Dead Ringer

Rating:
Summary: Super Nifty Birthday Present
Review: My twin sister gave me DEAD RINGER for my birthday (January 8th) and I read it in one day. I was intrigued with the idea of a twin taking over her sister's identity, it made for a super story line. When we were growing up (we're twenty-four now) we often traded places, confusing our parents, siblings, friends and even teachers. In fact I was so horrible at math in college that Leeann took Trig and Calc 1A for me and I did PoliSci 1A and B for her and nobody ever figured it out. Whoops, that's supposed to be a secret. Anyway, because of our past experiences at fooling people, I know it's possible for one twin to pretend she's the other with nobody being the wiser.

I especially liked how Maggie, the heroine of the story, got to keep her baby and how she dumped her twin's awful fiancée and how she told off that minister who had been controlling her dead sister's life. I also liked that fact that Maggie was such a strong character who didn't go whining to some guy when she got in trouble. She solved her own problems, fought her own battles, though her faithful friend Gordon, the gay ex-FBI agent, did fight along with her. He was another super-super character.

This was a book full of characters you'd like to get to know better, people you wouldn't mind inviting home for dinner. Even the despicable Horace Nighthyde was sort of sympathetic in a pathetic kind of way.

I know my sister bought me this book because the author's last name was so close to ours, and I also know that she hadn't read it, but she did know from the back flap that it was about twins, but nevertheless, despite all that, it turned out to be one of the best presents I'd ever received, because I read a lot and now, thanks to my sister, I've discovered a wonderful new writer.

Reviewed by Lenore Douglass

Rating:
Summary: He Killed Her. She's Still Alive. He's Going to do it Again.
Review: Once again I'm going to write a review of a book my husband wrote and again, in all fairness, I'm obligated to tell you in advance, so you can take my bias into consideration when you're reading my glowing praise. Well, maybe not so glowing as to light up a city block on a dark night or even a Christmas tree, but I'm pretty darned proud of Ken, just so you know.

Maggie Nesbitt is in the local Safeway, shopping for dinner, when she's approached by an apparently slow witted, but big man, who claims to have seen her picture in the paper. Before she can ask him what he's going on about, a man with a face like a ferret interrupts, tells Maggie his brother is slow and to forget anything he may have said.

Maggie is afraid of these men, she leaves her shopping and makes her way down Second Street in Belmont Shore, Long Beach's fashionable Beach community, toward the Menopause Lounge, where her newsman husband is waiting. She finds him with a redhead and is suspicious, but really she's got no cause for complaint, as she's pregnant with another man's child. She's going to get an abortion, without telling Nick, in a few day's time.

Horace Nighthyde, the ferret, follows Maggie. Maggie goes home, goes through all the old newspapers that are neatly stacked in the garage and finds an article about a woman with her face. Instantly she knows it's the twin sister she'd been told had died when she was a baby. She looks up her twin's address, finds it and goes to her house with Nighthyde hot in pursuit.

Nighthyde has mistaken Maggie for her twin Margo and it was Margo who witnessed Nighthyde do murder. Fortunately for Maggie, unfortunately for Margo, Nighthyde takes his eyes of the ball for a bit and when he gets it back in sight, he's eyeing the wrong prize. He kills Margo, dumps her body in Long Beach and the body is identified as Maggie, wife of famous newsman Nick Nesbitt.

Maggie sees the news on the tube, seizes the chance to take over her dead twin's life and thus my writing hubby has accomplished the switcharoo. And if it all sounds a bit convoluted, it's not really, it's just that I'm trying to condense the gist of the first four or five chapters into such a short space, without giving anything away. I will mention though that ferret-faced Horace Nighthyde is a bit surprised when he finds out the woman he killed isn't dead. Now he's got to do it all over again.

As I mentioned in my review of DESPERATION MOON, another of Ken's books, we've spent the last ten years or so living on a sailboat in the Caribbean. We've come home to promote Ken's books. We hope you'll give them a try. I know, as I said above, that I'm biased, but even if this book would have been written by John Grisham or David Baldacci, I'd still give it five stars.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Rating:
Summary: Grabbed Me By the Heart and Wouldn't Let Go!
Review: The first chapter of 'Dead Ringer' upset me a little bit. You don't want to think that there are actually people out there like Horace Nighthyde, who would kill someone without a thought, then find out that maybe he's kind of likable. It sort of makes you wonder about the people living on your street that you don't know. I mean Nighthyde is a cold blooded killer, but he lives in a normal house, on a normal block, like anybody else. Kind of creepy.

Then I got to the second chapter and this book grabbed me by the heart and wouldn't let go. Maggie wants to keep her baby, but it's not her husband's, so she can't. Then she gets a chance and goes for it. But she doesn't know that by grabbing for that brass ring that she's set herself straight into the sights of Horace Nighthyde, that killer who lives in that normal house, only Mr. Nighthyde isn't quit so normal.

I loved the way Douglas developed both the killer and Maggie, his intended victim. The way he fleshed them out, giving them families, friends, likes and dislikes, made them real for me, almost like I knew them and one of them was a killer. Brrr, pretty scary, disturbing, but even so, I couldn't put it down. If you haven't read Ken Douglas yet, you should buy, beg, borrow or steal this book, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Disturbing for Me, but I Couldn't Put it Down
Review: The first chapter of this book upset me a little bit. You don't want to think that there are actually people out there like Horace Nighthyde, who would kill someone without a thought, then find out that maybe he's kind of likable. It sort of makes you wonder about the people living on your street that you don't know. I mean Nighthyde is a cold blooded killer, but he lives in a normal house, on a normal block, like anybody else. Kind of creepy.

Then I got to the second chapter and this book grabbed me by the heart and wouldn't let go. Maggie wants to keep her baby, but it's not her husband's, so she can't. Then she gets a chance and goes for it. But she doesn't know that by grabbing for that brass ring that she's set herself straight into the sights of Horace Nighthyde, that killer who lives in that normal house, only Mr. Nighthyde isn't quit so normal.

I loved the way Douglas developed both the killer and Maggie, his intended victim. The way he fleshed them out, giving them families, friends, likes and dislikes, made them real for me, almost like I knew them and one of them was a killer. Brrr, pretty scary, disturbing, but even so, I couldn't put it down. If you haven't read Ken Douglas yet, you should buy, beg, borrow or steal this book, you won't be disappointed.

Reviewed by Olivia Louise Lewis

Rating:
Summary: two stars for encouragement
Review: This book came to me highly recommended, and I really wanted to like it. I just didn't much, however. The plot idea, the killing of a twin, and then the other twin taking over her life, sounded like an interesting mystery idea. But in reality, the characters seemed really 2 dimensional -- totally unbelievable. This might be a good summer holiday book, however, if you don't expect too much. I would like to read some other items by this author -- there is potential for a good mystery writer.

Rating:
Summary: Maggie Gets a New Life, Complete with her own Psycho Killer
Review: This is a story about Maggie Nesbitt, a woman who is pregnant, but sadly, the baby isn't her husband's, who is a local news anchor in Los Angeles. Then one day she sees on the news a story about her husband's wife, being murdered and the body dumped behind a local bar. Maggie immediately knows it must be the twin she thought had died in infancy. After a quick investigation she learns her sister has a child named Jasmine and is divorced from a horrible man. To keep Jasmine from having to go with her father and to keep her own unborn child, Maggie takes over her dead twin's life. However, unknown to her the man that murdered her twin now thinks he killed the wrong woman and now he's after Maggie.

That is the plot in a nutshell. Of course I haven't begun to describe the characters, Maggie's one true friend, who will miss her. Maggie's new friends. How she has to fool a little girl into believing she is her mother. How the bad guy goes off the deep end when he finds out the woman he killed is still walking, talking, breathing. I really liked this book, it is fast-paced, full of people I cared about and the story was divine. Who wouldn't want a chance to step into another life. Maggie gets that chance. Her sister had a beautiful child, a Porsche and scads of money in the bank. Oh, I almost forgot, there is the small matter of that psycho killer who wants her dead.

Rating:
Summary: Would You Walk Away from Your Life if You Could?
Review: This was a delicious book for me to read because I have a twin sister and have on occasion fantasied about what it would be like if I could step into her life. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm very satisfied with my lot, but my sister is single, hugely successful and can buy anything she wants and gosh darn it, don'tcha know, rich is better. However, in the case of Mr. Douglas' intriguing thriller, Maggie didn't take over Margo's life for the money. She did get quite a bit though. She got a new Porshe too, which she immediately wrecked, but she was being chased by a very bad guy in a BMW, so I guess I can forgive her for driving the car into the drink.

Poor Maggie, she had an affair, got pregnant and her husband had been fixed, so there was no way she could hope to pass it off as his, not that she would have. She wants to keep the baby, wants to keep her marriage too, but it's not possible to do both, so she settles on abortion, but before she does it, she finds out about her twin sister Margo who she thought had died in infancy. Excited, she rushes to meet her, but as luck would have it there was a killer after Margo and he'd spotted Maggie by mistake. He follows her to Margo's and as the twins paths almost cross, he abducts and kills Margo, the woman who'd witnessed him carry out a contract hit in a convenience store, then he dumps the body behind a bar Maggie had been in only the night before and the police mistake the dead Margo for Maggie. Whew!

Now the way is clear for Maggie to take over her sister's life, which she does, but not only does she inherit all of Margo's money and her shiny new Porshe, but she gets a Bible Belting Fiancee, a horrid ex-husband, an inquisitive daughter and a killer who is very unhappy that she's come back to life and still wants her dead.

Add to the mix an ex-hero cop who is the mastermind behind our killer, our killer's half wit brother and his epileptic mother, a fast shooting, gay ex-FBI agent, a crooked congressman and a neighbor who used to be a violent feminist, but now owns a beauty shop and you have one heck of a thriller peopled with believable characters you'll never forget, at least I know I won't.

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane

Rating:
Summary: She was Dead, now She's Not!
Review: When Maggie Nesbitt finds out she's pregnant she is despondent, because her famous news man husband isn't the father. Plus she suspects he might be involved with a younger woman. Then through a quirk of fate she finds out the twin she thought had died when she was a child is still alive. Happy at the chance to meet her sister, she rushes to her apartment, only to find her sister's ex-husband harrasing his daughter. Maggie pretends to be her sister, shoos the man away and follows the girl into her apartment, where she sees on television that a body found behind a gay bar has been identified as her.

Instantly Maggie knows that someone has killed her twin and the police have made a mistake with the identification. After careful thought Maggie takes over her sister's life. This solves her problem with the baby, plus it keeps her niece from having to go and live with her awful father. However there is one very serious problem that Maggie doesn't know about. The killer wasn't trying to kill Maggie, he was after sister. And he is very upset when he finds out the woman he's killed has come back to life.

This thriller had me biting my nails all the way through. I loved Maggie, she was so believable and I really felt like her plight was mine. I liked her pal Gordon, the ex-FBI agent as well and strangely enough I really liked the Killer, Horace Nighthyde, but I liked Ma, his fat and blind mother best of all. You can't go wrong with this one.

Rating:
Summary: DEAD RINGER
Review: When Maggie turns on the evening news only to find out that apparently she had been murdered and left in an alleyway, she knows that the face on the screen must belong to her long ago presumed dead twin sister. However, she sees an opportunity here, an opportunity to escape her life and keep the illegitimate child that she is carrying. So Maggie takes over her sisters life letting everyone but a close friend of her murdered sister believe that she is dead, until her sisters killer comes after her looking to finish the job he thinks was left undone.

I expected so much better from a book that generated such high praise from so many reviewers! 'DEAD RINGER' was predictable and definitley not a page turner. I didn't empathize with Maggie, the heroine of the story and I didn't care either way anout Horace the antagonist of the story. In my opinion, if the bad guy is going to be a central character of a book they should rouse some sort of emotion out of the reader, whether it is extreme dislike or sympathy, but Horace Nighthyde did neither for me. However, without giving anything away, somewhere toward the middle of this already dismal book he did somehting so loathsome that from that point on there was no swaying my already building dislike for this book. If you want to read fast paced suspence try anything by Harlan Coben, you will thank me!

Rating:
Summary: Fast-Paced, In Your Face Suspense
Review: When the twin sister Maggie thought had died at birth is murdered and the body mistakenly identified as Maggie, she seizes upon the opportunity. She is pregnant and her husband can't have children, so she figures that by taking over her dead twin's life, she can keep her baby. However, the killer isn't very pleased when he sees the woman he murdered is still alive. He wanted her dead, that's way he killed her in the first place, so now he's just going to have to kill her again.

This is fast-paced, suspense that is sometimes gritty, sometimes awful in that the bad guy is pretty despicable and sometimes in your face, but I couldn't put the book down and that's what good suspense is all about. I liked and sympathized with Maggie and I particularly liked the way she got people, strangers for the most part, to help her, and I liked that she wasn't a whiner. It's refreshing to read about a female protagonist, who takes matters in her own hands and doesn't go crying to some guy for help. I don't think you can go wrong with "Dead Ringer."