Graven Images

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: 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: Thriller and Love Story
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.