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Lynda Douglas Synopsis & Reviews
Deadfall
by
Lynda Douglas
Murder in a National Forest
How does the ten-year-old daughter of a District Ranger on the Pisgah
National Forest end up abandoned and severely injured in Oregon’s
Siskiyo National Forest?
All that remains of Claire Michell’s childhood are terrifying nightmares and a heart-shaped locket. The cavernous gap in her memory haunts her for the next twenty years.
Claire has a brilliant career and a handsome fiance. Just when she finally puts away her obsession with things forgotten, her world begins to fall apart. Someone wants her dead and they might not miss next time.
Armed with only her intuition that the attempts on her life are connected to her lost childhood, she leaves her new life and love behind and heads for the Oregon forest where she nearly died so long ago.
Forest Service Criminal Investigator Kyle Evers must try to help her find herself and the deadly specter from her past before it’s too late.
$13.50 Tradesize Paperback
ISBN: 1-931742-99-5
Rated M (Mature)
REVIEWS
$23.00 Set of Deadfall and Clearcut
”Excitement and suspense highlight this story of a woman seeking a clue to her identity. When the past catches up with the present, deadly danger presents itself in the Pacific Northwest. A frightened child has become a determined adult and our heroine finds an answer to a 20-year old murder. This is a book to keep you guessing to the enlightening end.”
--G. Miki Hayden --Mystery writer and author of WRITING THE MYSTERY: Writer's Digest Books.
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"Written in s stylish prose and told in a fresh new voice, in Deadfall, Lynda Douglas leads us on a haunting journey filled with danger and deceit that will keep you guessing right up to the stunning conclusion"
--Kris Neri, Owner of the Well Red Coyote bookstore, Sedona, AZ and author of the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity nominated Tracy Eaton Mystery series.
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"Deadfall is an absolutely terrific debut novel--page turning suspense and characters I loved spending time with. I can't wait for CLEARCUT, the next novel in this series."
--Beverly Connor, author of the Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery Series and the Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation Series.
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"A riveting tale by an exceptionally talented new author, DEADFALL will take the mystery world by storm and add Lynda Douglas to your must-read list!"
--Elizabeth Dearl, Award winning author of the Taylor Madison mystery series and instructor for WriterOnlineWorkshops by Writer's Digest.
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"The story of Claire Mitchell's search is, line by line, breathtaking. I wanted to rush ahead to find out... find out... find out. Lynda Douglas' DEADFALL has that magic that makes the reading so suspenseful it is almost unendurable."
-- John Herrmann, author of MURDER AT THE RED DOG -- Deadly Alibi Press
Reviewed by: Patricia Ann Jones, Tulsa World newspaper book critic
DEADFALL
A National Forest Mystery
By: Lynda Douglas
(Lynda Douglas's "Lilacs and Lace" won the 2001 Derringer Award for the best mystery novella, and she was a finalist in the previous year's competition with "Blind Justice." She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Green River Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Now, with her novel, "Deadfall," Douglas comes into her own with the first of her National Forest Mysteries.)
Claire Mitchell, the protagonist of "Deadfall," has a brilliant career, a handsome fiancé, and a ten-year gap in her memory. All she has from her childhood are haunting dreams and a heart- shaped locket.
"She ran faster and faster, her chest heaving painfully with every stride. In her peripheral vision, tree trunks and deadfall looked like wraiths shrouded in mist . . . Vines tore at her legs, tripping her. Then, without warning, the uneven ground gave way and she tumbled headfirst over an escarpment . . . Her descent came to an abrupt stop when her head struck a boulder at the bottom. She lay motionless, staring up through fern fronds at the forest canopy . . . "
Claire awoke with her arms flailing. The dreams were back, the horrible nightmares that haunted her periodically through her childhood and into adulthood. Why now, she wondered? Why? For years she had quelled her curiosity about her childhood. She knew she was adopted at a young age, but her adoptive parents knew nothing of her early years.
She'd been found in 1981, a battered ten-year-old clinging to life with a gold locket around her neck. The young university student, Kyle Evers, who found her, saved her life or she surely would have died in the Siskiyou National Forest.
Claire Mitchell went through a period of time when she was obsessed with uncovering the mystery of her first ten years of life, but she had finally filed the obsession away along with the three-ring notebook she'd kept for the past 20 years. "Only the nightmares remained, and she thought they, too, had finally receded into the black hole that was her childhood." She felt she'd conjured the nightmares by looking once more at the notebook before going to bed the night before. The only reason she'd looked at the book then was because Richard Westfall had asked her to marry him.
(Douglas slides you through the mystery of Claire's early years into her adult life with all the expertise of a seasoned author. The transition into the young woman's adult life is seamless. Each character introduced is deftly drawn. Each scene leads you deeper and deeper into Claire Mitchell's story until you find yourself immersed in the adventure and mystery of her life.)
Richard Westfall is the son of wealthy parents and is a character you want to like, but his actions betray some hint of a weakness of character you can't quite put your finger on. He's everything Claire's ever wanted in a husband, but . . . That's just it, "but," and until you discover the meaning of that hesitation to accept him you don't understand why you can't trust him.
When Richard takes Claire to meet his parents, the plot begins to boil. Claire's apartment is vandalized and she is hit over the head as she interrupts the intruder. At first it appears nothing is taken in the break in. Then, the intruder returns, but is foiled in his attempt to enter Claire's apartment. What did the intruder want? Claire couldn't imagine anything in her apartment worth stealing. Nevertheless, Claire decides to move to a more secure building.
Richard asks Beverly, Claire's long time friend to come and stay with her for a few days. He's concerned that Claire's being alone is causing her to imagine "boogie-men" who aren't there. Beverly arrives and all is going well until the day Beverly borrows Claire's car. Beverly ends up murdered. Claire is convinced that she, not Beverly, was the intended victim and that the break-in, the stalking, and all the other suspicious events are tied to her past. Richard, of course, doesn't agree.
Someone wants Claire Mitchell dead and she is determined to discover why. Armed with only her intuition that the attempts on her life are connected to her forgotten past, Claire heads to the Siskiyou National Forest where she was found as a child. She intends to find Kyle Evers who is now a Forest Ranger and might be able to help Claire sort out the mysterious happenings in her life. The clues are there, she just hasn't been in the right place to find them. With Kyle, she believes she will.
(The story that evolves is not only a great mystery, but also an adventure that readers will enjoy. Douglas's style and tone offer an easy read, but one that quickens the heartbeat. The resolution is one of the most exciting I've read in months. Talk about your twists and turns. Don't even try to figure it out, just read and enjoy as Douglas leads you into a mystery that will have you jumping at shadows.)
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(Patricia Jones is a published writer & literary critic)
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************Romantic Readers Review:
Reviewed by Tracy Farnsworth
Claire Mitchell has just become engaged to Richard Westfall, the son of a timberland tycoon. Claire is thrilled, but nightmares are overshadowing her upcoming marital bliss. Not knowing much about her early childhood, Claire realizes that her nightmares and some recent attempts on her life may be connected to the first ten years of her existence.
When her best friend is murdered and found in the car Claire had loaned her, Claire only has one choice. She travels to Oregon to seek the teenager, Kyle Evers, who found her beaten and unconscious in the forest years ago. Hoping Kyle can shed some light on who she might possibly be, Claire sets off on a journey that will tear apart the life she has developed.
(In a story that spans close to twenty years, Ms. Douglas has written a thrilling novel of suspense that keeps the reader guessing. Believable characters mingle with a predator-prey situation and keep the reader flipping pages long into the night. Plenty of twists and dead ends provide a mystery that was difficult to guess the outcome.
I was saddened to see the story come to an end and am happy to announce that Ms. Douglas has started a sequel to DEADFALL. I cannot wait to see what happens next!)
Tracy Farnsworth
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************FUTURES MYSTERIOUS ANTHOLOGY MAGAZINE.
Reviewed by Earls Skaggs, fiction editor.
(Not knowing who you really are, who your parents were, and where you came from would be difficult for anyone to live with. Even worse would be to suddenly realize your life is in danger because of something that happened during the period of your life that is a complete mystery to you. This is the situation Derringer Award winning author Lynda Douglas explores in "Deadfall," and she does it quite well.
While it is an easy temptation for a writer to use a dull narrative to begin a story in which a past event impacts the present, Ms Douglas took a different approach and her book is better because of it. The story begins with a suspenseful and action-filled series of events that form the background for the present day story. The reader is directly involved by being there as it happens, which always makes for a more engrossing and interesting read.)
"Deadfall" begins twenty years in the past with a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Washington, DC, he accidentally overhears information about a major crime ring that places him in immediate danger. After narrowly escaping attempts on his life and the murder of an innocent man who helps him, he flees with his wife and daughter to the Pacific Northwest. There, he hopes to find evidence that will guarantee safety for himself and his young family.
The story moves from there to the present time and a young woman with the adopted name of Claire Mitchell. Claire knows nothing of the early years of her life, only that she was found in a forest at the age of ten, badly injured and near death with no knowledge of how she got there or what happened to her. Now, twenty years later, something triggers sudden and unexplainable attempts on her own life resulting in the death of someone very dear to her.
Realizing the answers lie in her obscure past, Claire begins a harrowing journey only a step ahead of her unknown pursuer to uncover hidden secrets, save herself, and finish the quest begun by her father.
("Deadfall," is a fast-paced novel in which past and present collide in a race to a surprising ending.
Lynda Douglas, in her debut novel, maintains a high level of tension in a story of a young woman pushed to the edge of danger and discovery about her own life and the people around her. Fans of both mystery and suspense will not be disappointed.)
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