THE NEIGHBOR by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Bantam Books
Date published: June 2010
ISBN: 978-0553591903
Suspense
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Angie
Book Purchased by Reviewer


Jason Jones met his wife Sandra when she was just eighteen and pregnant. He fell instantly in love, married her and took her away from her old life. She never admitted all of her demons and reasons for running, but neither did he. They both left Georgia under aliases and found a new life together. As a sixth grade teacher she was respected and well liked. He was the perfect husband in the eyes of their neighbors. They raised "their" daughter quietly and alone. While none had close friends, neither did they have enemies.

When Sandy goes missing, Jason is the primary suspect. As time goes on, more and more suspects murky the waters leaving police confused and baffled. What reasonable loving mom leaves her four year old alone in the middle of the night, yet no one seems guilty enough - or innocent enough to make sense as her abductor. The longer Sandy is gone the more people from her past and present muddy the waters, leaving the detectives baffled.

Lisa Gardner is one of my all time favorite authors. As always she has left me breathless with need to know right up until the very last pages. Her lead detective in this case is Detective Sergeant D.D. Warren, who has been featured before. This woman is a character I would love to meet. Her style of investigating is top notch, and her love for her ex-partner shines through. While she stands back and does not take over as a main character in this novel, she makes me want to read a love story about her!

The main characters in this novel, Jason and Sandy Jones come off the pages and into your heart. From the beginning you want Jason to be innocent, yet cannot deem anyone else guilty - making for a plot worth reading. Four year old Clarissa "Ree" Jones is as cute as they come. Ms. Gardner paints her pictures with words so well you can see her impish grin as she sits in a hotel room decorating her room with her Barbies. This family starts out a picture perfect family and as you get into the depths of their lives, you are drawn yet more into a story of heartbreaking drama.

The one down fall to this novel was the ending. Simply put, it ended. Ethan Hastings simply reappears, found safe and sound (not a bad thing!) but I felt lost that we never got a dramatic scene reuniting him with his parents. This one downfall did NOT degrade from this novel, smooth writing, great characters and drama make this a stellar novel worth reading over and over. This is a keeper on my shelf alongside each of Lisa Gardener's novels.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

THE NEIGHBOR by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Bantam
Date published: June 2009
ISBN # 978-0-553-80723-3
Genre Crime Thriller, Psychology Thriller
Hardback
Reviewed by Gina



The Joneses are, for all intents and purposes, the perfect family. He’s tall, dark and handsome. She’s blonde and plain gorgeous. Their four year old daughter, Ree, is as cute as a button, precocious but not obnoxiously so, and the light of their lives. He’s Jason Jones. He works nights as a reporter for a local paper so he can be home during the day to take care of his daughter. She’s Sandra Jones and works days as a social studies teacher so she can be home at night for Ree. They keep to themselves, pay their bills and live a basically idyllic life. The thin façade of that life is about to crumble.

When Sandy and Jason met they knew there was something special between them. Kindred spirits finding each other. She was a pregnant 18 year old, he was a thirty-something who knew he’d found someone who could share his life. He could protect and care for at least one child. Within days of meeting each other they married and moved form their Georgia homes to Boston. Boston and Massachusetts where blood isn’t necessarily thicker than water when it comes to parental rights. Sometimes Sandy gets bored and needs a night or two on her own. Jason respects her need to spread her wings. It’s not like she can hurt him, as long as she comes home to him and their daughter. One night though, Sandy discovers something about Jason. Something she doesn’t know quite what to make of it. As what the knowledge means crystallizes, Sandy does what she can to protect herself and Ree. She doesn’t run or go to the police. She needs information and digs to find it. The digging leads her to a thirteen year old student who believes she is his one true love. As one thing leads to another, the Jones’ carefully constructed life unravels one thread at a time. Sandy is gone and Jason is the prime suspect.

Jason Jones kept me awake at night the past few nights. He’s not the alpha male you find in a romance, yet there is a vulnerability to him that draws you in. He is tall, dark, brooding and clearly loves his wife and child. Jason is reminiscent of the wounded hero found in a gothic romance. When his wife disappears you feel his confusion, his fears, the sense of helplessness and cannot help but want to rail at the police for wanting to take him from his little girl.

At the same time, the reader is drawn into Sandy’s story. A childhood that was more nightmares than anything else. Demons far from laid to rest despite a house with wooden dowels in the windows and steel reinforced doors. She’s the little girl with the monster still under her bed.

Ms. Gardner’s latest release, THE NEIGHBOR takes you into a world that appears safe and secure only to find monsters are real. Her characters are fully drawn, complex with identities of their own. Well told in both first and third person points of view, Ms. Gardner goes a step further and presents several first person tellings in the story. The reader is taken into the minds of each of the main characters and sees the world through their eyes. While I have read other authors who tell a tale from two first person points of view, too often the characters sound all too similar, making it difficult to tell one from the other. Not so with THE NEIGHBOR. The mindset of each character is clearly drawn and the reader absorbed into their particular story.

One thing I struggled with was the timeline. I had just read SAY GOODBYE and was left with the impression it takes place in the present day, not twenty years ago. A few of the characters from SAY GOODBYE are in THE NEIGHBOR and I had a bit of a time reconciling their ages. As long as I treated it as an entirely different story THE NEIGHBOR was easy yet compelling to follow. I don’t think I’ve read such a psychologically intense story. The ending, while completing the Jones story, leaves the door open for yet another. I hope so because I want to know more about the Joneses.

SAY GOODBYE by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Bantam
Date published: July 2008
ISBN: 978-0-553-80433-1
Crime Thriller
Hardback
Reviewed by Gina


FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy is four months pregnant and just about ready to wind down taking an active, street, role in her investigations. Certain it is a girl, husband Mac is sure it’s a boy. Together though they plan for a stable life for their child. Then one night Kimberly receives a call that drastically alters the course of their life together.

Hooker Delilah Rose insists to Special Agent Sal Martignetti she is one of Kimberly’s informants. Kimberly has never heard of the young woman, never spoken to her and certainly has never received a bit of intel from her. What Delilah tells Kimberly draws her into a web that goes beyond the pale. A tale of young street walkers disappearing without a trace, a series of roommates and friends, including one named Ginny Jones who is particularly close to Delilah. Despite Mac’s insistence she let it go because of their child, Kimberly continues head long into her investigation. Before long she needs to make a choice—give up her job and move to Savannah with her husband or lose him. She tells herself just this one last investigation. Just this last one. What she uncovers though will haunt her the rest of her life.

This was the first of Lisa Gardner’s books I’ve read and I am not sure if I will read another. Not because of her writing, but because of the painfulness of the subject matter. SAY GOODBYE is a heart wrenching story. As the characters’ personal nightmares unfold on the pages you want to stop the tape in your head and rewind. In her very personal closing comments in the back of the book Ms. Gardner admits this is the grittiest book she has written yet. She tells a pair of stories, threaded into one, that needs to be told. Ms. Gardner tackles one of the darkest elements of our society and takes the reader into the world of the people who solve these kinds of crimes. Kudos to her for the amount of research and obvious painstaking care she put into each word.

I did have a bit of a time keeping the different suspects straight. A few times the time lines of when each appeared in the other’s life confused me and I had to flip back to see if there was one or two involved. I finally just went with the story. There is no humor to the story, but one character stands out for me, Rita, because she is the embodiment of the type of intelligence, perseverance and sense of right and wrong I hope to have in my 90’s.

Any number of times I wanted to put SAY GOODBYE down and walk away, to bury myself in a sweet romance or historical adventure but I couldn’t. I had to know how it ended. I’m glad I stuck with it.