Carla Cassidy, The Perfect Family

The Perfect Family

Carla Cassidy

Signet, Mar 2005, $6.50, 368 pp.

ISBN: 0451213904

In Cass Creek near Kansas City, Marissa Jamison still mourns the death of her spouse John, a firefighter killed in a hit and run incident in a grocery lot. She hides her grief because she knows her two youngsters, seven-year-old Justin and five-year-old Jessica need her to be strong.

Following a little game in which her son played at Line Creek Park, Marissa gets into a near fender bender with another driver; the woman in the other car is nasty before driving off. That night she is found dead with a message that this is a gift for Marissa. Detectives Luke Hunter and Sarah Wilkinson locate Marissa through her late husband's occupation and stun her with the news. A second present follows. Someone is protecting the widow by killing anyone nasty towards her; this individual has plans because he believes Marissa and her two children need him to round out THE PERFECT FAMILY.

This exciting, police procedural thriller with a secondary romantic subplot will leave the audience with a chill deep into their gut as the obsessed villain will not allow anyone to stand in his way of attaining his objective. The besieged heroine is fabulous as she struggles with being the focus of a maniac. The support cast enhances the plot as her children still tussle with their father's death, the detectives with protecting the widow once they conclude she is not the culprit and an attraction to one another, and finally the new beau (her high school sweetheart) in Marissa's life. Though the killer, once revealed, seems too way out, his crazed obsession done in a shadowy way makes a tense, chilling thriller.

Harriet Klausner