Lie In Wait
Review: Detective Sonja Test of the Canaan (Vermont) Police Department is working her first murder case involving a fifteen-year-old killed while babysitting a local attorney, in Lie In Wait, a novel of suspense by Eric Rickstad.
Jessica Cumber was killed in the home of Jon Merryfield, a lawyer who had built his career by taking on cases of underprivileged victims of violence. He was current representing a gay couple in a community divided by the issue of legalizing gay marriage in Vermont. The police arrest popular high school senior Brad Jenkins, whose father is a close friend of Jed King, leader of the gay hate group "Take Back Vermont", for the murder. The question for the investigating officers is, Was Jessica Cumber a victim of random violence, or was her murder somehow connected to the Take Back Vermont organization? There is no evidence to suggest that Jessica knew Brad Jenkins as anything other than a schoolmate, and yet Sonja Test senses there's more that she's not seeing.
Lie In Wait is written largely as a police procedural, with a lot of character development on all sides of the murder investigation: the officers, the accused, the victim, and everyone else in their respective spheres of influence. Too, considerable time is spent on the investigation itself, questioning anyone who might have something to contribute, often not making much obvious progress but it only takes a random detail here or there to tie all the pieces together. Finally, the setting is given almost as much attention as the characters, providing a rich backdrop to the proceedings. Though often moving forward in fits and starts, this is an engrossing novel of suspense with a riveting storyline.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Lie In Wait.
Acknowledgment: HarperCollins provided a copy of Lie In Wait for this review.
Review Copyright © 2016 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Location(s) referenced in Lie In Wait: Vermont
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Lie In Wait by Eric Rickstad — A Novel of Suspense
Publisher: Witness Impulse
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-242477-8
Publication Date: February 2016
List Price: $11.99

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Page Author: Lance Wright Site Publisher: Mysterious Reviews
Mysterious Reviews is a Division of The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and a Business Unit of the Omnimystery Family of Mystery Websites
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