Double Deception [Hardcover]

In the prologue, some of the events leading up to the murder of Theodore Van Brunt Ormsby, a womanizing billionaire, are explained. The first chapter opens with Liz Rooney, a young assistant to a medical examiner, on her way to the murder scene of Ormsby with Dan Switzer, the medical examiner.

At the scene, she meets George Eichle. She hates Eichle. Why? That's just it. Although he dislikes her prodding into a murder scene and butting into his case, the reader is left feeling that this is not sufficient motivation. Throughout the book, this flaw seems to be rather prevalent.

Rooney goes down to the morgue with Switzer later on as a young woman named Heather was called on to identify the body of someone she thinks might be her sister. This woman is identified by the guard of Ormsby's apartment building to be the woman he saw going to his room the night before his murder. Additionally, another woman, whom he was dating was pointed to as a suspect. Ormsby's butler and cook, Judson is arrested because, according to the will, he inheireted some of the money. Furthermore, Heather is discovered to be the twin sister of a certain Clover, who had also been dating Ormsby. The reader is lead to believe that she might have committed the murder. When Judson is arrested and the hearing held, Liz is upset because she thinks that he is innocent.

The ending of the book predictably has something to do with the twins. In fact, it seems as if the reader is slapped across the side of the head with the fact that the two women are twins hundreds of times throughout the book. Certainly that is playing fair with the reader, but it makes the conclusion to obvious. Furthermore, because there is an element of romance in the book, after the mystery is solved, the book is drawn out another twenty entirely unnecessary pages. The ending stinks.

This book disappointed on many levels. The characters were not well-drawn and had poor motivations for everything they did. Sadly all the police, medical, legal and murder-related procedures are unrealistic. The author was not able to pull the wool over the reader's eyes in relation to who the murderer was. There was no suspense. The pace was slow. There wasn't any hook. While the romance added some interest to the book, it didn't mix well with the mystery genre. Admittedly, Agatha Christie pulled it off more than once, but then the romance was in the background; here it seemed to be in the foreground.

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