Rating: 
Summary: SUSPENSE FROM COVER TO COVER!
Review: Mary Crow carries with her the turbulent memories of her childhood following the brutal rape and murder of her mother. However, Mary's tough spirit lives on and in adult years she becomes an assistant DA. After her sixth conviction, a man who committed rape and murder, Mary and two of her friends set out on a camping trip on Mary's old home turf, only to find they become the predators of two violent men. The story contained among these pages is filled with suspense and keeps the reader riveted to their seat from start to finish. Lock the doors, pull down the shades and turn up the lights; it is the type of book that will keep you reading well into the night.
Rating: 
Summary: Camping Out Will Never Be The Same
Review: Newcomer novelist Sallie Bissell must have been practicing on the sly to deliver this highly professional thriller. Three attractive ladies, all lawyers, take a camping trip to Nantahala National Forest, the former home of Mary Crow, who is one-half Cherokee and the instigator of the excursion. They plan on a long weekend of hiking, sight seeing and general fun.Shades of "Deliverance," there are some bad folks out there! The tale becomes grim and violent as a repulsive, half-crazed mountain man and a strangely obsessed brother of a defendant Ms. Crow successfully prosecuted for murder track the three women. The mayhem is nonstop and sometimes gruesome; this is not a story for the faint of heart. Yet the women develop amazing courage and inner strength through their ordeal. The terror trip seems to be endless, yet I read the book in one hypnotized sitting. The book has excellent pace, and the descriptions of the mountain scenery are excellent. Some of the dialogue is stilted, particularly when the women are bantering back and forth, but this is a small flaw. The characterizations are solid if not inspired. I look forward to the next Mary Crow outing.
Rating:
Summary: A Top Notch Thriller
Review: One word, WOW!!!! I read this book in one day. It was so incredibly believable and intense. I felt like I was in the woods with Mary, Joan and Alex. Brank is one scary mother. You may think twice about hiking in a remote area ever again!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Rivetting!
Review: Sallie Bissell has just become my favorite new fiction author. Her book, In the Forest of Harm, captured my attention from the very first paragraph. She leads the reader on a spellbinding journey while creating characters that are compelling, believable and of the heart. Entering the world of her main character, Mary Crow, we meet a purposeful and determined woman who needs no rescue by a white knight, rather looks within herself to find her strength. She follows a trecherous path into the unknown, because she must, because it could have been no other way. Sallie Bissels ranks with Tami Hoag in creating a witty and courageous female protagonist. I can't wait to read more and hope there is a follow-up book arriving soon!
Rating:
Summary: Riveted
Review: Talk about not being able to put a book down! This suspense thriller by Ms. Bissell is the quintessential example of just that. When I began reading the book at the sedate hour of 8:00 PM, who would have thought that at 2 bells AM I would still be at it. Slow reader, maybe, but her descriptions of the forest and the relationships of the winsome trio of ladies makes you want to linger at times to enjoy the language. Recommendation....READ IT!
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better
Review: The book was somewhat cliche ridden with rich playboys and noble Indian stereotypes. I enjoyed the descriptions of the forest, but found the female characters trite as well. Are all female attorneys beautiful? I doubt it. While I applaud the author for not glossing over the brutality, I don't think I'll bother with the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost in the Forest...But Not for Long!
Review: The opening scene is out of Disney. The following courtroom scene is "throbbing" and predictable. Each of the women characters is well dressed, well coiffed, well educated, gainfully employed and carries just enough baggage to suggest depth. Each of the male characters is either very sinister, although good looking, well dressed, well born, well educated (got the picture?) OR very sensitive, good looking, poorly dressed, poorly born but very smart and...did I say sensitive? Then there's one who's right out of Stephen King. If you don't get it by the second chapter, you deserve to waste your time reading the rest of this poorly constructed, one dimensional story board of a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Enter At Your Own Risk
Review: The style is erratic, the heroines and hero are cardboard, the villains are over-the-top,and the action disintegrates into one peril after another. Worse, frequently these perils are resolved by luck or coincidence, so the heroines can be swept into yet more gratuitous danger. Mary and Joan are trapped in a huge, dark, impenetrable thicket from which there seems to be no escape--to wit:"nothing could save them now." Brrr.
They fall asleep, apparently doomed. They wake up,but by some deus ex machina are at the thicket's edge--saved! The old deus gets quite a workout before this book is over. Events are stitched together by awkward exposition: "Mary slid to the ground beside Joan and told her that the barefoot man kept snakes and traps and a curious collection of souvenirs; that Alex had been tied up but that she was alive; that Mary had fallen into a snakepit kept by Ulagu. She did not, however, reveal to Joan that the barefoot man may well have beaten Alex to death just minutes ago." There are some admirable descriptions of nature here and there, and the pace is nonstop. But too often the story comes across as a gross-out version of "The Perils of Pauline," in which it is no longer enough to lash Pauline to the train tracks; no, first she must be beaten (especially about the face), tortured, and raped. Why did I finish the thing? A friend, disturbed by the book, asked me to read it; she was especially bothered by the ending. I slogged through, but under normal circumstances, I'd never have made it to the end of the first chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Suspense of the Highest Order
Review: This is the story of a camping trip gone wrong in the mountains on the North Carolina Tennessee border. Mary Crow and her two friends Alex and Joan are getting away from it all for the weekend by returning to Mary's childhood home. No sooner do they reach their destination than they're attacked by a deranged backwoodsman who kidnaps one of the women. The story then takes on a hunted becomes the hunter, who in turn is also being hunted, line, for while Mary is chasing the kidnapper, she is also being stalked by another man who is intent on exacting a revenge of his own. This is Sallie Bissell's debut novel and it is one of the most suspenseful books I have read in a long time. As the story was nearing the climax, I actually realised that I was holding my breath and reading it out of the corner of my eye (a bit like not wanting to watch the scary parts of a movie, I suppose). This book is highly recommended, no I'll go further than that, it's one of the best suspense novels I've read in the last 5 years (there, now you've got to read it, don't you).
Rating:
Summary: Cliched and amateurish
Review: This was a thriller all the way. Very scary, but worth the read. The women in this story really pulled together. Action all the way through.
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