"Live every day as if it were your last and some day you'll be right." Morant

How does a parent react when their child exhibits violent tendencies? What remedies are there when the mental situation becomes life threatening?

Questions such as these are at the heart of a number of families in the Boston area.

As the novel opens we learn that in a Boston neighborhood that has had its share of violence, four members of a family have been savagely murdered. It looks like a murder-suicide and the father clings to life at the ICU.

The following day, in another part of the city, a new family is murdered. There doesn't seem to be anything connecting the two murdered families.

Lisa Gardner's excellent crime detective, D.D. Warren of the Boston homicide division is brought in and after viewing the crime scenes concludes that there is too much here to be coincidental.

Danielle Burton is a psychiatric nurse whose family was killed by her intoxicated father, twenty-five years before. She was the only survivor and now works in a Boston psych ward, trying to help other traumatized children.

D.D. continues to try to find anything connecting the families and discovers that one child from each family was treated at the Boston psych ward.

When D.D. and her partner visit the ward where Danielle works, they discover that there are a number of connections. Could one of these lead to the killer?

This is an extremely suspenseful story that covers an emotional area that is difficult to read about. However, the story has so much going for it that is is difficult not to continue to learn how things transpire.

There is excellent plotting and character development. We observe D.D.'s outside life and Danielle's life outside of her job and her attempt to go on with her life after her childhood tragedy.

Lisa Gardner writes a story where the reader comes to think that the plot is going in one direction only to be surprised and entertained when the novel changes course.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R25Z2WFRZXV0XZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm