Jo Bannister Reflections Review

Overall Rating

Reflections
Jo Bannister
St. Martin's, Dec 2003, $22.95, 240 pp.
ISBN 031231938X

In the small English town of Dimmock is located the store, "Looking For Something?" owned and operated by Brodie Farrell. She hunts for things that people want but are unable to find. She makes it a practice to never look for people because the one time she did, she almost got somebody killed. When Hugo Daws comes into her place of business asking to locate his sister in law's sister she almost says no, but realizes if she refuses the request, two young children will be taken into foster care.

Their mother was murdered, knifed thirteen times after a fight with her husband and he disappeared. Brodie agrees to help and when Hugo asked if she knows a teacher who can stay with the girls and his wife she recommends her friend Daniel Hood. He accepts since he needs the money and a place to live but that decision will take him to the edge of his own sanity and force him to make a choice no person should have to make.

Jo Bannister is an excellent storyteller, an author who coaxes her audience to take one step beyond their comfort zone. There is a lot of misdirection and false leads in this British amateur sleuth tale so that readers won't catch on to what is really happening until the author chooses to reveal it. REFLECTIONS will appeal to fans of Alfred Hitchcock.

Harriet Klausner