Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
You've got to experience LISA UNGER! I couldn't put it down!, May 13 2008
Ever since I read her debut* novel, BEAUTIFUL LIES, I have been a big fan of author Lisa Unger. BL was the first book in this trilogy and I hoped this second one, SLIVER OF TRUTH, would be just as riveting.
Unger did not disappoint me! She proceeds with the intriguing story of Ridley Jones's search for her father without a hitch; same ease in writing with a voice so smooth it lulls you into the story with ease. Unger has discovered her true voice and I, for one, am convinced she will go far in the literary field.
Like the first book, SLIVER OF TRUTH has everything: high drama, exciting action, likable, believable protagonists, and villains you love to hate. Not only is Unger great with dialogue, she's a master at pacing the action, and her plot is quite original.
I'm still holding my breath, wondering if Ridley ever finds her father? Is her Uncle Max really her father? And is he dead, as she believes, or very much alive as everyone else believes? What does the FBI have to do with Uncle Max? The Armenian mob? And why does everyone want him? How do they use Ridley for their own purposes? And when everyone who attempts to help her ends up dead, how does our feisty heroine fight back?
Doesn't that sound like a winner ... a blockbuster of a story? Well, it is! It's a riveting tale of intrigue that I couldn't put down, and I bet you won't be able to, either.
* Technically, I feel that BEAUTIFUL LIES should not have been billed as a "debut" novel, since Unger had written several other novels under a different name. In all fairness, though, there could be New York "industry standards" that apply to situations like this, standards of which I'm not aware and that could have a legal bearing on what's permissible and what isn't. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of this author's writing; this is still a "must read" trilogy.
Double feints and triple suspense plays . . . make Sliver of Truth compulsive reading. - New York Daily News
Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, 2008
author of 1106 Grand Boulevard
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A FINELY NARRATED EAGERLY AWAITED SEQUEL, Feb 15 2007
Here `tis - the eagerly awaited sequel to Lisa Unger's debut thriller "Beautiful Lies," and it's another corker. Protagonist Ridley Jones, whom we first met last year in "Beautiful Lies," had hoped to go on with a somewhat normal life - as normal as life can be for one whose face graced front pages after she saved the life of a toddler - but that is not to be, not even close.
We hear, "I bet you thought you'd heard the end of me. You might have at least hoped that I'd had my fill of drama for one lifetime and that the road ahead of me would not hold any more surprises, that things would go pretty smoothly from now on. Believe me, I thought so, too. We were both wrong."
Ridley's boyfriend, Jake, has moved out of the apartment they shared and the two of them have tried various ways to reconnect without a great deal of success. One might have thought a trip to Paris would do the trick! As if this breach in their relationship were not enough, Ridley has discovered that the man she thought of as Uncle Max is actually her biological father. Although Max is now dead, she's in the position of trying to "recast" her uncle as her father.
Max had played a pivotal part in the development of Project Rescue, an organization devoted to getting the Safe Haven Law passed in New York State. Under this law mothers are allowed to abandon their children at specified Safe Haven sites if their children are abused or the mothers fear they will be. As with so many thing there's an up side and a down side to Project Rescue. It seems that some doctors and nurses have been selecting certain children they think will be victims of abuse, then in cooperation with criminals abducting them and selling them to well-to-do parents. Myra Lyall, a reporter for the Times, was covering this story - until she was murdered.
Ridley has picked up some photos that she and Jake had taken recently - in Paris, in Central Park. The photos reveal more than she remembers - there's a murky figure in almost all of them. It's a familiar figure, one she identifies as Max. How could this be when he is dead?
Broadway, television and film actress Jenna Lamia does a dynamite job of vivifying Ridley with all of her fears, suspicions, and bravado. She effectively captures a range of emotions in an estimable voice performance.
- Gail Cooke
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