Mary Elizabeth Coleman To Love and Die in Dallas

To Love and Die in Dallas

Mary Elizabeth Coleman

Forge, Jun 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0765309343

Lindsey and Annie met in ninth grade at Gaston JHS in Dallas and became best friends. Lindsey could have any boy in the high school, but when she started dating Tommy Lee she often brought Annie with them. On the down side, a White Rock Lake neighbor of Annie, David always was irritating her even more than her overly protective mother.

Decades later Annie calls David pleading with him to help her. David's wife is unhappy that Annie has returned into his life because it reminds her that she will always be second fiddle. Annie needs David to recover an incriminating diary that another of their high school friends Butter took. The diary implies that Annie was involved in the shocking recent murder of Lindsey, wife of a US Senator. Unable to say no, he meets her at an old hangout, Frances' restaurant the Cellar. David is hooked, but he does not know yet in what. Everything he learns points towards Annie as either a killer or a conspirator in Lindsey's death while at the same time that Dallas County Homicide Detective Malone begins to unravel the bizarre knots and twists of the movers and shakers who know how TO LOVE AND DIE IN DALLAS.

This is an interesting police procedural with a fascinating climax that will shock the audience. The story line uses extracts from the diary to tell the teen years of mostly Annie and Lindsey through the perspective of the former. That provides insight into their personalities, but also slows down the prime plot of did Annie murder Lindsey although other suspects surface. Still this is a well crafted whodunit with a strong fully developed cast. Once the reader starts TO LOVE AND DIE IN DALLAS, it will prove difficult to stop as Mary Elizabeth Coleman hooks fans with the need to know if Annie killed her best friend and why.

Harriet Klausner