Best Kept Secrets

Rating:
Summary: Distasteful
Review: This book was originally written in 1989 and has been recently reissued in hardcover to satisfy the many Sandra Brown fans in the world (of which I am usually one).

The plot premise is interesting enough, but the characters are appalling. First, we have the dimwitted heroine who, though she is supposed to be a smart, crackerjack Assistant D.A., alerts the men she considers suspects in her mother's 25-year-old murder (as if putting murder suspects on their guard is the most effective way of getting information from them). Then she socializes and/or sleeps with the suspects (gee, one of these guys is a murderer, so it must be safe). Most of the time, she wanders around town, accomplishing nothing, until the last few pages of the book, when the murder mystery finally kicks in, and you remember why you believe Sandra Brown is a fine writer.

But the most disgusting thing about this book is the incessant vulgarity and crudeness of all of the male (and some of the female) characters, especially Reede, the "hero." There is nothing appealing about this man; in fact, there's nothing appealing about any of the male characters.

Don't waste your time with this one.


Rating:
Summary: an OK read...
Review: This books main point was an interesting one....but certain things about the book were sort of strange. For instance, the fact that the main character has romantic involvement with two of her mother's old flames is something that I really had a hard time getting past. Also, during most of the book, the main character gets NOTHING accomplished, and most of the interesting points are within the last 50 pages of the novel. Although Sandra Brown ALWAYS has interesting story lines, and this is not an exception, it was just hard for me personally to get past some of the points of the story.

Rating:
Summary: an OK read...
Review: This books main point was an interesting one....but certain things about the book were sort of strange. For instance, the fact that the main character has romantic involvement with two of her mother's old flames is something that I really had a hard time getting past. Also, during most of the book, the main character gets NOTHING accomplished, and most of the interesting points are within the last 50 pages of the novel. Although Sandra Brown ALWAYS has interesting story lines, and this is not an exception, it was just hard for me personally to get past some of the points of the story.

Rating:
Summary: Unusually Inept Psychodrama
Review: This earlier (1989) effort by Sandra Brown is far from being in synch with her later works. In fact, it is difficult to believe that BEST KEPT SECRETS came from the pen of a novelist who has come to be a favorite over the years. The novel's protagonist is a young prosecutor, who, in searching for the killer of her mother--murdered over a quarter of a century ago--ends up confronting her own inner demons, while facing off with three powerful men who also happen to be her primary suspects. Amazingly, the prosecutor falls in love with one of her suspects and begins to admire and respect the other two, even as she ineptly attempts to ferret out evidence against all three. The plot is nonsensical, the characters are shallow and marginally depicted, and the conclusion is so predictable that it is almost surprising--as in: so many clues point to the identity of the killer that, surely, they must be cleverly planted red herrings. Alas, they are not; and the disclosure of the killer's identity at the novel's climax falls right in step with the unremarkable aspects of the rest of the story. Fortunately, Sandra Brown has improved with experience, and the aberration of BEST KEPT SECRETS can be buried among the secrets of her own literary past.

Rating:
Summary: Secrets, what secrets--better, how to get laid
Review: This is a hot story about how a young professional lady seeks out a "father-figure" and begs him to make love to her. Alexandra, as a new attorney, under the pretext of wanting to bring a murderer to justice, returns to her original hometown in Purcell, Texas. She reports that she must find the person who killed her mother in that town 25 years ago. As you can see, the chances of being able to find sufficient evidence to prove a 25-year-old murder is too preposterous. Therefore, I must adopt the position that I have taken on this storyline.

As soon as Alex arrives and meets the sheriff of that little town, she pines to go to bed with him. She also falls for two other of the suspects. Throughout the more than 400 pages of text, she tells about her exploits leading to bedding the sheriff and about subsequent bed rattling episodes. In the end, she gets the man and decides that the roust she use to divert the attention from her scheme, really was not so important to her after all. Alex lived the first 25 years of her life with her grandmother and without her deceased mother or her absent (deceased) father. So, naturally she yearned for a male figure in her life. The sad thing is that she did not seem to care that she was probably sleeping with the man who killed mother and that he probably would kill her too just to keep his secret. A hot-shot attorney she was not. She kept the deepest, darkest secret of them all. Read about the town-people in Purcell and see if you believe she took her professional duties seriously or used her position as a cover-up for her carnal cravings.

Rating:
Summary: Sizzle...Sizzle...Sizzle...
Review: Wow... what a read. Read this whole book in one sitting. Loved how the main character had to find justice.. and the secrets that all came out surrounding her mothers murder were excellent. Would have never have believed it was who it turned out to be. Just kept me on the edge of my sit until I read the last word. Glad she found happiness with whom she loved at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Creepy
Review: Yikes...what a horrible book! I can't imagine that the author actually thought a book about a guy who is first involved with the mother and then 25 years later sleeps with the daughter would be remotely appropriate. I could not finish the book, it was too creepy and ditasteful to say the least. This book should have been kept secret.

Still grossing out in California....