Saturday, April 4, 2015

Why can't I melt your cold cold heart?

Tami Hoag's novel does a good job explaining the difficulty a person has in dealing with a traumatic brain injury. In the author notes at the end of the story, the author explains that she suffered from this injury herself validating the reality of the story.

Dana Nolan is an upcoming TV news anchor and is kidnapped by a serial killer nicknamed Doc Holiday. She's tortured and mentally abused but manages to kill her abductor and escapes her confinement. The remainder of the story deals with Dana attempting to regain her memory and to find the person who killed her best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared seven years ago.

As Dana returns home from her rehabilitation, she encounters John Valenti. He's discharged from the military and suffers PTSD from his military experiences. John used to date Casey Grant in high school and was interviewed when Casey disappeared but he was not charges.

Dana has a manner in dealing with her injury and in her attempt to learn what happened to Casey, Dana divides her memory in two. After Dana are the events after her abduction and before Dana is everything else.
There are a number of red herrings and plot surprises.

The characters are fully developed and the story has nice suspense. I think the struggle of Dana and of John dealing with their brain injuries and not giving up provide a good lesson for others dealing with brain injuries or other medical issues.

2 comments:

Kelly said...

I've heard good things about Tami Hoag books in the past, but never read any.

skkorman said...

Thanks for the review, Mike—I love Hoag's work!

Sheila K.
skkorman AT bellsouth DOT net

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