Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #467490 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780758218513
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Ford's adequate if overbusy latest begins with the body of sheriff Daniel McCloud, who went missing seven years ago, discovered buried in a box in the woods. As the investigation by the current sheriff, Nate Derry, progresses, the McClouds must come to terms with their father having been murdered, while McCloud's son, James, becomes the prime suspect, and a dark web of deception that chokes the Derry and McCloud families threatens to be unearthed. Leaning heavily on flashbacks, the story jumps between its perhaps too many points of view with relative ease. Ford handily navigates the suffocating intimacy of smalltown life, and his wide supporting cast has a few meaty characters. While the big reveal is set up very early on, the sprinkling of smaller mysteries and little tragedies will keep readers going. (June)
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Customer Reviews

always a great pleasure!
I enjoyed this book as much as everything else written by Michael Thomas Ford.
Always waiting for the next one...

A Page Turner For Sure
Just finished What We Remember and what a book! Excellently written it is a real pleasure to read. Every time I thought I had the perpetrator Michael threw in another curve that completely blew all my theories out of the water. Nice surprise ending that allows you to sit back and think about what happens to the cast of characters. You absolutely won't be sorry you sat down and read this book. It is a page turner.

Discovering Family Secrets
Ford, Michael Thomas. "What We Remember", Kensington, 2009.

Discovering Family Secrets

Amos Lassen


I am a huge Michael Thomas Ford fan so naturally I have high expectations for whenever he writes a new book. "What We Remember" does not disappoint in the least as Ford takes us through the intimacy of life in a small town and we learn secrets, mysteries and of tragedies. The book is a beautiful exploration of familial love and the things that we do to maintain it.
James McCloud, a Seattle district attorney is faced with tragedy when his father, Daniel, a police officer who was suffering from terminal cancer, committed suicide. As in all tragedies this one has been especially hard for James and to make matters worse, he receives a phone call from his sister, Celeste, who tells him that it has been discovered that evidence now shows that his father did not commit suicide but was murdered. This causes James to return to Cold Falls, New York, to be with Ada, his mother and his twenty-one year old brother Billy who is gay.
James's high school ring was found with his father's body and this causes old antagonisms between James and his brother-in-law, Nate, the town sheriff and the man investigating the case to resurface. As the case is investigated secrets are revealed and lies are blown wide open and both James's and Nate's families are threatened. Here is now, not one, but two families in crisis and shows us that we do not always know the people that are the closest to us.
This is not a happy story and how could it be when the issues are secrets and lies and animosities. Many of us depend upon memory as a way to influence our families and ourselves and it is also memory that can tear us apart. The McCloud family has tried to stay a family even after James moved away. Everyone seemed to be doing fine except for Billy, the gay family member who drifts through life and has suffered substance abuse. But it is also Billy who may know what really happened to the family's father.
Nate suspected James implication in the death of Daniel McCloud because they had differences. It is Charly, James's girlfriend who flies out from Seattle to help in his defense who finds a family that is not only unusual but with close ties to the family of Daniel's best friend and everyone seems to have a secret which keep the crime from being solved.
Ford provides for us a character study of small town family and he does so by using effective flashback narratives from the characters and we learn that lies can haunt us no matter how small and well-meaning they may be. The book is wonderful balance of intimacy in a family and the larger mystery of the death of Daniel. We finally learn the mystery of the father's death but in the process we have had to deal with some painful insights about family and about the need to belong. Michael Thomas Ford has written a book that will not easily be forgotten as we realize what time can do with regard to family and friendship. This may very well be my book of the year.