consistent throughout... When you combine that with choosing to tell rather than show the story, well, it makes for a dull book...

Cat Denison has a great concept in her first novel; but her choice to write it as she did left me forcing my way through, because I did want to see what happened...

Another little thing that affected me was that the author apparently has a "thing" about lighthouses and used it without any type of explanation as to why she used (Sam's lighthouses-Kenny's lighthouses)the term. Unfortunately, she then used it for two characters (Sam and Kenny) who, supposedly, had never met until later in the book, but both looking for lighthouses(?)...Highly unlikely given their different backgrounds and chosen lives, don't you think? Especially since the "lighthouses" weren't real...

The book is divided into parts with one of the characters telling the story for the majority of the book. Sam Murphy is that main character. Perhaps I'd watched too many episodes of Ghost Whisperer or read too many paranormal mysteries. The paranormal "gift" that Sam has may be real, since she did save her best friend's life; but the character didn't seem to "get into" the role for me, although she does tell us about her early life and how the gift was discovered. The telling is interesting, but did not pull me into the story or convince me of her gift meaning much in her life.

Sam gets married, moves, divorces... and then comes back for a reunion... She later becomes involved with Harry Metcalf who is a police detective, with the willingness to listen to Sam when she can help on a case...

Kenny Callahan had been abused all his life, or at least until he was 10 when he beat his father to death with a bat... But his early life never did leave him enough to allow him to mature and leave the past... He and his three brothers all felt they deserved a better life, so they began a country-wide trip of small thefts and then quickly moving on. As the characters all meet up for the finale, Sam does help Harry and other officers in the "chase" and the conclusion was satisfying.

I read another review at Amazon which tells the story much better than me; the individual liked the book. I'm sorry, I didn't. Beautiful cover, great concept...read other reviews to decide... I won't be following this new series.

GABixlerReviews

Book Info: Deadly Destination (Phoenix; Sand Cat Productions, 2012)
Author: Cat Denison

Life is never boring for eleven-year-old Siobhan Angela Murphy (Sam). Sam is full of life and expectation for the adventurous life she wants to lead. But first she has to explain to the police how she knows about a recent crime.

She is sitting in a small-town police station with her parents waiting to give a statement. It's not the kind of setting you would normally find a young girl in, but Sam is no ordinary girl. It seems that she had seen her best friend, Sally, get abducted! While her tips did lead police to the location of the perpetrators, Sam admits that she had obtained the information from what she calls her "personal movies." In other words, Sam is clairvoyant.

As Sam gets older her visions intensify. Now at age eighteen, she meets a guy who sweeps her off her feet, but then she starts getting weird feelings about the relationship. Sam decides to look for work in a field where her talents might be put to better use. Along the way she meets a new guy who works as a police detective. Things are starting to look better for Sam, but her "gift" is presenting gruesome mental images of rapists, murderers, and thieves committing heinous crimes.

Kenny Callahan, the other protagonist, got his fare share of physical abuse from his father while growing up. Even Sam had visions that explained the black eyes and welts regularly seen on Kenny and his siblings during their elementary school days together.

One day Kenny just snapped and found himself at the end of a bloody baseball bat, having just fought back against his abuser. These early encounters with violence lead Kenny down a sinister path--one that eventually places him in the same coastal California town where Sam now lives. But while Sam is in a stable relationship, progressing along in her career, and in a rewarding relationship, Kenny has become a professional bank robber and drifter who is two seconds from self-destruction.

Sam's flashes continue as she and her police detective husband take a short vacation to the mountains. While at their vacation spot, Sam notices someone who looks familiar to her. It's one of the four bank robbers from her vision! Little does Sam know at the time that it is Kenny, her childhood schoolmate.

Author Cat Denison weaves this tale of intrigue and nail-biting suspense with amazing clarity and skill. Her delicate prose breathes life into the two protagonists in Deadly Destination. Sam's sensitive, calm, and carefree demeanor clashes with Kenny's fiery, bombastic, and egotistical rhetoric, which later culminates in a shocking reunion of past acquaintances. Sam learns to hone her skills by using her special gifts for the greater good. Kenny, a full-fledged graduate of the school of hard knocks, doesn't see any way out of the life he has chosen and emerges as a man with a fight-or-die-trying attitude.

Perhaps the most wonderful aspect of Denison's writing is her ability to keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat while moving on to another part of the story. Writing with two protagonists in the first person is never easy: one character can easily overshadow the other. While the main narrator is clearly Sam, Kenny--who eventually becomes the antagonist--is also well developed. It is also interesting how the two characters' lives are so intertwined. It almost makes one wonder if Sam received any warnings about Kenny very early on!

There are plenty of supplementary characters throughout Deadly Destination who aren't as well developed. And perhaps we could have gleaned more about Sam and Kenny were this story not told in two first-person accounts. But with gifts as taboo as Sam's, and deep-seated pain as heart wrenching as Kenny's, it is clear that both Sam and Kenny are the only ones that can tell the story accurately. Nonetheless, we would expect to see more well-developed characters come into Sam's life in subsequent adventures!

I am quite sure that we will see more from Cat Denison soon.

Thomas Hill
Launchpad Book Reviews

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars