Suzanne Forster The Lonely Girls Club

The Lonely Girls Club

Suzanne Forster

Mira, Aug 2005, $6.99, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0778322017

In 1980 at the exclusive Rowe Academy for Girls in Tiburon, California, the four unpopular scholarship coeds forged friendships as the Lonely Girls Club. The schools headmistress Millicent Rowe pimps the foursome as prostitutes. However, someone murders Rowe while one member of the quartet Ivy commits suicide. The three survivors (Mattie, Breeze, and Jane) agree to a vow of secrecy. William Broud was convicted of the homicide.

In 2005 at San Quentin, true crime writer Jameson Cross picks up just released William who spent over two decades as the convicted finishing school murderer; DNA proved he did not commit the crime. Jameson offers to pay William if he helps him follow clues as to what happened a quarter of a century ago. The three female survivors are all successful in their chosen endeavors with Mattie as a federal judge, Breeze a business woman entrepreneur and Jane as the First Lady. They do not want exposure that could devastate their respective careers, but Jameson is digging while William feels someone owes him a life.

THE LONELY GIRLS CLUB is an electrifying romantic suspense thriller that grips the audience from the moment that Broud is released from prison and never lets up until the final meeting between Jameson and the Judge. The storyline is action-packed, but it is the reaction of the characters to Jameson's inquiries that makes the tale as each of the three prime suspects has reasons to hide even "edit" the Rowe incidents. Thus the audience keeps on reading while wondering which of the former coeds killed the headmistress.

Harriet Klausner