The third in Miscione's series starring true crime novelist Lydia Strong and her lover, former FBI agent Jeffrey Mark, Twice opens with the gory death of an artist's husband. Unfortunately for Jordan, this is the second of her husbands to die in just such a way. Her mother hires Jeffrey and Lydia's company to look into the death, but the further they dig, the more questions they find. Death runs in Jordan's family, and a trip to her ancestral home only deepens the mystery.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
Meanwhile, the man who murdered Lydia's mother and several other women has been released from the psychiatric institution where he has been held for all these years. From the letters he had sent her, Lydia knew he had not forgotten her, and she, Jeffrey, and their friend Dax Chicago are taking no chances. However, they mean to catch him before he can harm Lydia--or anyone else. Their search leads the three into a place many think of as only a myth--the city beneath New York City.
The review of this Book prepared by Sarrah
St. Martin's, Apr 2004, 23.95, 304 pp.
ISBN: 0312314051
New York City Detective Halford “Ford” McKirdy feels déjà vu as he investigates the murder of Richard Stratton III. The obvious suspect is Julian Ross who slept through the decapitation and dismembering of her spouse though sharing the bed just like a decade ago when her first husband Tad Jansen was killed. Julian's mother Eleanor hires private eyes Jeffrey Marks and pregnant Lydia Strong to find out who killed her son-in-law, but hides some eerie similarities between mother and daughter from her sleuths.
While the twosome and peer Dax Chicago investigate, Jed McIntyre escapes from the asylum he went to for killing Lydia's mother to stalk his victim's daughter. Meanwhile the three detectives learn about the Ross family tree filled with generations of twins and similar deaths to that of Richard and Tad. Following the clues the threesome leaves the Manhattan subways for Haunted, New York where confrontations with the past and present will haunt everyone for the rest of their lives.
Though the tension starts at a high pace, unfortunately the suspense never fully retains that early feel of weird intrigue of THE DARKNESS GATHERS when Ford struggles with the impossibility of the physical evidence. The story line contains twin subplots that ultimately merge, but is strongest when the private sleuths investigate the murders.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
