Graven Images

Rating:
Summary: Compelling book by a gifted story teller....
Review: ...BR>This story moves seamlessly from Cally Jo McAllister's childhood nightmares of her mother's murder, to a seemingly ordered adulthood. Cally's life is just where she wants it to be, including college, a good job, and her mother's murder safely tucked into a dark corner of her mind. And then the nightmares begin again.
Ms. Mehl weaves this mystery together with intriguing peeks into Cally's past and present through her conscious and unconscious mind. Every well drawn character introduced became a suspect in my mind. And every move Cally made put my nerves a little more on edge for fear the killer from her past would do her in. The author kept me guessing until the very end. If you like mysteries, and even if you don't, Graven Images is well worthy of your time.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling book by a gifted story teller....
Review: ...BR>This story moves seamlessly from Cally Jo McAllister's childhood nightmares of her mother's murder, to a seemingly ordered adulthood. Cally's life is just where she wants it to be, including college, a good job, and her mother's murder safely tucked into a dark corner of her mind. And then the nightmares begin again.
Ms. Mehl weaves this mystery together with intriguing peeks into Cally's past and present through her conscious and unconscious mind. Every well drawn character introduced became a suspect in my mind. And every move Cally made put my nerves a little more on edge for fear the killer from her past would do her in. The author kept me guessing until the very end. If you like mysteries, and even if you don't, Graven Images is well worthy of your time.

Rating:
Summary: Midwest Book Review Says Skillfully Crafted
Review: At age eight, Cally Jo McAllister sat in a crowded courtroom and testified courageously against her mother's murderer. It was a horrifying scene, even to those adults present in that silent court.

The reader feels Cally's fear, her determination to be strong, and shares the overwhelming terror from a child's viewpoint. The evil. The monster. The shadowed darkness. The seeping blood that Cally thinks is strawberry pop. Through Cally's eyes, I saw the monster's face. Her testimony sends him off to prison, where he dies and Cally Jo is safe. Right? Guess again. We accompany her to adulthood knowing full well that the danger did not end for Cally in the courtroom

Nancy Mehl has skillfully crafted a tightly woven suspense thriller.

I was mesmerized. I learned quite early that the wrong man went to prison for the crime. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, became a suspect in my mind. I cringed through Cally's recurring nightmare's, as her subconscious mind attempted to reveal the true monster. And I shuddered as two potential love interests entered her life, fearing one of them might do her in. I met the shadowed monster, made more fearful by his obvious insanity.
The monster could be anybody.

Ms. Mehl is a gifted writer and story teller. She dragged me headlong into Cally's life and held me breathless there until the last page. Anyone who likes the mystery suspense genre, and even those who don't think they do, will be rewarded when they read this book. I can't wait to see what Nancy Mehl comes up with next!

review by L.A. Johnson for Midwest Book Review

Rating:
Summary: A Kansas Reader
Review: Every time I laid "Graven Images" down, it seemed to call out to me. I kept picking it up; it's one of those kind of books. And when you finish reading it, you keep thinking about it. It's a psychological thriller, a love story, a mystery--and it raises the frightening spectre of the reliablity of young child's testimony.

Read it, and you'll still be thinking about it next month.

Rating:
Summary: A young woman faces her fears
Review: GRAVEN IMAGES is both a crime story, and a coming-of-age story. It unfolds gradually, with the protagonist's recurring nightmare woven through the narrative. The writing is smooth, the descriptions evocative.

We first meet Cally Jo McAllister, age eight, in a courtroom. Her testimony will convict Albert Boone of murdering Cally's mother four years earlier. Lingering images: Cally hiding at the top of the stairs while the murderer weeps over her mother's body.

In court, Cally points to Boone as the murderer. More images: Boone, his eyes "wide and full of terror," his wife sobbing beside him, his son's face "frozen and pale." Cally realizes that they are now trapped in her nightmare. "It hadn't died. It had just moved on to its next victim."

That seems perceptive for an eight-year-old, but the murder has thrust Cally into the adult world, and her perception is a harbinger of things to come.

When we meet Cally again, she is 21, a college student, and a sketch artist for the local police. Subject to the same puzzing nightmare she has had for years, she lives within narrow, self-imposed boundaries.

Her only friends are Lily and Dell Sinclair, an older couple who have become surrogate parents, and Sgt. Dan Christopher, who calls on Cally when he needs her talent to help him find a murderer. Cally sees her father regularly, but their relationship is strained. He hasn't helped her financially; he treats her coldly when they're together.

Cally's orderly life is disrupted when Dan asks her to work with Angel, an eight-year-old girl who saw her mother murdered.

"As they began to work on the facial features, Cally suddenly found herself falling into the picture. She had learned over time not to fight the experience when it happened but to allow herself to go with it. The room around her felt as if it were moving away, and the picture in front of her was becoming the only reality. Her hand moved the pencil automatically ..."

Cally is stunned to see that she has drawn her own father's face. His expression is one from her most recent version of the old nightmare.

Events take an unexpected turn when she meets Matt, a handsome young attorney who persuades her to let him study the trial transcripts. Then a phony call from the police department sends her out on a wild goose chase that ends with a mystery car running her off the road and into the river. Her nightmare comes to life when Cally's search for answers takes her back to the long-empty house where she witnessed her mother's murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed this first novel. Mehl builds suspense slowly but surely, and creates characters I can care about.

Rating:
Summary: Really enjoyed this mystery
Review: I recently met this author at a local book signing. She is a super person and her book is finely written.

I loved the character of Cally and also the fact that the story was set in Wichita.

I couldn't put the book down once I started reading. I made my husband pick up dinner.

I can hardly wait for Ms Mehl's next book!

Rating:
Summary: A Super Mystery That Delivers!
Review: Nancy Mehl grabs the reader in the very first scene of Graven Images, when the state calls Cally Jo McAllister, an eight-year-old child, as a witness in the murder of her own mother. Cally, with the counsel of child psychologist Lily Sinclair, describes the man she saw next to her mother's bloody body. This man, Albert Boone, is the custodian of the church the family attends.

The next chapter takes us to Cally McAllister, the young adult and student, who is paying her own way through college. To do this, Cally uses her artistic talent to draw pictures of the perpetrators of violent crimes. She wants to help people who have suffered what she did. She is also somewhat shy, though she has a warm friendship with Police Sergeant Dan Christopher. Except for Cally's friendship with Lily Sinclair, the psychologist who helped her through her childhood trauma, Lily's husband Dell, and Dan, Cally has few friends. Her only family member is her father, Jack McAllister, with whom she shares a troubled relationship. Although he was once a successful businessman, he lives a bitter and reclusive life. The reader learns early in the novel that Jack's previous generosity and love of life died with his wife, and that he guards a terrible secret.

Cally's life begins to change. A kind woman is interested in her father and a nightmare that Cally hasn't had since childhood returns to her, but it is evolving. Cally is convinced that her subconscious is trying to tell her something she missed years ago about her mother's death. Cally turns to Lily, her oldest and dearest friend. Cally also meets a handsome young lawyer who falls head over heels in love with her, but the reader, unlike Cally, knows that Dan Christopher loves her, too.

Mehl moves her novel into high gear as Cally begins to unravel some of the secrets kept by the people closest to her. She finds that her father has kept her childhood home, the house where her mother was murdered, and she is convinced that she needs to return to these familiar rooms to figure out what the dream is trying to tell her.

Mehl draws her readers into a web of conflicting and entwined motives with break-neck speed. It's a good thing Graven Images isn't a long book, or I wouldn't have made it to work one day. The end is satisfying and ultimately tender and warm-hearted. I'll be looking for Nancy Mehl's next book.

Rating:
Summary: Two for the price of one
Review: Nancy Mehl's Graven Images is really two parallel stories, A murder mystery and a love story. The tales are equally compelling and masterfully crafted, complimenting each other throughout the book.
Cally Jo McAllister, police sketch artist, is haunted by the cloudy childhood memory of her mother's murder. It was her testimony that sealed the fate of the man accused of this heinous crime, and now a recurring nightmare has Cally questioning her own remembrance. Her struggle to discover the truth, leads Cally into harms way.
A dedicated police sergeant does his best to conceal his powerful feelings for Cally, and a handsome attorney openly pursues her heart while harboring a dark secret of his own.
This book is full of surprises and it defies your attempts to predict the outcome. It's a great read with vividly drawn characters and a fast pace. The subject matter is intense but very well handled by the author.
I would highly recommend this book to a wide audience ranging from young adult to seniors.

Rating:
Summary: Oustanding Mystery!
Review: The best mystery story I have ever read! The surprise ending was absolutely riveting. The action, intrigue, and romance kept me turning the pages and rewarded me with a truly spectacular finish. Nancy Mehl is sure to have a growing number of fans who eagerly await her next book.

Rating:
Summary: Grisly subject done "nice"
Review: When a kid's mom is murdered and the kid is involved in the trial it is not a "nice" thing. Mehl took a grisly subject and made it "nice" so that any one could pick up "Graven Images" and read this fictional murder mystery. Young adults will be comfortable reading this book as well as adults because it is "nice." Good job.