Karen Shepard Don't I Know You?

Don't I Know You?

Karen Shepard

Morrow, May 2006, $23.95

ISBN 0060782374

In 1976 twelve years old Steven Engels comes home to his family's Upper West Side apartment only to discover the corpse of his single mother Gina who is stabbed to death. Stunned not just by his mom's violent death, but finding her silently laying there, none of his family members or even his mom's boyfriend Phil know what to do with the grieving preadolescent.

One year later, the case remains unsolved with Phil still considered a person of interest. Meanwhile a stranger visits schoolteacher Lily Chin to warn her about her fianc Nickolai Belov. The woman claims to have been Nickolai's former lover and provides Lily the whereabouts of Gina's journal hidden by Nickolai.

Over a decade later, the Engels homicide remains unsolved and considered by NYPD as a cold case. Meanwhile seventy-three years old Louise Carpanetti knows she is dying, but the cancer is not what worries her. Instead she fears what will become of her childlike fiftyish son Michael when she learns from the news that a break in the Engles murder has occurred. Now she ponders how Michael was involved and what should she tell the police, if anything.

This fascinating whodunit is told in three parts over a dozen or so years apart. What is interesting is how far reaching the Engels' homicide is as many individuals besides Steven are affected even indirectly. Readers will be hooked by the ensemble cast who have been impacted though only the son and the two women ((think of five degrees of separation) provide insight. This is a stunning insightful mystery,

Harriet Klausner