Rating: 
Summary: Good until the end
Review: I liked this book until I got to the end - I felt it a little too drawn out - but it still kept me interested. However, the author does not wrap things up too well. She leaves us too much in the "lurch". Like what is this whole thing about the priest and Arnie and their eyes? And what about the conversation between Rouge and Mortimer - what was that all about? And what about Sadie?I really HATE it when an author keeps me going and then leaves me FLAT - which is exactly the way I felt when I finished this book! It's kind of like the Grisham novels - he's got you going all over the place - than blam! - Nothing! This is the first novel I've read by Carol O'Connell and it will likely be my last! I only read it because a friend gave it to me a couple of years ago, and I ran out of things to read. What a waste of time!
Rating: 
Summary: Heart Stopper
Review: Remorse, loss and survivor-guilt activate this fine novel. Though the basic plot is familiar: an unknown predator is stalking, planning, and killing----nothing prepares even the most jaded reader for what follows. Fifteen years ago, 10-year old Susan Kendall was callously murdered leaving her family who include her twin brother Rouge, devastated with grief. When two local ten-year old girls go missing, it looks like history is repeating itself. The modus operendi seems to be that the second child (the Judas Child) is tricked into luring the first child (the princess child) to a rendezvous where the killer summarily disposes Child #2 and keeps the Princess alive until such time as would cause the parents, family and friends the maximum grief. (Usually Christmas Day) Ms. O'Connell captures the two little girls Sadie and Gwen brilliantly. Sadie is everything we would have always wanted as a childhood best friend: fearless, inventive, a trickster of the first order, intensely loyal and an expert on every horror film ever made. Gwen is a highly intelligent, sensitive, very sheltered little girl who is not near the coward she thinks she is. The adult characters are each so sharply drawn; any one of them could be considered the protagonist. Rouge Kendall, in his detachment, almost appears Christ-like. The sensuous, horribly scarred Ali is a driven dynamo (Question: is wearing a long slit skirt, barelegged with very high heels in the winter time really sexy? I kept thinking how breezy this type of getup would be and wouldn't her feet hurt?) Dr. Mortimer is so bound in his rigid ethics, is he insane? The wrongly convicted priest is a symphony in complicated disbelief, and the FBI agent, Arnie, has so many facets, he is a kaleidoscope. The resolution of this strange tale is so subjective and strange; the reader will frenetically go back to chapters to redefine what they have read to reassure themselves their senses are in place. You can't ask much more from a book than that.
Rating: 
Summary: WARNING - spoilers ahead!
Review: Another suspenseful success for Carol O'Connell. The book begins with two girls being kidnapped. A young detective, Rouge Kendall arrives on the scene. As a child, his twin sister was murdured at about the same time as these girls went missing...Christmas Time. The story switches back and forth between the detectives and FBI attempting to recover the girls and the killer and The girls trying to escape. I cannot keep telling you of the story-line for fear of getting a little TOO into it and revealing the ending to you, but I can honestly say that this story made me sweat for fear of the character. The ending came as a total shock to me and that is the main reason what I love this author so much. She is a wizard with mystery. You'll see. While to some people, it doesn't seem all that interesting to you here, you have to trust me when I say that this is the most compelling novel. The first chapter is a bit boring but everything after that is definitely page turning, eye-popping material. I highly reccomend this along with all other Carol O'Connell books as she places great care in the detailing of her stories. They're so well-spun and intricate that you change your mind about the outcome at least a dozen times.
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