A Broken Reality
by Rob Kaufman
On a fateful night in the dead of winter, an unimaginable tragedy changes the lives of two families forever. How will they manage to deal with reality while stopping the sociopath who is pushing them toward the edge of sanity?
Ten-year-old, Danny Madsen, has been missing for four days when Jesse Carlton begins his own search for his godson on a frigid, snowy night. Driving along a deserted rural road, Jesse hits a stretch of black ice at the same time Danny appears from the thicket. Unable to control the car, Jesse slams into the boy and watches helplessly as Danny’s body flies back into the dark brush.
When Jesse regains consciousness, he has no recollection of how he and his car wound up in a ditch. However, there’s a witness: Charles Hastings, the sociopathic kidnapper who chased Danny through the brush and into the path of Jesse’s car.
Hastings takes this chance to set up Jesse so he’ll take the fall for both Danny’s disappearance and death. And so the mind games begin—an onslaught of psychological manipulation that devastates Jesse, his wife, Danny’s parents and the cops’ investigation. Inexplicably, the torment continues even after Hastings is killed and the rollercoaster of emotions and confusion seems never-ending, until...
Read an excerpt for A Broken Reality
Momma Says: 4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐
Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, totally intense and emotional. This one is a bit different than the typical in that we know who the bad guy is, so there's no suspense on that part. That comes from the games Hastings plays with Jesse along with Jesse's mental anguish and inability to remember anything that happened the night of the accident.
Then we have FBI Agent Rivera doggedly searching for any clue that leads to answers about Danny's disappearance. I'm not sure I buy the way Rivera figured things out, but it certainly made for interesting reading.
The thing that impressed me most was the way the characters are written. From simple reactions to things they did and said, they felt real and made me want to see how things played out for them. We don't get quite as much about Charles Hastings, but the pieces we do get are enough to add a bit of the creepy to the mix.
I did feel like too much was given away in the blurb, but the author still gives us plenty of twists and a few chilling moments along the way. Even though I knew certain things were going to happen, the story was intense and compelling enough to keep the pages turning. And that ending! I have to say I saw it coming, or at least had a good idea of where things were heading, but the conclusion was no less jarring.
On the whole, this one kept me turning pages long past bedtime with its tragic and compelling storyline and terrific characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment