Joy Fielding, Puppet

Puppet

Joy Fielding

Atria, Jan 2005, $24.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 0743488008

Amanda Travis has spent the last decade running from her memories, including the father who neglected her and the mother who either ignored or verbally abused her. She drowns her emotional pain in mindless sex, leaving two ex-husbands when they threatened to get too close. Now a lawyer in southeast Florida, she has organized her life just the way she wants it, not letting anyone get too close. Her calm is suddenly fractured one night when her ex-husband calls her from Toronto to tell her that her mother is in jail on a murder charge.

Despite the fact that she tells herself she doesn't care, she flies to Toronto where Ben represents her mother Gwen. Ben tells her that Gwen isn't talking, insisting only that she killed an unknown man in a hotel lobby because she felt like it and she is perfectly sane. Gwen's stonewalling is infuriating Amanda who believes there is a reason for what she did; for once in her life she isn't going to run away from adversity but plunge into it and expose the secret her mother is so desperate to hide.

Joy Fielding once again delivers an exciting crime thriller that will keep readers' interest from page one as they wonder why the protagonist's mother committed cold blooded murder. It is a question that will haunt the audience as the protagonist seeks to find out her mom's secrets that were responsible for her traumatized childhood. As Amanda gets close to the truth, she finally comes to terms with her own feelings and turns more sympathetic in the minds of the audience. PUPPET is a nail-biting suspense thriller taking readers to the ultimate level.

Harriet Klausner