Product Description

In a quiet New England town, the Newhalls live an uneventful life with their adopted daughter. When the child's birth mother is murdered, the first suspect is the adoptive father. The author of The Unforgiven and No Way Home delivers a complex, emotionally intense "family-in-peril" thriller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #462391 in Books
• Published on: 1994-03-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Thirteen-year-old Jenny Newhall is a normal adolescent: bright, big-hearted and snappish to her adoptive mother. Jenny's birth mother, teenager Linda Emery, hid her pregnancy and disappeared from her home in Massachusetts, leaving grieving relatives to assume she had been killed. Now, when Linda shows up unannounced on the Newhall's doorstep on Mother's Day, skeletons clatter from closets all over town, and soon Linda's bloodied body turns up in a dumpster. Suspicion points to Jenny's adoptive father, Greg, who evades arrest and goes underground, trying to unravel clues that could make his family whole again. The police investigation headed by laconic loner Walter Ference exposes infidelity, sexual extortion and the key to an earlier murder. MacDonald, an Edgar award nominee for The Unforgiven , digs with relish into the town's secrets and its stockpile of hot emotions--betrayal, rejection, anger, jealousy and unrequited lust--pushing the buttons that titillate readers but failing to cohere into a focused narrative. The suspense she generates is disappointingly stop-and-go, loosening its hold too quickly after each revelation and falling away into mundane details.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Karen Newhall's Mother's Day is upset when her adopted daughter Jenny's birth mother appears on her doorstep. But her whole life is capsized two days later when the woman is found murdered and Karen's husband, Greg, is the prime suspect--because, he admits, he had an extramarital affair with the victim 14 years earlier and Jenny is actually his real daughter. The news of the affair devastates Karen, and when Greg escapes from police custody, she begins to wonder if he also lied about the murder. MacDonald supplies plenty of suspects in her large cast of characters and then provides a satisfying, albeit predictable, ending. She has written several mass-market best sellers, including No Way Home (Dell, 1990), and this new entry will be welcomed by her fans. Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/93.
- Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Take a peaceful, picture-postcard small town, peel back the layers of tranquillity and neighborliness, and chances are you'll expose a roiling cauldron of sleaze and slime. MacDonald finds exactly that in her latest novel, a gripping thriller that's bursting with suspense and drama. Wayland, Massachusetts, residents Karen and Greg Newhall adopted a baby girl 13 years ago. Now their daughter is a beautiful young lady; Karen and Greg feel their lives are complete . . . until, out of the blue, Jenny's biological mother, Linda Emery, appears. Linda grew up in Wayland, then simply disappeared one day. Her family never heard from her again and gave her up for dead. Her return provokes more distress than happiness and sets off a chain of events that turns grisly when Linda is murdered--only the first in a series of shocking events that will turn the town upside down. MacDonald grabs her readers on page one and keeps them turning pages until the satisfying if predictable ending. And if her dialogue, plot, and characters occasionally turn trite, the keep-'em-guessing suspense makes up for it. This one will be popular, so buy plenty. Emily Melton

Customer Reviews

Fantastic
I enjoyed this book very much. Patricia Mac Donald is one of my favorite authors. Anyone will held in suspense with this story

This book sounds just like a lame movie I watched
It was one of those Saturday afternoons when you have nothing to do, so I was watching TBS and they were showing this moving about a family who was having problems with their adoptive daughter, she was particularly hostile to the mother, and then the birth mother shows up and winds up dead in a dumpster. The adoptive father is the prime suspect.So to the person who said this could be a lifetime movie , you weren't too far off.

Hung Up in Harlequin Angst
This is, I suspect, an attempt to emulate Mary Higgins Clark -an unsuccessful attempt. My advice: Stay with The Real Thing.

On Mother's Day, 13 year old Jenny Newhall's biological mother appears unannounced to daughter and adoptive parents. The Mother & Child Reunion is short-lived, though, as Mother Linda is soon found dead in a dumpster. Adoptive parents Karen and Greg come under suspicion. The suspense and thrills are diluted with several subplots of "Can These Marriages Be Saved?" Jenny runs a close 2d to Diane Mott Davidson's Arch as Bratty Fictional Kid Who Readers Couldn't Care Less About. This book could become a Lifetime TV Network movie - I vote for "Judging Amy"s Jessica Tuck (Jillian) to play Glenda Emery. Reviewed by TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer.