Date published March 2008
ISBN 978-0-451-41253-9
Romantic Suspense
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Lauren
Sarah Tucker is running for her life. Driving down a lonesome highway in southern California she sees the headlights that peek through the darkness coming to claim her life. Careering off the road she wakes in the hospital of no memory of what happened, why she was running or even her life. Before she can begin to get her bearings, Jake Sanders descends on her and he wants answers. Not that he cares so much about how she ended up in the hospital or why she left him months before. What he wants to know is where his baby daughter, Caitlyn, is. When Sarah has no answers for him Jake wars with his distrust and outright hatred for Sarah and his need to find his daughter.
After an attempt on Sarah’s life, she and Jake head towards Los Angeles and what they hope will be the location of their child. At each turn though the mystery of Sarah’s disappearance and who the men are who want to kill her deepens. Jake’s brother, Dylan, joins in the hunt and unearths a past that holds dark dead ends and endless questions about just who Sarah Tucker really is. Each person who could be a source of information turns into yet another mystery. Are they Sarah’s friends or linked to her worst enemy? Do they hold the answers to Caitlyn’s whereabouts or is the little girl already in a cold grave?
SILENT RUN holds so much promise. A woman on the run, with no memory of who she is and only hints of a relationship that may have been the one of her dreams or nightmares. Add in a missing child and you have all the ingredients of a breath holding romantic suspense.
Unfortunately, it falls short and plays out like a cliché Lifetime movie. Too many threads in the story simply do not ring true for this day and age. From almost the beginning I had a sense of a protected witnesses’ safety going south. The descent into amnesia and wakening came across contrived and not well researched. In the age of HIPPA and lawsuits, information provided to a stranger who professes to know the victim but isn’t even a family member lacks credibility as does a hospital allowing a patient who was in a bad car crash walk around without at least some lip service to using a wheelchair. The flashbacks didn't seem to hold any emotion while it became clear quickly that Jack and his brother have no kinder feelings towards Sarah. After the first several times he relates this to her it became repetitive. Knowing Ms. Freethy to be an excellent writer from reading some of her other books, SILENT RUN left me wondering what happened. Perhaps some of the edgier romantic suspense writers have colored my perception of a more softly written one.
Readers who are also fans of Lifetime movies will enjoy SILENT RUN and it would, in fact, make an excellent television movie. The locales, especially her friend Catherine’s house, lend themselves to some great visuals.
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