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DARK TRUTH
by Mariah Stewart
Ballantine, October 2005
336 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0345476697


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In 1989, Nina Madden was on top of the world. She had just been accepted into the sorority of her choice. In addition to all of the social benefits, she was elated at the thought of moving out of her father's house into the sorority house. Nina's parents were divorced; her mother died five years earlier and Nina had gone to live with her father and stepmother. She didn't know her father very well, and was uncomfortable in his house, and with his wife.

Her world was suddenly turned upside down when her father, a professor at the college, was arrested and charged with raping and killing four coeds. He admitted that he had affairs with each of the girls, but he denied killing them. He was tried and convicted, but was killed in a car accident as he was on his way to court to participate in his appeal against the conviction.

Nina never saw her father again from the day of his arrest; she left the small town, went to live with her mother's sister and transferred to another college. Now, fast forward 15 years. Nina is an editor at a prestigious New York publishing house. She has had no contact with her former stepmother, only to learn that upon the woman's death, her house reverted to Nina, according to the conditions of her father's will.

Shocked to learn this, Nina intends to go to the small Maryland town and dispose of the property. She wants nothing from it. However, when she is at the house, a priest delivers a package to her. He had received it from her father's attorney and kept it for her.

At first Nina ignores the package, leaving it in her closet at home. Then on the prompting of a friend she opens the box and finds two letters written shortly before her father's death; one letter to her and one to her stepmother. The contents of the letter are shocking and lead Nina to re-examine her father's conviction. And now there have been new murders, which have a striking similarity to the crimes Nina's father was convicted of.

This is a very suspenseful novel. Nina, her friend Regan, a true crime writer, and Wes Powell, a policeman, are all very well-drawn characters. The book has an element of romance, but it is definitely a well-written mystery as well. When we learn who the real killer is, and what their motives were, it is shocking indeed.

Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, November 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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