Barbara Freethy Don’t Say a Word

Don't Say a Word

Barbara Freethy

Signet, Oct 2005, $6.99, 416 pp.

ISBN: 0451216768

In San Francisco twenty-eight year old Julia DeMarco and her fianc Michael Graffino, visit the Palace of Legion of Honor, where they will hold their wedding. While their planner is occupied and Michael is conducting business on his cell phone, Julia hears music so she investigates. She sees a photograph of a three or four year old girl, looking through the gates of an overseas orphanage, who looks like her. The girl wears a necklace identical to hers, and Julia wonders if the girl is her, even though she never left the country.

Michael laughs at her thoughts. However, she decides to investigate starting with the photographer Joe Manning who died one day after he shot the Russian girl. She visits Joe's son, also a photographer, Alex, who remembers his dad's dire warning to forget the picture; the next day dad was murdered. Still Julia needs to know who the girl is, and begins to make inquires over the objections of her family and Michael. Unable to resist, Alex assists her. What she learns will shake her belief system to its core.

DON'T SAY A WORD is a fabulous romantic suspense thriller with the emphasis on the amateur investigation, as Julia slowly peels away the lies done out of love to protect her to obtain the truth. Julia is a great protagonist struggling with one revelation after another, while disbelieving that people she loves and trusts fabricated her history. Two fabulous final twists involving the girl in the picture, will leave readers saying the word to other fans about this fine novel, and demanding more such tales from Barbara Freethy.