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THE WRONG MAN
by Kate White
Harper, June 2015
336 pages
$15.95
ISBN: 006235065X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The title of THE WRONG MAN works on many levels for this romantic suspense novel. Kit Finn, an interior decorator is on vacation in the Florida Keys when she meets Matt Healy, a red- headed financier also from New York, and falls quickly in lust and into his bed. When she returns to New York and arrives at a Healy's door for a pre-arranged second "date," the man who answers the door is not the man she met in Florida. Who is the real Matt Healy, and where is the man she met on vacation? Kit chalks the confusion up to a colossal case of poor judgment on her part, and tries to jump feet first back into her work.

But life just won't fall back into the usual routine. As she takes on three new male clients, a doctor, a hotelier, and a business man, each with his own quirks, strange things start happening. She notices that the pillows are rearranged in her perfectly designed home, her apartment is broken into, and her desk drawer has been subtly searched. She is called back to Florida to identify the body of one of the Matt Healys who was the victim of a hit and run accident. Or was it murder?

Other murders and attempted murders take place, while Kit can't decide whether to trust the man she met in Florida. It's possible that although he lied when he met her, he is telling the truth about a massive medical conspiracy. It's also possible that his story is another lie and that he is, in fact, the killer. Either way, her life is in danger, and much of the book is concerned with her dealing with her doubts while attempting to conquer her fear and stay alive. At the same time, she works on her designer projects, cautiously meeting with clients and searching out the perfect items for their new spaces. Kit has a childhood history of having the financial rug pulled out from under her family, and whoever the killer is, she is determined not to let him destroy the business she has worked so hard to grow.

Kate White attempts to build suspense and demonstrate Kit's mix of vulnerability and resolve as the book comes to an exciting end. She is successful more through plot than through character development. Rather than writing a complex character who is convincingly torn between wanting to hide and wanting to take the bull by the horns, White presents us with a character who makes jarringly divergent decisions from one moment to the next. The plot is engaging with many twists, however, and the final scenes are exciting. In the end, White plays fair with us and the killer makes sense. This is a light summer read; you'll have to read it to see if Kit gets her man.

§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.

Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, July 2015

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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