Hide

I absolutely love reading thriller novels. They keep me on edge, they are gritty and the main character is almost always someone you can sympathize with. Authors in this genre have a lot of research to do and with the novel Hide, by Lisa Gardner, a fan of her novels can tell that this author did indeed do her homework.

This suspense novel focuses around a main character, Annabelle Granger, who has moved and ran away all her life. Due to her paranoid parental guidance, her life is shoved in five suitcases every so often. The explanation of what her family is running from is never explained fully, but once Annabelle is an adult, she is fully happy to be free of her old skeletons and destined to get on with her life.

But when she is brought to life in the newspapers after twenty-five years and a discovery of a tomb of dead bodies, does she only begin to start to piece her real life together. The police in this novel are at first, skeptical of Annabelle's naivety of who she really is and thinks that she knows more. With an in depth look into people who could be connected to her, the police have to trace decades of cold blooded evidence that will lead them to creepy clues and the fact that whoever Annabelle's parents had her hiding from, now wants her out in the clear.

The story has an aura of dark obsession in terms of wanting to find out who is doing what and who really knows what. The frustration is drawn from the paranoia the main character feels since this is the only way she knows how to live. The author carefully creates vivid crime scenes and uses small subplots and twists for characters from her previous novel. The characters are blended in perfectly even if one has not read the novel before this one, such as myself.

The author makes a note of her extensive research with the places she mentions in the book such as a mental state hospital, the police procedures and of course, weapons that are used. I recommend this book to those that are looking for a fast-paced story that blends a cold case crime, a chase and a little romance with the complexities of all the characters. These individuals portray the problems of everyday people who are sometimes faced with a tragedy. The author has proven that even with an old tragedy, there can be triumph at the end.

Resources:

www.lisagardner.com

www.mass.gov